Firstly, enough with the 'No-one wants X', and 'Everyone just wants Y' nonsense. We're not a goddam hive-mind... hell, we're not even a representative sample. If you're not starting a D3 design discussion with those facts in mind, you're off to a bad start.
For me, the power reset, seasonal achievements and ladders are exactly enough to get me player ladder characters in SC and HC. Season-exclusive nonsense, non-trivial rewards for ladder places, no new achievements... those would have turned me right the hell off... but as things currently stand, I'm really looking forward to 2.1.
Balance, on the other hand, is a total chimera.The profusion of skills and runes aren't there to give us a billion different ways to faceroll Torment 50, they're there to add variety to a grindfest. They're there to give dirty, disgusting casuals who don't care in the slightest about efficiency a ton of fun things to discover. They're there to let us pick a stupid zero-synergy build and see how far we can push it. If you want the best efficiency, you run one of the proven cookie-cutter builds and suck it up. That's the price of playing at the edge of the difficulty curve. Everywhere else in the game, you can pretty much use whatever spec you want and do well enough.
As to the discussion at large, it's completely spurious to assert that Blizzard is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars at the very least on content when they have no idea whether or not people will actually like it (which is what 'out of touch' basically means), and it's doubly spurious to assert that the hate-bait of the month runs the entire team with an iron fist. They're adding features that a lot of people want, and a bunch of people don't want... but seasons and GRifts are completely optional. Don't like 'em, don't play 'em. The only thing about that situation I don't like is that it does mean that effort is being taken away from fixing stuff I care about (like a completely irrelevant Story Mode), but I'm not going to call anyone a drooling incompetent because of it.
It's worth bearing in mind that what good design means, and that includes software design, is taking what people say they want, picking the signal out from the noise, decoding it, reading between the lines, and using your skill, intuition and experience to use that feedback to make a better version of the thing you already had in mind. Blizzard's task is to make a better Diablo3, not check off a crowdsourced feature list.
They should have made it where rares are the stat sticks and legendaries are the items that change builds and strictly stuck with this. Rares can roll significantly higher stats than legendaries, but legendaries change your build. That way each slot becomes a more meaningful choice. Do I want more stats here or do I want less stats and a gimmick? The ultimate idea is that if you just put legendaries on every slot, you suffer in stats, so you have to coordinate between rares and legendaries. Right now everyone just puts legendaries/sets everywhere and auto-salvages rares and it's kind of uninspiring.
All stat stick legendaries need to be reworked to have some build changing idea to it -- ALL OF THEM -- DON'T EVEN LEAVE ONE. In my opinion, EVERY SKILL needs at least ONE skill changing legendary attached to it; and the idea needs to be impactful, synergistic, and build altering if at all possible. We need more sets. Every class should have 5+, **MINIMUM**. Focus on making each one like Jade, Marauders, Akkhans. Those are beautiful sets because they synergize so well with other legendaries. KEEP DOING MORE OF THAT.
The gem changes are really disheartening to hear... I too was looking forward to them; now not so much.
Taking into account that this is my own opinion, I feel that the answer isn't black or white. It seems that some devs (I don't want to play the name game) are more out of touch than others and on different issues. Addressing the four issues that irk me the most:
1. Class balance seems to be in an awkward place right now, as is the development on the classes. Crusader and Witch Doctor are in good places and seem to be getting a fair amount of attention. Barb is slowly moving forward. DH is just stuck with one build that is so much better than the rest, that it seems like the only choice above T3. I don't know what's happening with Monk. It seems as though they broke the more "exploit" laden builds, like ZDPS, but aren't sure what to promote next. At least they're trying. I won't mention Wizard, I'm just not knowledgeable enough about the mechanics.
2. Item/Set balance is also subject to a development philosophy that I don't like. Instead of developing flavour for existing vanilla legendaries, they're adding more items to water down the pool. It's a frustrating experience when you get a garbage item. Granted you get a transmog and shake it off, but it certainly falls short of the earth-shattering items we were promised with loot 2.0. As for sets, its been pointed out that adding or subtracting zeroes, although a design strategy, can sometimes seem lazy. It's evident they'd rather change slowly, than make something too strong, but it is a painful process for players who'd like to enjoy that variant (I'm thinking of the slow changes to firebird). I do however get that there have to be priorities and they've mentioned that Helltooth isn't an immediate concern.
3.Seasons/Grifts seem like poor incentives. It's been pointed out that ladder resets are a mechanism that's meant for a meta flooded with currency or with locked builds. I'd like to go beyond that a little. Seasons have superficial incentives for the most part. Sure for a completionist, the conquests might be attainable, but for a casual, the 9 or so uniques are small reward for ditching however many levels of paragon people have farmed. If additional game properties were added, it would feel like a new experience, but as it stands, its just "farm back up high enough to have access to a few uniques and some banners". Grifts, and regular rifts for that matter, need more diversity. Simply scaling hp/dmg is lazy design. With no new bosses added to the PTR and nothing else of note really, the mechanism behind them seems cool, but falls short.
4. Gems. I can appreciate legendary gems and the meticulous balancing it takes for them, so I'm not gonna complain about that. What I will mention is that the design team isn't prioritizing regular gem design. This might be symptomatic of a larger stat problem, but something really has to be done about emeralds in weapons and diamonds in helms. Gem strength is just off, with some being downright useless and others being key to builds. If at least some of the weaker gems were brought into a competitive range. For example, up ruby dmg in weapons to incentivize no/low crit builds. Another one would be to remove MF from Topazes and replace it with resource cost reduction.
All in all, to answer the question, yeah I think the devs are out of touch. It's important to understand that the bigger a company is, the less flexible and responsive it is to the community and its demands. But it is disheartening to see a potentially amazing game, coast by slowly as an okay installment. I'm also at a loss as to why they don't take more seriously the demands of the more intense T6 crowd, which arguably has more time to test out and measure game changes. It's something other ARPGs, MOBAs and RTS development teams have been doing for a long time now.
As long as you realize your mistake and don't stay on the path to darkness, it only helps to prevent doing similar mistakes in the future.
I completely agree, but I don't think that applies in this situation for the following reasons:
1) Both Jay and Josh have taken a stab at fixing itemization. Jay was marginally successful. Josh was more successful, but Josh still fell short.
2) Wyatt was a part of BOTH ventures.
3) Wyatt made that statement *after* being a part of both leads attempting to fix itemization. Meaning that Wyatt, of all people, learned precisely Jack and Shit from his previous experiences.
I seriously lost about all respect for Wyatt I had when he made that single statement. He had the benefit of having TWO attempts to get it right (that's more than Jay got). And when the second attempt wasn't received quite as well as hoped from the community.... largely due to the legendaries that WEREN'T build-changing... Wyatt didn't respond like someone who had been through the process twice before, or like someone who even understood why we disliked Jay's itemization.
After two years of this product being live, I simply expect more from him. He *has* to know by now what was wrong with items in 1.0 and he *has* to know by now what shortcomings 2.0 items have. He's had too many opportunities to learn. He's been a party to too many mistakes that he could have learned from.
That being said, I *applaud* whomever was responsible for basically backtracking that statement to something that was more-desired by us. That person deserves a pat on the back for standing up for us and getting what was *right* done. I definitely don't think the entire team is out-of-touch. I never have. In fact, Wyatt really is the only one whom I think doesn't understand the game, one iota, from a fan's perspective. I think he's busy being in "dev mode" all the time and just doesn't have the ability to put that hat aside and understand why what is good for him may not be good for us and that, ultimately, making a game that's good for the players is more important than what he, or his team, thinks is the best direction. This was clearly a case where the fans were right and one dev, in particular, was completely wrong.
It really would have been nice to hear from Wyatt why he was wrong to say what he said, though. It would help me believe he isn't that guy in an office who doesn't really play his own product with the same passion and vigor as the people who are saying "PLEASE FIX THIS!" and then he says "NAH, NOT A PROBLEM HOMIES, WE'LL DO THIS OTHER THING THAT YOU DON'T LIKE BECAUSE I SAY IT'S BETTER!" I mean it's not like there is much question among the fanbase as to whether or not stat-stick legendaries should be fixed. It's one of the most-universal issues for us fans.
Are the devs out of touch? as a whole? absolutely. I want to believe that, and I do believe it.
They are out of touch with a certain crowd generally associated with Diablo 2 and its cousins and relatives..and in touch with a certain crowd generally associated with ...other games....not quite so tightly bound to the RPG genre purhaps.....all at the same time, generally.
the more you dig and examine the aspects of diablo 3 and how these things are admired or crucified by players the more elegant differences you discover WITHIN those players. And that's why these discussions are just a continuous traveling freight train of ideas and debates. a freight train looping and swirling around the country-side forever. just like politics.
you start with 2 groups of people and by the end everyone has branched off, advocating their customized template of beliefs in regards to what skill tree is best and what song is the worst.
When you finally have 2 people who agree on everything, one of them holds a belief that makes them splinter away from the last guy and the process just repeats itself.
that's why they have to do whats best for the quality of the game. not whats best for casuals or hardcore sociopaths, not whats best for simplicity or advanced complexity. not what looks the best or sounds the best...
they have to adopt a philosophy of attractiveness, for lack of a better word. That's why I feel they are out of touch.
if a class sucks make it attractive. make people want to use it.
if an item sucks make it attractive. make people want to use it.
if a skill sucks make it attractive. make people want to use it.
same goes for builds,areas, etc....
but they don't seem to place these things on a pedestal. and I feel that doing so would really drive the game's image upward.
is having the 5 gems good enough? no. make new ones. this was old news many many years ago. and here we wait.
is having dry under-powered legendary items good enough? no. make new ones. this was old news many many years ago. and here we wait.
is having everyone use the same 5 or 10 legendary items good enough? no. make new ones. this was old news many many years ago. and here we wait.
is rune XYZ being completely worthless shit for months good enough? no. make new ones. this was old news many many years ago. and here we wait.
it just seems like a deafening roar how boring things are and how much everyone wants to explore something new like weapons or items or builds, and how long it takes this new stuff to come out and how underwhelming and recycled it happens to be.......
they took lobbys out and hummed and hawed and wedged in clans and communities...
they took PvP out and hummed and hawed and gave us a brawling arena
they took charms and gems and jewels out and hummed and hawed and now are rolling out legendary gems.
they took stat assignment out and hummed and hawed and now you assign stats with Paragon...
they took wild cool legendarys out of the game and hummed and hawed and now are scrambling to give their legendaries fascinating powers...
all the while the forum has been blowing up about those topics screaming for jay wilsons head on a stick asking what the fuck they were thinking???
it just seems like a really sick sad merry-go-round overall.....even if they are on the brink of this big huge content patch....
legendary gems and legendary potions is not rocket science....it should have been a no-brainer YEARS ago...and yet....here we wait...twiddling our thumbs...i'll be using that expression more often...
and this decimates any notion that "the game is bought an paid for" or "these improvements are the icing on the cake.."
people want improvements forcefully injected into the game. they CRAVE interesting assets becuase these assets are tragically absent. And these people craving this stuff are not industry professionals by any stretch. it does not make their opinion less valid.
that craving for interesting assets is the very very beginning of any Role playing game ever created or you can fuck off and die. its that desire to graft a world that is interesting. and that when you the GM or game designer in Diablo 3's case gets to describe that world you so gleefully created to a person? CREATES A PERCEPTION OF THAT WORLD in their mind.
so when the D3 team is describing their world of sanctuary by having players run to town to "insta-brim" its legendary items because they are boring useless pieces of shit. Or allowing their characters "bank accounts" to swell up into the fucking BILLIONS of gold...or allowing them to blend through 20 thousand dumb fuck monsters while watching "Big Bang Theory" on TV......it really does not say a whole lot about them being in touch with the player base.....that's my take on it personally...that a massive amount of the changes they are celebrating as upcoming features? Are child's play. They are ancient history and they were deleted into fucking oblivion with the most incredible abandon and incredible ignorance.
my 18 year old brother doesnt concern himself with such nonsense. he just begs mom for her credit card and a lift to the fucking toy store to buy the ultimate evil edition version and play until level 25. this is actually happening. its real life shit.
If that's their goal and thats their idea of a great game, a "hack and slash ARPG" that accomplishes that with beautiful graphics and "stat sticks" and thatthey owe the players nothing more; to me personally, that's out of touch.
I don't have time to right now... I'm juggling quite a bit of work-related stuff IRL.
The one I'm referring to was a few weeks prior to the 2.1 PTR (I think). Wyatt made it very clear that *he* didn't see it necessary to revisit old legendaries and that his solution would be just to introduce more (presumably less-sucky) legendaries and leave the old ones alone. I know there was a thread here where Ruksak, specifically, voiced his displeasure with that statement.
Blizzard, as a whole, quickly made it known that they wanted to do the opposite. Probably because Wyatt's statement was just THAT stupid. It was so glaringly contrary to what we wanted... hell, it was so glaringly contrary to what Josh sold us on with 2.0 and RoS that I imagine someone had to give him a dressing-down over it.
The reason they didn't want to touch old legendaries too much is that it will have an effect to people who currently use them, save for old legendaries that are worthless. here we are, awaiting some revamped old legendaries and some new legendaries.
Are the devs out of touch? as a whole? absolutely. I want to believe that, and I do believe it.
They are out of touch with a certain crowd generally associated with Diablo 2 and its cousins and relatives..and in touch with a certain crowd generally associated with ...other games....not quite so tightly bound to the RPG genre purhaps.....all at the same time, generally.
the more you dig and examine the aspects of diablo 3 and how these things are admired or crucified by players the more elegant differences you discover WITHIN those players. And that's why these discussions are just a continuous traveling freight train of ideas and debates. a freight train looping and swirling around the country-side forever. just like politics.
you start with 2 groups of people and by the end everyone has branched off, advocating their customized template of beliefs in regards to what skill tree is best and what song is the worst.
When you finally have 2 people who agree on everything, one of them holds a belief that makes them splinter away from the last guy and the process just repeats itself.
that's why they have to do whats best for the quality of the game. not whats best for casuals or hardcore sociopaths, not whats best for simplicity or advanced complexity. not what looks the best or sounds the best...
they have to adopt a philosophy of attractiveness, for lack of a better word. That's why I feel they are out of touch.
if a class sucks make it attractive. make people want to use it.
if an item sucks make it attractive. make people want to use it.
if a skill sucks make it attractive. make people want to use it.
same goes for builds,areas, etc....
but they don't seem to place these things on a pedestal. and I feel that doing so would really drive the game's image upward.
is having the 5 gems good enough? no. make new ones. this was old news many many years ago. and here we wait.
is having dry under-powered legendary items good enough? no. make new ones. this was old news many many years ago. and here we wait.
is having everyone use the same 5 or 10 legendary items good enough? no. make new ones. this was old news many many years ago. and here we wait.
is rune XYZ being completely worthless shit for months good enough? no. make new ones. this was old news many many years ago. and here we wait.
it just seems like a deafening roar how boring things are and how much everyone wants to explore something new like weapons or items or builds, and how long it takes this new stuff to come out and how underwhelming and recycled it happens to be.......
they took lobbys out and hummed and hawed and wedged in clans and communities...
they took PvP out and hummed and hawed and gave us a brawling arena
they took charms and gems and jewels out and hummed and hawed and now are rolling out legendary gems.
they took stat assignment out and hummed and hawed and now you assign stats with Paragon...
they took wild cool legendarys out of the game and hummed and hawed and now are scrambling to give their legendaries fascinating powers...
all the while the forum has been blowing up about those topics screaming for jay wilsons head on a stick asking what the fuck they were thinking???
it just seems like a really sick sad merry-go-round overall.....even if they are on the brink of this big huge content patch....
legendary gems and legendary potions is not rocket science....it should have been a no-brainer YEARS ago...and yet....here we wait...twiddling our thumbs...i'll be using that expression more often...
and this decimates any notion that "the game is bought an paid for" or "these improvements are the icing on the cake.."
people want improvements forcefully injected into the game. they CRAVE interesting assets becuase these assets are tragically absent. And these people craving this stuff are not industry professionals by any stretch. it does not make their opinion less valid.
that craving for interesting assets is the very very beginning of any Role playing game ever created or you can fuck off and die. its that desire to graft a world that is interesting. and that when you the GM or game designer in Diablo 3's case gets to describe that world you so gleefully created to a person? CREATES A PERCEPTION OF THAT WORLD in their mind.
so when the D3 team is describing their world of sanctuary by having players run to town to "insta-brim" its legendary items because they are boring useless pieces of shit. Or allowing their characters "bank accounts" to swell up into the fucking BILLIONS of gold...or allowing them to blend through 20 thousand dumb fuck monsters while watching "Big Bang Theory" on TV......it really does not say a whole lot about them being in touch with the player base.....that's my take on it personally...that a massive amount of the changes they are celebrating as upcoming features? Are child's play. They are ancient history and they were deleted into fucking oblivion with the most incredible abandon and incredible ignorance.
my 18 year old brother doesnt concern himself with such nonsense. he just begs mom for her credit card and a lift to the fucking toy store to buy the ultimate evil edition version and play until level 25. this is actually happening. its real life shit.
If that's their goal and thats their idea of a great game, a "hack and slash ARPG" that accomplishes that with beautiful graphics and "stat sticks" and thatthey owe the players nothing more; to me personally, that's out of touch.
This post. Whoa.
I haven't followed game Dev posts or interviews, but I've been heavily feeling what this guy, right here, is saying.
I'm losing interest in the game (A world and game I've been in love with since my young teenage self first got his hands on D2 when it first came out) because there's very little reason to get those legendaries. I can't even begin to count how many times I've opened up my inventory after picking up a Legendary to then look at the portrait and say "crap." out loud and move on. Not just crap for my build, but actually useless as a legendary. A legendary that either doesn't have a useful affix, or out right doesn't have one.
One thing that i do believe is that the Dev's are slowly learning. Whether it be the efforts of the community managers, or trail and error on their part, but the new Crusader armor and all the Phalanx Legendaries is a move in the right direction concerning legendaries that opens up new possibilities for new builds.
The greatest draw to this game for me besides loving the lore and aesthetic is the theory crafting and getting that new legendary that might open up new possibilities for builds or newfound power. It's never been "Now I can crush my enemies even harder!" No, its been "What can I do with this that will be really cool, and fun, but also not suck." And there's very little of that in the game right now. But what's worse is what legendaries ARE in the game right now that do harbor fun affixes and abilities, are deemed completely useless or nonviable to enjoy late game content or progression. Paragon levels come to a grinding halt if you're stuck in torment 3 with a build that can't take you further. The exp just isn't there. I have less and less incentive to play if I'm grinding away at a steeper and steeper hill, and the only way to fix that is to play something I don't enjoy in the first place.
What's more troubling is that Legendary gem's will also come to a grinding halt if you're gear or build is capable of taking you to newer heights. Changes have been made, which is good, but they're still lack luster, or simply not enough. Add one or two more build options for "the best builds" and buffing mid tier builds to be a little better isn't expanding the depth of play, it's just giving a few builds a hand to hit a new wall, and reaffirming the "best builds" their seat of power to enjoy the new content faster, and more efficiently, difficulty wall free!.
I'm looking forward to the new patch, but I'll still be waiting for a patch that introduces a plethora of new legendaries with unique affixes, and skill changes that actually rewarding to theorycraft. New build possibiliies for dynamic builds with varying styles of play that are as equally rewarding as the next. Perhaps a patch that makes all elemental damage not only balanced(God damn Cindercoat) and competitive, but also unique with their own draws and quirks.
This game has a lot of work... I look forward to accompanying this game along that journey, so long as it doesn't destroy itself along the way.(Or me for that matter.)
One of the big things we want to focus on is making sure items that feel like they are rare and powerful are actually powerful . . . instead of just rare. The first and most obvious place for improvement here is Legendaries.
By design, Legendary items are going to drop far less often than Rare items, and we want that rarity to be reflected in their power. When a Legendary drops, the question that goes through a player's mind should never be "is this a good item?" It should be "how awesome is it?" For example, if you are playing a Demon Hunter wielding a Rare crossbow and a Legendary crossbow drops, we want your reaction to be "Holy crap, YES!" not "*sigh* another Hellrack." It's a problem if players don't want to bother identifying their Legendaries, let alone pick them up. We want to change this.
Not only is this the same in the current game. I see an amulet, I instantly say, "Not another Flavor of Time, or Blackthorns, or the Litany of other crappy amulets. The same could be said for all 2h staves and many other items we could name off. Nobody can sit here and tell me this had ever been delivered to the degree it was stated in this blog.
Several things they did get right in the blog, but the biggest offender is still way too many bad legendary items where you know its an instant soul and you don't even have to ID it. In fact, I would call it an egregious amount of bad legendary items still exist.
The reason they didn't want to touch old legendaries too much is that it will have an effect to people who currently use them, save for old legendaries that are worthless. here we are, awaiting some revamped old legendaries and some new legendaries.
The worthless ones (the ones that have no special property) are exactly the ones they dropped the ball on and we're upset about. You know, for the 3rd or 4th time. That's why it's getting a bit of a tiresome subject. Someone at Blizzard *had* to know that going live with dubious legendaries wouldn't sit well with us after all the hype that Loot 2.0 got. But they rubber-stamped it anyway.
The worthless ones (the ones that have no special property) are exactly the ones they dropped the ball on and we're upset about. You know, for the 3rd or 4th time. That's why it's getting a bit of a tiresome subject. Someone at Blizzard *had* to know that going live with dubious legendaries wouldn't sit well with us after all the hype that Loot 2.0 got. But they rubber-stamped it anyway.
It seems as though the developers made the drop rate more of a priority than they did the quality of what was dropping. There is no Auction House, no trading - why not make them over powered? Why not at least make regular legendary items (with no special power) have eight affixes instead of six? Why didn't 2-handers see a buff in the EXPANSION to the first game where they were clearly broken?
My money is that the developers are obsessed with balance. Meetings, discussions, play testing, more meetings, more discussions, more testing.....to trickle out a few items and proudly display them to the group.
This is how I feel the developers are in DANGER of losing touch. They hide behind pen and paper instead of a game that is so much more than that. And yes to the argument, "well if they don't balance it you will have the community complain that its over powered." True - that could happen. But which is more likely, people who complain that only one class, one item makes them overpowered - or that there are many overpowered options to choose from in all classes?
If the developers want to balance every single item, every single skill, every single class - they are going to piss off a lot of people that are waiting for them to get out of their meetings...
From my perspective are the D3 Devs out of touch? Splunge sums it up perfectly for me.
How many more gadgets and frills must be implemented before backtracking and solidifying the foundation? This is where my personal sentiment of "splunge" derives. I like that they want to experiment and attempt progress but it always feels like the additions are implemented at an indeterminate location antecedent to the finish line. Malformed, released and possibly never to be corrected. As Shurgosa mentioned in his post I too can stretch that malaise across a multitude of features. Brawling("PvP"), bland legendaries, gems, CHD/CC... They are personal to me but it has made me realize that I would be far more excited to see more looks at certain fixtures - rather than adding seasons, new legendaries and greater rifts. They have so many frills to contend with and not nearly enough time.
The following is highly subjective and I want to split the question into two parts:
I do not think that it is possible to be in touch with the player base as a whole because it is doubtful that a homogenous player base exists and keep in mind how large the player base is according to sales.
Unfortunately, I got the impression over the years that the developers play their game less. They lose the touch to the series. Of course, they actually never had the time to play it extensively as some of us do (2.000+ hours on Wizard class) but it seemed to me as if they were able to keep the balance between the often stated formula about the complexity of games resp. Diablo: easy to play, hard to master.
There are certain elements that remind me of this regression but in order to keep it as short as possible, I want to mention one thing only which is very important to me but each player has his/her priorities. Although I am quite skeptical about the comparison between D2 (expanded, patched, current state) and D3 (same), I miss the skill trees from the former. Those were easy to understand but actually hard to master in terms of optimization for specific tasks, gear setups, party roles.
Removing them was a very hard knockback for me because I loved experimenting with exotic builds in theory and with some even practically. The system was not perfect as some builds, for instance, consisted of 5x20 points and the remaining ones were used for enabling your main skills. So, one often read in guides that you just maximize certain skills and that was all. Please, excuse this rhetorical question but does that justify a complete removal? I do not think so and I am not convinced of the current rune system. The system per se seemed and still seems fine to me. You actually progress to more powerful skills (lore-wise from apprentice to master) and the very late introduced synergy system even granted us more build diversity because low skill builds became an option (not all of them but some, e.g. Fireball- (Level 12), Nova-Sorc (Level 6)). The synergies made the leveling process smoother and it also made sense on higher levels: a high level in Frost Bolt (Level 1) increases my damage with Frozen Orb (Level 30) because it actually shoots Frost Bolts.
As it was stated before, you often just spent one point until you reached the desired skills but an overhaul would have probably helped more than a replacement with a rune system. Diablo is not an MMO and it is not WoW but I still remember the Classic and TBC skill trees. Sure, back then also existed certain skills which were not (so) useful but I want to speculate a bit: how about reducing or refining the skill tree system? Some skills just need one point, some three and some five or probably even more points. Some skills allow certain specializations (I have been playing Van Helsing eight months ago and I enjoyed the skill system a lot.) as soon as you have spent a certain amount of points. You may also find find runes and combine them in order to diversify your skills even further (I know it is from PoE. Also like this game a lot besides Van Helsing.).
Nowadays the developers seem to me to not be in touch with their game, with its soul, with its spirit. D1 had skills, D2 had skills and skill trees, D3 has skills and skill runes but no skill trees. This was just one aspect of the game and after writing this text I have the fear that I may derail the discussion and we fall back in the dark times a.k.a. the months directly after the classic release but this debate is very refreshing for me because this is something that has been bothering me (a former hardcore raider) since the release of WotLK. I just wanted to lay down my thoughts why I think that the developers should get in touch more with the game.
I do not want to postulate that Blizzard developers should get even more in touch with their game in their free time. Maybe the QM needs an overhaul? Maybe it is just me reveling in memories of the past (first Diablo II classic kill with a completely wrong built melee necro at level 29)? Some other forum users have said it (including me sometimes): if you do not like it, do not play it. I like Diablo III as a whole, I am excited for 2.1 (going to take some days off as usual when new content arrives) and Diablo II was probably not so great back then as we remember it in these days (shared loot, no respec until the introduction of A1Q1 respec and later the Token of Absolution etc.).
Also, the game developers have a vision or something in their minds how the game should be and this is great. You cannot and should not work on something without a plan. In addition, it is of course hard to get reliable information from the player base (see beginning) but the developers should probably have a closer look at respectively get in touch (more) with the predecessors and their elements, take them, evolve them instead of purely increasing or reducing numbers. They have done this in the past and they should do it a lot more.
Now it is close to 11 AM in my time zone, after reveling in memories I guess I need a glass of red wine now and one of my cigarillos. See you ingame.
Regards,Bandyto
TLDR: Are the devs out of touch? No, they should just get more in touch with the whole series.
Edit: Typos.
Skill synergies would of been really cool to see again, but honestly, not a very welcome change. The skill tree of Diablo 2 did give plays a lot of options, however seeing diablo 3's track record with skill runes, many of the skills would either be severely under powered and not worth while. (Which would cause people who tried out those skills, and eventually hit that brick wall, to respec.) The skill runes not only change the skill mechanically somewhat often, but also gives it an element, which in 2.0 actually started to synergize with +% elemental damage.
I personally would prefer a system that wouldn't require me to respec entirely because I wanted to try something different, or even respec entirely because I wanted to switch a single skill out for a boss. (granted it could be done like Paragon points and their modular reset)
I enjoy finding legendaries that open up new possibilities for builds, that is the funnest part about diablo. But I would hate to remove all my points from various skills because I wasn't going to use the skill it synergizes with anymore. That would quickly become a hassle, and really show the worth of skill's and the synergy system as a whole to be lacking. And I can feasibly see a work around for those issues unless the synergy system itself was gutted and lack luster compared to Diablo 2's.
What I personally think needs to happen is for all the skill's to get reworked again and have their unique elemental effects removed (mostly.
Hear me out.
Imagine if the damage type it self had effect's and properties that we not exclusive to the skill rune you were using.
Imagine if building a character around a elemental type wasn't just about "What rune is the best fire rune, or cold rune."
Instead, the elemental damage had properties that was simply part of the damage type, and you could not only design skill runes to interact with those "elemental properties" but also design the skill runes to have more unique mechanics that wasn't simply "Turn's x skill into lightning and stuns on the third hit."
It could instead be "Turns x skill into lightning (allowing it to benefit from +% lightning damage) and increase's attack speed of x skill (because lightning is fast). Lastly it causes the effects if the lightning damage to do X, and proc X". With the effects of lightning being it's own separate effect that can be interacted with on multiple different levels. (Passives, Active skills, Skill runes, Legendaries, Shrines, etc.)
Anyway, that's my input. I'm going to write up a huge thing on my idea's for elemental damage and greatly expand on this concept, with graphics and examples in a new forum post. (Eventually, but hopefully soon.) I think it could fix allot of the skill/build stagnation, and also add a whole new level of meta for designing legendaries, designing/balancing skills and creating new builds.
This is a design goal for us, and we've touched a little on it (see below). However, we want each class performing similarly and with fewer outliers before we introduce new play styles."
There is no such thing as class diversity in Diablo 3. The devs are clearly delusional.
Also, we can talk about why buff healing when the bigger issue is that GR eventually get to the point of being 1 shot. What is the point? Healing is a stat that will always be last on the totem pole when your only difficulty measuring stick is more mob hp and damage.
More dps= faster mobs die, the less healing is needed. I was stomping T6 without healing, less than a month into RoS. Your healing doesn't scale up to the point to mitigate the insane scaling of higher GR's. No amount of healing is going to deal with the massive spike in damage, healing is a mechanic that only works if you don't have instances of massive spike damage.
Also, we can talk about why buff healing when the bigger issue is that GR eventually get to the point of being 1 shot. What is the point? Healing is a stat that will always be last on the totem pole when your only difficulty measuring stick is more mob hp and damage.
More dps= faster mobs die, the less healing is needed. I was stomping T6 without healing, less than a month into RoS. Your healing doesn't scale up to the point to mitigate the insane scaling of higher GR's. No amount of healing is going to deal with the massive spike in damage, healing is a mechanic that only works if you don't have instances of massive spike damage.
That's where toughness comes in. I see opportunity for a great balance in character building here, but I have not played PTR so......
Do you play HC? I'm curious if your statement is the typical Softcore disconnect with toughness requirements or is there a real serious and unmitigate-able incoming damage?
Also, we can talk about why buff healing when the bigger issue is that GR eventually get to the point of being 1 shot. What is the point? Healing is a stat that will always be last on the totem pole when your only difficulty measuring stick is more mob hp and damage.
More dps= faster mobs die, the less healing is needed. I was stomping T6 without healing, less than a month into RoS. Your healing doesn't scale up to the point to mitigate the insane scaling of higher GR's. No amount of healing is going to deal with the massive spike in damage, healing is a mechanic that only works if you don't have instances of massive spike damage.
Healing's probably not going to be a major factor regarding GR level, but remember that Blizzard is nerfing health orbs. Healing is definitely going to be a major factor regarding downtime.
For me, the power reset, seasonal achievements and ladders are exactly enough to get me player ladder characters in SC and HC. Season-exclusive nonsense, non-trivial rewards for ladder places, no new achievements... those would have turned me right the hell off... but as things currently stand, I'm really looking forward to 2.1.
Balance, on the other hand, is a total chimera.The profusion of skills and runes aren't there to give us a billion different ways to faceroll Torment 50, they're there to add variety to a grindfest. They're there to give dirty, disgusting casuals who don't care in the slightest about efficiency a ton of fun things to discover. They're there to let us pick a stupid zero-synergy build and see how far we can push it. If you want the best efficiency, you run one of the proven cookie-cutter builds and suck it up. That's the price of playing at the edge of the difficulty curve. Everywhere else in the game, you can pretty much use whatever spec you want and do well enough.
As to the discussion at large, it's completely spurious to assert that Blizzard is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars at the very least on content when they have no idea whether or not people will actually like it (which is what 'out of touch' basically means), and it's doubly spurious to assert that the hate-bait of the month runs the entire team with an iron fist. They're adding features that a lot of people want, and a bunch of people don't want... but seasons and GRifts are completely optional. Don't like 'em, don't play 'em. The only thing about that situation I don't like is that it does mean that effort is being taken away from fixing stuff I care about (like a completely irrelevant Story Mode), but I'm not going to call anyone a drooling incompetent because of it.
It's worth bearing in mind that what good design means, and that includes software design, is taking what people say they want, picking the signal out from the noise, decoding it, reading between the lines, and using your skill, intuition and experience to use that feedback to make a better version of the thing you already had in mind. Blizzard's task is to make a better Diablo3, not check off a crowdsourced feature list.
All stat stick legendaries need to be reworked to have some build changing idea to it -- ALL OF THEM -- DON'T EVEN LEAVE ONE. In my opinion, EVERY SKILL needs at least ONE skill changing legendary attached to it; and the idea needs to be impactful, synergistic, and build altering if at all possible. We need more sets. Every class should have 5+, **MINIMUM**. Focus on making each one like Jade, Marauders, Akkhans. Those are beautiful sets because they synergize so well with other legendaries. KEEP DOING MORE OF THAT.
The gem changes are really disheartening to hear... I too was looking forward to them; now not so much.
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1. Class balance seems to be in an awkward place right now, as is the development on the classes. Crusader and Witch Doctor are in good places and seem to be getting a fair amount of attention. Barb is slowly moving forward. DH is just stuck with one build that is so much better than the rest, that it seems like the only choice above T3. I don't know what's happening with Monk. It seems as though they broke the more "exploit" laden builds, like ZDPS, but aren't sure what to promote next. At least they're trying. I won't mention Wizard, I'm just not knowledgeable enough about the mechanics.
2. Item/Set balance is also subject to a development philosophy that I don't like. Instead of developing flavour for existing vanilla legendaries, they're adding more items to water down the pool. It's a frustrating experience when you get a garbage item. Granted you get a transmog and shake it off, but it certainly falls short of the earth-shattering items we were promised with loot 2.0. As for sets, its been pointed out that adding or subtracting zeroes, although a design strategy, can sometimes seem lazy. It's evident they'd rather change slowly, than make something too strong, but it is a painful process for players who'd like to enjoy that variant (I'm thinking of the slow changes to firebird). I do however get that there have to be priorities and they've mentioned that Helltooth isn't an immediate concern.
3.Seasons/Grifts seem like poor incentives. It's been pointed out that ladder resets are a mechanism that's meant for a meta flooded with currency or with locked builds. I'd like to go beyond that a little. Seasons have superficial incentives for the most part. Sure for a completionist, the conquests might be attainable, but for a casual, the 9 or so uniques are small reward for ditching however many levels of paragon people have farmed. If additional game properties were added, it would feel like a new experience, but as it stands, its just "farm back up high enough to have access to a few uniques and some banners". Grifts, and regular rifts for that matter, need more diversity. Simply scaling hp/dmg is lazy design. With no new bosses added to the PTR and nothing else of note really, the mechanism behind them seems cool, but falls short.
4. Gems. I can appreciate legendary gems and the meticulous balancing it takes for them, so I'm not gonna complain about that. What I will mention is that the design team isn't prioritizing regular gem design. This might be symptomatic of a larger stat problem, but something really has to be done about emeralds in weapons and diamonds in helms. Gem strength is just off, with some being downright useless and others being key to builds. If at least some of the weaker gems were brought into a competitive range. For example, up ruby dmg in weapons to incentivize no/low crit builds. Another one would be to remove MF from Topazes and replace it with resource cost reduction.
All in all, to answer the question, yeah I think the devs are out of touch. It's important to understand that the bigger a company is, the less flexible and responsive it is to the community and its demands. But it is disheartening to see a potentially amazing game, coast by slowly as an okay installment. I'm also at a loss as to why they don't take more seriously the demands of the more intense T6 crowd, which arguably has more time to test out and measure game changes. It's something other ARPGs, MOBAs and RTS development teams have been doing for a long time now.
1) Both Jay and Josh have taken a stab at fixing itemization. Jay was marginally successful. Josh was more successful, but Josh still fell short.
2) Wyatt was a part of BOTH ventures.
3) Wyatt made that statement *after* being a part of both leads attempting to fix itemization. Meaning that Wyatt, of all people, learned precisely Jack and Shit from his previous experiences.
I seriously lost about all respect for Wyatt I had when he made that single statement. He had the benefit of having TWO attempts to get it right (that's more than Jay got). And when the second attempt wasn't received quite as well as hoped from the community.... largely due to the legendaries that WEREN'T build-changing... Wyatt didn't respond like someone who had been through the process twice before, or like someone who even understood why we disliked Jay's itemization.
After two years of this product being live, I simply expect more from him. He *has* to know by now what was wrong with items in 1.0 and he *has* to know by now what shortcomings 2.0 items have. He's had too many opportunities to learn. He's been a party to too many mistakes that he could have learned from.
That being said, I *applaud* whomever was responsible for basically backtracking that statement to something that was more-desired by us. That person deserves a pat on the back for standing up for us and getting what was *right* done. I definitely don't think the entire team is out-of-touch. I never have. In fact, Wyatt really is the only one whom I think doesn't understand the game, one iota, from a fan's perspective. I think he's busy being in "dev mode" all the time and just doesn't have the ability to put that hat aside and understand why what is good for him may not be good for us and that, ultimately, making a game that's good for the players is more important than what he, or his team, thinks is the best direction. This was clearly a case where the fans were right and one dev, in particular, was completely wrong.
It really would have been nice to hear from Wyatt why he was wrong to say what he said, though. It would help me believe he isn't that guy in an office who doesn't really play his own product with the same passion and vigor as the people who are saying "PLEASE FIX THIS!" and then he says "NAH, NOT A PROBLEM HOMIES, WE'LL DO THIS OTHER THING THAT YOU DON'T LIKE BECAUSE I SAY IT'S BETTER!" I mean it's not like there is much question among the fanbase as to whether or not stat-stick legendaries should be fixed. It's one of the most-universal issues for us fans.
They are out of touch with a certain crowd generally associated with Diablo 2 and its cousins and relatives..and in touch with a certain crowd generally associated with ...other games....not quite so tightly bound to the RPG genre purhaps.....all at the same time, generally.
the more you dig and examine the aspects of diablo 3 and how these things are admired or crucified by players the more elegant differences you discover WITHIN those players. And that's why these discussions are just a continuous traveling freight train of ideas and debates. a freight train looping and swirling around the country-side forever. just like politics.
you start with 2 groups of people and by the end everyone has branched off, advocating their customized template of beliefs in regards to what skill tree is best and what song is the worst.
When you finally have 2 people who agree on everything, one of them holds a belief that makes them splinter away from the last guy and the process just repeats itself.
that's why they have to do whats best for the quality of the game. not whats best for casuals or hardcore sociopaths, not whats best for simplicity or advanced complexity. not what looks the best or sounds the best...
they have to adopt a philosophy of attractiveness, for lack of a better word. That's why I feel they are out of touch.
if a class sucks make it attractive. make people want to use it.
if an item sucks make it attractive. make people want to use it.
if a skill sucks make it attractive. make people want to use it.
same goes for builds,areas, etc....
but they don't seem to place these things on a pedestal. and I feel that doing so would really drive the game's image upward.
is having the 5 gems good enough? no. make new ones. this was old news many many years ago. and here we wait.
is having dry under-powered legendary items good enough? no. make new ones. this was old news many many years ago. and here we wait.
is having everyone use the same 5 or 10 legendary items good enough? no. make new ones. this was old news many many years ago. and here we wait.
is rune XYZ being completely worthless shit for months good enough? no. make new ones. this was old news many many years ago. and here we wait.
it just seems like a deafening roar how boring things are and how much everyone wants to explore something new like weapons or items or builds, and how long it takes this new stuff to come out and how underwhelming and recycled it happens to be.......
they took lobbys out and hummed and hawed and wedged in clans and communities...
they took PvP out and hummed and hawed and gave us a brawling arena
they took charms and gems and jewels out and hummed and hawed and now are rolling out legendary gems.
they took stat assignment out and hummed and hawed and now you assign stats with Paragon...
they took wild cool legendarys out of the game and hummed and hawed and now are scrambling to give their legendaries fascinating powers...
all the while the forum has been blowing up about those topics screaming for jay wilsons head on a stick asking what the fuck they were thinking???
it just seems like a really sick sad merry-go-round overall.....even if they are on the brink of this big huge content patch....
legendary gems and legendary potions is not rocket science....it should have been a no-brainer YEARS ago...and yet....here we wait...twiddling our thumbs...i'll be using that expression more often...
and this decimates any notion that "the game is bought an paid for" or "these improvements are the icing on the cake.."
people want improvements forcefully injected into the game. they CRAVE interesting assets becuase these assets are tragically absent. And these people craving this stuff are not industry professionals by any stretch. it does not make their opinion less valid.
that craving for interesting assets is the very very beginning of any Role playing game ever created or you can fuck off and die. its that desire to graft a world that is interesting. and that when you the GM or game designer in Diablo 3's case gets to describe that world you so gleefully created to a person? CREATES A PERCEPTION OF THAT WORLD in their mind.
so when the D3 team is describing their world of sanctuary by having players run to town to "insta-brim" its legendary items because they are boring useless pieces of shit. Or allowing their characters "bank accounts" to swell up into the fucking BILLIONS of gold...or allowing them to blend through 20 thousand dumb fuck monsters while watching "Big Bang Theory" on TV......it really does not say a whole lot about them being in touch with the player base.....that's my take on it personally...that a massive amount of the changes they are celebrating as upcoming features? Are child's play. They are ancient history and they were deleted into fucking oblivion with the most incredible abandon and incredible ignorance.
my 18 year old brother doesnt concern himself with such nonsense. he just begs mom for her credit card and a lift to the fucking toy store to buy the ultimate evil edition version and play until level 25. this is actually happening. its real life shit.
If that's their goal and thats their idea of a great game, a "hack and slash ARPG" that accomplishes that with beautiful graphics and "stat sticks" and thatthey owe the players nothing more; to me personally, that's out of touch.
Why is this answer? Becuase they don't play...
They do interviews streaming at Torment I and it seems hard for them... lol!
They ask for our Feedback at forums, but they read one of every 500 posts!
I haven't followed game Dev posts or interviews, but I've been heavily feeling what this guy, right here, is saying.
I'm losing interest in the game (A world and game I've been in love with since my young teenage self first got his hands on D2 when it first came out) because there's very little reason to get those legendaries. I can't even begin to count how many times I've opened up my inventory after picking up a Legendary to then look at the portrait and say "crap." out loud and move on. Not just crap for my build, but actually useless as a legendary. A legendary that either doesn't have a useful affix, or out right doesn't have one.
One thing that i do believe is that the Dev's are slowly learning. Whether it be the efforts of the community managers, or trail and error on their part, but the new Crusader armor and all the Phalanx Legendaries is a move in the right direction concerning legendaries that opens up new possibilities for new builds.
The greatest draw to this game for me besides loving the lore and aesthetic is the theory crafting and getting that new legendary that might open up new possibilities for builds or newfound power. It's never been "Now I can crush my enemies even harder!" No, its been "What can I do with this that will be really cool, and fun, but also not suck." And there's very little of that in the game right now. But what's worse is what legendaries ARE in the game right now that do harbor fun affixes and abilities, are deemed completely useless or nonviable to enjoy late game content or progression. Paragon levels come to a grinding halt if you're stuck in torment 3 with a build that can't take you further. The exp just isn't there. I have less and less incentive to play if I'm grinding away at a steeper and steeper hill, and the only way to fix that is to play something I don't enjoy in the first place.
What's more troubling is that Legendary gem's will also come to a grinding halt if you're gear or build is capable of taking you to newer heights. Changes have been made, which is good, but they're still lack luster, or simply not enough. Add one or two more build options for "the best builds" and buffing mid tier builds to be a little better isn't expanding the depth of play, it's just giving a few builds a hand to hit a new wall, and reaffirming the "best builds" their seat of power to enjoy the new content faster, and more efficiently, difficulty wall free!.
I'm looking forward to the new patch, but I'll still be waiting for a patch that introduces a plethora of new legendaries with unique affixes, and skill changes that actually rewarding to theorycraft. New build possibiliies for dynamic builds with varying styles of play that are as equally rewarding as the next. Perhaps a patch that makes all elemental damage not only balanced(God damn Cindercoat) and competitive, but also unique with their own draws and quirks.
This game has a lot of work... I look forward to accompanying this game along that journey, so long as it doesn't destroy itself along the way.(Or me for that matter.)
Not only is this the same in the current game. I see an amulet, I instantly say, "Not another Flavor of Time, or Blackthorns, or the Litany of other crappy amulets. The same could be said for all 2h staves and many other items we could name off. Nobody can sit here and tell me this had ever been delivered to the degree it was stated in this blog.
Several things they did get right in the blog, but the biggest offender is still way too many bad legendary items where you know its an instant soul and you don't even have to ID it. In fact, I would call it an egregious amount of bad legendary items still exist.
It seems as though the developers made the drop rate more of a priority than they did the quality of what was dropping. There is no Auction House, no trading - why not make them over powered? Why not at least make regular legendary items (with no special power) have eight affixes instead of six? Why didn't 2-handers see a buff in the EXPANSION to the first game where they were clearly broken?
My money is that the developers are obsessed with balance. Meetings, discussions, play testing, more meetings, more discussions, more testing.....to trickle out a few items and proudly display them to the group.
This is how I feel the developers are in DANGER of losing touch. They hide behind pen and paper instead of a game that is so much more than that. And yes to the argument, "well if they don't balance it you will have the community complain that its over powered." True - that could happen. But which is more likely, people who complain that only one class, one item makes them overpowered - or that there are many overpowered options to choose from in all classes?
If the developers want to balance every single item, every single skill, every single class - they are going to piss off a lot of people that are waiting for them to get out of their meetings...
Monkalicious: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/OptimusPrime-12194/hero/79139477
How many more gadgets and frills must be implemented before backtracking and solidifying the foundation? This is where my personal sentiment of "splunge" derives. I like that they want to experiment and attempt progress but it always feels like the additions are implemented at an indeterminate location antecedent to the finish line. Malformed, released and possibly never to be corrected. As Shurgosa mentioned in his post I too can stretch that malaise across a multitude of features. Brawling("PvP"), bland legendaries, gems, CHD/CC... They are personal to me but it has made me realize that I would be far more excited to see more looks at certain fixtures - rather than adding seasons, new legendaries and greater rifts. They have so many frills to contend with and not nearly enough time.
It's this monster now.
"We", "Everyone" - Argumentum ad populum. "You people" - Argumentum ad hominem. "Your dumb" - Contractionem absum.
I personally would prefer a system that wouldn't require me to respec entirely because I wanted to try something different, or even respec entirely because I wanted to switch a single skill out for a boss. (granted it could be done like Paragon points and their modular reset)
I enjoy finding legendaries that open up new possibilities for builds, that is the funnest part about diablo. But I would hate to remove all my points from various skills because I wasn't going to use the skill it synergizes with anymore. That would quickly become a hassle, and really show the worth of skill's and the synergy system as a whole to be lacking. And I can feasibly see a work around for those issues unless the synergy system itself was gutted and lack luster compared to Diablo 2's.
What I personally think needs to happen is for all the skill's to get reworked again and have their unique elemental effects removed (mostly.
Hear me out.
Imagine if the damage type it self had effect's and properties that we not exclusive to the skill rune you were using.
Imagine if building a character around a elemental type wasn't just about "What rune is the best fire rune, or cold rune."
Instead, the elemental damage had properties that was simply part of the damage type, and you could not only design skill runes to interact with those "elemental properties" but also design the skill runes to have more unique mechanics that wasn't simply "Turn's x skill into lightning and stuns on the third hit."
It could instead be "Turns x skill into lightning (allowing it to benefit from +% lightning damage) and increase's attack speed of x skill (because lightning is fast). Lastly it causes the effects if the lightning damage to do X, and proc X". With the effects of lightning being it's own separate effect that can be interacted with on multiple different levels. (Passives, Active skills, Skill runes, Legendaries, Shrines, etc.)
Anyway, that's my input. I'm going to write up a huge thing on my idea's for elemental damage and greatly expand on this concept, with graphics and examples in a new forum post. (Eventually, but hopefully soon.) I think it could fix allot of the skill/build stagnation, and also add a whole new level of meta for designing legendaries, designing/balancing skills and creating new builds.
"Expand class diversity
More dps= faster mobs die, the less healing is needed. I was stomping T6 without healing, less than a month into RoS. Your healing doesn't scale up to the point to mitigate the insane scaling of higher GR's. No amount of healing is going to deal with the massive spike in damage, healing is a mechanic that only works if you don't have instances of massive spike damage.
Do you play HC? I'm curious if your statement is the typical Softcore disconnect with toughness requirements or is there a real serious and unmitigate-able incoming damage?
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