So the guy starts his mega-post by implying that "My opinions are more legitimate than yours because I have spent 1,800 hours playing this game," and he ends it by implying that "Blizzard always ignores its customers and is a terrible company".
Why doesn't he just quit playing?
***
A lot of the post is completely valid suggestions that most players would agree with (better minibosses, more meaningful low level loot, better skill damage display) but it's worded in a super-negative, almost whiny manner.
Some of it is hilariously unrealistic. For example, calling the game a failure because it's not 100% cheat- and bot-free is absurd. No computer system is 100% secure, especially not multiplayer games. Worse yet, the OP implies that anyone who has over a billion gold is a scammer or botter, and that's just stupid. A billion gold is worth at most $40 USD, there are people who have spent hundreds of $ just on the Hearthstone Beta, I'm sure the majority of multi-billion-gold spenders are real money spenders.
* As long as trading is relatively "effortless", you will get loot 10-20x faster by selling every item you find, and only getting upgrades from the AH. This order-of-magnitude multiplier is a mathematical certainty, regardless of how bad or how good the loot is.
* Making trading "painful" (difficult and time consuming) introduces the possibility that you will get loot faster by playing self-found and not trading at all. This is a good thing.
* No matter how difficult trading is, there will always exist a certain gear level where trading is more efficient than self-found. However, it is possible that most players are optimal, or near-optimal with self-found play. (for example - nearly all "casual" Diablo 2 players played self-found or very close to self-found)
* In an "efficient trading" universe, you only get a 15% incremental value from sharing free items among a trusted social circle - the difference between AH tax and no AH tax. Yet you get 1000% or more value from selling items on the AH, compared to playing self-found. This creates a strong disincentive to share items with your friends. In D2 if my RL friend found an item that's godly for my Sorc (and he doesn't have a Sorc), he would give me the item for free. (and vice versa if I found something for his Zon) In D3 if he found a comparable item, he would look on the RMAH and see that it's $100, and there's no way he'd give me the item for free.
* In a "painful trading" universe, you get an extremely high incremental value from freely sharing items. If a group of 6 friends shares free items, each friend has access to a pool of items that's 6x as large as self-found. (+500%) This is a much larger efficiency benefit than barter-style trading (which is inefficient and vulnerable to mistrades and/or scamming). Therefore, everyone has an incentive to share, and having trustworthy friends is worth major in-game benefits.
Upon reading about the RMAH/GAH removal, I am shocked. Shocked that Blizzard would admit they made a mistake, and shocked that they would fix it. That takes a huge amount of chutzpah, and I give them a ton of respect for it.
I've heard a lot of people argue that "barter trade is really painful" and therefore it is a mistake to remove the AH's. I beg to differ.
To put it simply, trade needs to be painful or else itemization will suck. It doesn't matter what they do with Loot 2.0, the AH removal is actually the most important part. And here's why:
----- *** THE MATH ***
The simple mathematical fact is that AH's dramatically skew itemization. Let's assume there are 2 versions of the game with identical itemization: self-found and AH:
*Self-Found*: I find an "awesome" item every 20 hours of gameplay. However, 80% of the time, it's designed for a different class or spec. So I equip one "awesome" item after 100 hours of gameplay. Once I have one slot occupied by an "awesome" item, the next one that drops has a 1/12 chance of being a sidegrade. After two slots, each item has a 2/12 chance of being a sidegrade, etc.
Mathematically speaking, it will take me an average of 3,723 hours to find an "awesome" item in every slot.
*GAH*: I find an "awesome" item every 20 hours of gameplay. 80% of the time it's designed for a different class or spec, so I sell it on the AH and get 85% of the Gold required to purchase an equally awesome item. Better yet, I know exactly which item slot needs the upgrade. Even if I have terrible luck and never find a usable item in my life, on average I only need to play for 23.5 hours to earn enough Gold to purchase an "awesome" item.
Mathematically speaking, it will take me 306 hours to earn enough Gold to purchase an "awesome" item in every slot.
Using the GAH decreases the time needed to gear out your character by a factor of 12! Remember that this is a paper napkin estimate, completely ignoring the increase in kill speed and MF/GF for the GAH user.
If itemization was tuned to be "reasonable" for self-found characters, an AH user would have every item BiS after 2 weeks and could never get another upgrade again. In order to prevent this, Blizzard has to intentionally tune itemization to be extremely slow. (ie 3700+ hours to get all-BiS, the real number is probably even higher)
This is the reason why itemization is so bad on PC.
***
There are other reasons why the AH is so bad for itemization. One reason is that the AH is equally efficient regardless of your gear/wealth level. A player with 500k to his name can buy a whole bunch of 50k items just as easily as a player with 2B can buy a bunch of 200M items. This causes three harmful effects:
There is no gear level at which AH'ing is not optimal (by an order of magnitude or more). D3 players are AH dependent from "cradle to grave".
There is no change in optimal behavior from "poor" to "rich", therefore no sense of progression for the player.
Since it is easy to turn items into gold, players sell all their items and don't just drop them on the ground. Think about how often you saw people give away stuff for free in D2, and compare to how often it happens in D3.
This is completely different from a barter economy. Bartering requires time and effort, and is highly inefficient - this is exactly why it is good for the game:
Bartering takes a large time investment. At a poor gear level, you will get more items playing the game rather than hanging out in trade chat. Only high-value items are worth the time and effort required to barter them.
Therefore, the optimal behavior changes dramatically when going from a "poor" account (never barter) to a "rich" account (frequent barter). This gives a sense of progression.
Bartering requires a huge amount of game knowledge. Therefore, the "real money player" does not have an insurmountable advantage over "in game players", unlike with GAH/RMAH.
Bartering is a huge pain in the ass and a lot of players would rather play the game self-found. This is a good thing if you believe that videogames should be about gameplay.
The players who don't barter because it's too much hassle give away their items for free. This feels really good for the newbies in their games and generally helps the sense of "friendliness" and "community".
So anyone who thinks that Blizzard will introduce another "efficient" method of trading, I beg to differ. They may put in trade channels and game names, but they will remain inefficient, spammy, and painful - just like D2. It's not a problem, it's intentional.
Trade needs to be painful. It's the best way to improve the game.
Changing itemization to make items higher quality does NOT make it more interesting or fun. Look at WoW. Every max-level DPS item is the equivalent of a D3 "Quadrafecta" - they all have Stamina, Primary Stat, and at least two of (Hit, Crit, Haste, Mastery). Itemization is very boring in WoW because every ilvl 496 epic is very similar in power to every other ilvl 496 epic. If every single item that dropped was awesome, then "awesome" very quickly becomes "boring".
What D3 needs is the opposite of super awesome items that appeal to everybody. What D3 needs is items that are more specialized and appeal to a very narrow niche.
As long as everyone wants exactly the same gear, everyone will compete for the same few stats. A relatively small difference in stats leads to an immense difference in sell price - just look at the sale prices for any Legendary. Even more importantly, there is nothing interesting you can do with gear. Unlike D2, you can't stack gear and turn an underpowered variant build into a decent farming build, or turn your class into a totally different class.
The best thing for Blizzard to do in an expansion pack would be to greatly nerf stats that benefit everyone (Primary stat, ASPD, CHC, CDB) and buff or add new stats that benefit specific skills, builds, or playstyles. (For example, "+% to Summoned Creature Damage", "+% to Single Target Melee Attacks", "+% to Bleed Damage", "+% to Damage over Time Spells", "+% to Ground Targeted Spells", "+% Damage to Enemies 30 yards or further", "+% Proc Damage", "+% Damage vs. Stunned")
=========================
Diablo 3 is a good game that has the potential to be great. The famous "Complete Diablo Fix" thread had a lot of suggestions, but it was written from a Diablo 2-centered worldview. For reference, http://eu.battle.net...ic/6444144744#1
I was wondering: what would Diablo 3 be like if it fully embraced its nature as a new game separate from Diablo 2? The following are my rather long ideas.
==================== TL,DR summary:
In order from smallest to largest game mechanic changes,
Challenge players to compete against one another in ladders and scenarios.
Make Nightmare and Hell relevant again.
Diversify loot. Eliminate the Quadrafecta. Stats should be a choice, not "all of the above".
Deisgn "loot sinks" to get rid of loot accumulation.
Embrace the action in ARPG. Monster attacks and player skills should function more like a Zelda, God of War, or Ninja Gaiden.
====================
1) Challenge players to compete against one another in PvE:
Competitive PvE has been a part of RPG culture for decades - in fact, long before videogames existed. Gygax's Tower. Moria/Angband. Final Fantasy Secret Bosses. Diablo 2 Ladder. World First C'Thun/Illidan/Heroic Lich King/Heroic Sha.
Diablo 3 has absolutely no mechanics for PvE competition. Inferno was beaten shortly after the game was released. Posting "4 MILLION DPS!!!!" videos on YouTube gets old fast. There is no ladder, no way for the most dedicated players to flaunt their insanity. Yet there is no reason for this to be the case. D3 could be an excellent competitive PvE game, and here's how:
Ladder: Not one, but many.
The argument against Diablo 3 ladders was that D3 loot is supposed to be "permanent", and having ladder seasons would make loot non-permanent. I will go into detail later on why permanent loot is a bad idea. The fact is, ladder was a very easy way for players to show off their insane competitiveness. Give players a choice between multiple different ladders with different objectives.
Ladders could be designed to be more like a leaderboard (ie, WoW Challenge Leaderboards) that shows elapsed time down to the millisecond.
Paragon Ladder, Unlimited: Shortest real time from Level 1 to 60(100). Can freely group and trade including with non-ladder players.
Paragon Ladder, Solo: Shortest in-game time from Level 1 to 60(100). Cannot group with other players but can exchange items from the Stash/AH.
Short Ladder, Unlimited: Shortest real time from Level 1 to 60. Can freely group and trade including with non-ladder players.
Short Ladder, Solo: Shortest in-game time from Level 1 to 60. Cannot group with other players but can exchange items from the Stash/AH.
Short Ladder, Ironman: Shortest in-game time from Level 1 to 60. Cannot group with other players. Cannot take items from the Stash/AH. Stuck on MP10.
Slayer Ladder, Solo: Shortest in-game time from Level 1 to beating Inferno Diablo on MP10. Cannot group with other players but can exchange items from the Stash/AH.
Slayer Ladder, Ironman: Shortest in-game time from Level 1 to beating Inferno Diablo on MP10. Cannot group with other players. Cannot take items from the Stash/AH. Stuck on MP10.
Slayer Ladder, Fixed Build: Shortest real time from Level 1 to beating Inferno Diablo on MP10. Once a skill is learned it cannot be unlearned, unless the character is transferred off-Ladder. Once a skill rune is learned it cannot be unlearned, unless the character is transferred off-Ladder.[/li]Items from restricted ladder (Ironman) should be transferrable to non-ladder characters (but not vice versa).
Scenarios: Faster than ladders.
A lot of us don't have the free time to compete in ladders. We should have an alternative means to compete. Scenarios would provide those alternatives.
Each Scenario would have its own Scoring system allowing players to score points for impressive performances. Your name would show up on a leaderboard just like any Flash or iPhone game. For example, "I'm #16,234 worldwide on the Reign of Fire survival!"
Dungeon Crawl, Random: An ordinary random dungeon (ie, Caverns of the Betrayer) with very high density of creatures and elites. Players would score points for damage dealt, killing sprees, etc. At the end of the scenario players would fight a boss and gain points based on how quickly they kill it.
Dungeon Crawl, Designed: These scenarios would have be hand-crafted levels, somewhat like a D3 version of Halo "Spartan Ops". Point scoring works as above. Because they are non-random they would be more competitive, but would have to drop less loot. (or players would learn to farm them)
Dungeon Survival, Random: Players are confined in a randomly picked area (ie, Skeleton King's Throne) and are faced with a never-ending spawn of random creatures and elites. Monster power increases by 1 with each round of spawns, and can increase to infinite values. Points are scored for every second alive, and also for damage dealt and elites killed.
Dungeon Survival, Designed: Same as above but non-random.
Speed Run, Random: A random dungeon populated with high difficulty creatures/elites, with a goal at the end. Players would be scored based on shortest time (down to the millisecond) to complete the speedrun. Some areas could be gated to force players to actually kill stuff instead of just running.
Speed Run, Designed: Same as above but non-random.
Scenario loot would be different from regular loot in that you wouldn't loot during the actual scenario (it would slow down your times). Instead, you get a certain amount of loot in a box at the end of the Scenario. The loot should be somewhat less efficient than plain farming. The idea is to give players something to do that gives loot but isn't pure farming.
====================
2) Make Nightmare and Hell relevant again.
A large number of Diablo 2 items and Diablo 2 builds were never intended to actually compete in the endgame (Hell Baal, Key Farming, and Ubers). Instead you had teleport builds that could clear Nightmare Andy/Mephy/Baal over and over for specific low level drops (SoJ, etc.) and builds highly optimized for farming Hell Countess or Hell Mephy. This is because low level stuff mattered.
Low level stuff doesn't matter in D3, largely because there is no reason to re-level a fresh character. This is a shame because the leveling process in D2 was a big part of the fun!
Frequently resetting ladders would encourage players to actually level new characters at a regular pace. In order to further emphasize lower-level items and builds:
Crank up the drop rate of low level Legendaries and Sets.
Give low level Legendaries and Sets more unique affixes.
Introduce mechanics that allow players to "upgrade" items, like Cubing Exceptionals into Elites.
Introduce recipes, quests, and/or scenarios that require farming of large masses of low level items. Burning SoJs for Uber Diablo would be a primitive example.
After PvP is implemented, implement Twink Brackets and "Turn off EXP Gain". We'll soon find out what is the Strongest Possible Level 20 (or w/e).
The Quadrafecta absolutely dominates D3 gearing because there is no other way to improve DPS.
Diablo 2 wasn't exactly perfect in this regard - most classes really had a Trifecta that looked like this:
Attackspeed or Castspeed, up to breakpoint.
Damage: For physical this was weapon damage + primary attribute, for casters it was +Skills
Buffs/debuffs: "-20% to enemy resistance", "Conviction Aura", "Amplify Damage Proc", etc.
However, D2 had the advantage of having different stats appeal to different players. An Amplify damage proc was amazing for a Bowazon but useless for a Lightning Sorc. Vice versa for +lightning skills.
Diablo 3's damage stats have one very interesting mechanic that D2 didn't, which is the multiplier effect of %CRIT and %CDB. %Crit doesn't do much good without %CDB. %CDB does absolutely no good without %Crit. I like this mechanic because it encourages players to commit to stacking DPS stats. Instead of removing Crit and CDB, we should add more stats so that we have a choice.
A few principles should be observed for the new damage stats:
Don't let too many damage stats spawn on the same piece. If a Hexafecta item exists, it will eventually become the "gold standard" because it is the best possible item regardless of your build. Multiplicative damage stats should be limited in overlap, just like how a weapon cannot spawn with +200-600 Arcane Damage and +200-600 Fire Damage at the same time.
Damage stats should be a choice, not an "all of the above". Alternative non-crit DPS stats should NOT crit, and should not work well with crit-heavy builds.
Damage stats should be supported by passives and runes. Weapon Mastery, Critical Mass and APOC strongly favor Crit builds. In an expansion pack, new passives and skills should be designed around the new non-Crit DPS stats.
I think the following stats could be balanced to be similar in power to Crit and CDB, without directly stacking with Crit:
% Inflict Deep Wounds: Bleed already exists in game but is weak. Change it to a Deep Wounds that deals a percent of weapon damage.
+% Bleed Damage: This modifier would improve the effectiveness of Deep Wounds as well as any existing Bleed procs and skills (Rend, etc).
+% On-Hit Proc Damage: This modifier would improve the effectiveness of everything from Hellfire Rings to the skeletons summoned by Wailing Host. It would also increase player abilities such as the Magic Weapon rune that says "Chance to arc lightning for 10% of weapon damage."
% Proc Effect on Hit: There should be enough pieces of gear with on-hit effects so that a player stacking Procs and +% Proc Damage could deal the majority of his damage with just procs. Procs should not be able to crit.
+% Damage vs Demon/Undead/Beast/Human: Make this affix a lot stronger, but make it stack non-multiplicatively with %CDB. So +100% Damage vs Demon and +100% CDB would only equal 3x base damage, not 4x.
+% Damage vs Stunned/Frozen/Feared/Confused: Make this affix very strong for CC-heavy builds but make it stack non-multiplicatively with %CDB. So +100% Damage vs Frozen and +100% CDB would only equal 3x base damage, not 4x.
====================
4) Design "loot sinks" to get rid of loot accumulation.
Everyone knows that D3 loot feels extremely weak compared to loot found on the AH.
This has nothing to do with drop rates or itemization mechanics. Instead, it's all about the durability of loot. Namely, good loot is indestructable. A sufficiently powerful item will exchange hands many, many times and never be vendored or sharded.
Therefore, any newly dropped piece of loot has to compete with every other piece of loot dropped since Diablo 3 was released. Any time Blizzard buffs loot stats and drop rates, the newly dropped loot feels stronger only for a short time until it becomes commonplace. If every piece of loot was godlike for 6 months, then every piece of loot would have to compete with 6 months' worth of equally godlike loot.
The one and only way around this is some form of permanent loot destruction. I would suggest taking a cue from Diablo 2 and introducing loot destruction through ladder competition. D2 took the primitive approach of doing a Reset every once in a while (destroying EVERYONE's characters and loot on Ladder). I would take the gentler approach of "optional" loot destruction:
Sealed Stash Ladder, Pennant Race: Players race from level 1 to 60(100) on permanent MP10. Upon character creation, loot may be transferred from your main stash to a "Sealed Stash". Any loot collected within a Sealed Stash game CANNOT be transferred to any other characters, it is effectively Soulbound.
At the end of each Sealed Stash season, the top X% players recieve a title, a portrait, and a special item that gives a bonus you cannot get anywhere else in the game. For example, a unique Charm that gives +10% MF/GF and can exceed the Paragon MF/GF cap.
====================
5) Embrace the action in ARPG.
When D3 was first announced, I recall Blizzard using an awful lot of action game terms to describe the gameplay. The names Zelda, God of War, and Ninja Gaiden were thrown around in several interviews. Right after the first Monk unveil, I imagined running around blocking fireballs and chaining mouse clicks into ridiculous Limit Break type combos.
None of that ever happened. The ability of melee characters to block incoming projectiles was rapidly removed from the game. Following this, melee became much weaker than ranged due to the ease of kiting. In response, Blizzard increased the size of player hitboxes and made it much harder to avoid enemy attacks with movement. This was a huge disappointment.
I still think that Diablo 3 would be a lot more fun if it played more like a true action game. For those who think that Blizzard servers are too slow to run an action game: Starcraft 2 is a lot faster paced (some would say too fast) than Brood War and it is online-only and doesn't lag much.
Melee abilities should work more like a fighting game, with a few basic melee classifications.
Jabs: Jabs would deal low damage but interrupt fierce and stagger attacks. This mechanic could include Fists of Thunder, Frenzy, Regular Skeleton and Demon hits.
Fierce: Fierce attacks would deal tons of damage and break Guard, but can be interrupted or run away from. This mechanic could include Wave of Light, Hammer of the Ancients, "overhead smash" slow monster hits.
Stagger: Stagger attacks have less attackspeed and damage than Fierce attacks, but can inflict snares, interrupt Fierce attacks and wear down Guard. This mechanic could include Crippling Wave, Cleave, and knockback/snare monsters.
Guard: Guard abilities would allow players to deflect ranged attacks and melee jabs, but remain vulnerable to fierce, stagger and grapple attacks. This mechanic could include Ignore Pain, Shield Skeletons, Shielding elites, etc.
Counter: A Counter ability can interrupt an enemy attack and deal massive damage/stun, but is useless if not used at the right timing. This mechanic could be used for Exploding Palm - its base damage is weak but it triggers the explosion immediately if used to counter a Fierce attack.
Ranged characters should be vulnerable because they can't Guard/Counter, not because they inherently take more damage.
Bullet Hell: Creatures should throw more projectiles and more melee attacks, but players should have a very small hitbox so they can dodge.
DPS Off: Creatures should have abilities that counter or reflect player projectiles, but with a notable "telegraph" so you can anticipate it and stop attacking.
Stutter Step: Ranged classes should have some abilities and/or passives that actually reward continuous movement over standing still. For example, a runed Acid Cloud that "saves up" damage stacks over ~3 seconds so that casting it every 3sec will deal almost as much damage as spamming, but with much lower mana cost.
Enemies need to have more interesting behavior:
Random Monster Onslaughts: Like the skeletons falling from the ceiling in the Keep Depths, and Winged Moloks descending in flocks throughout A3. Make these encounters fancier, with a wider variety of attacking monsters.
Random Monster Patterns: When trash monsters swarm you, have them come from all directions. Think of it like a "bullet hell" game rather than a traditional RPG. Some parts of Act 4 are fairly good at this. Do it in more Acts.
Special Monster Behaviors: Stuff like Goatmen beating on drums to become huge, it's fun and it changes the pace.
Traps that don't suck: Traps give a lot of flavor to Act 1 but honestly they are mostly unfun. The Act 3 fire grates are a random and crappy way to die. Make traps more entertaining to combat. Throw fires and lasers and sound orbs and plague pools at us, then give us a Resplendent Chest for surviving the traps.
Using Monster Abilities against them: What if you could dodge a Dark Berserker's smash and have it kill off one of the Dogs around him? That would be fun.
Random elite pack behavior could be more varied:
Make the existing SuperUniques much stronger and more lootable, much like the Keywardens already are.
Give them "AQ40/BWD" behavior where killing one gives the remaining elites more affixes.
Have some of them change behavior after reaching a certain health %.
Have some of them occur in a chain, where killing the first group of Elites automatically spawns a second pack.
Encourage players to actually fight storyline bosses. Better yet, encourage us to stay in game after killing a boss:
Change the less-exciting storyline bosses (ie Araneae) to be more fun to fight.
Give more bosses multiple phases with different abilities, such as Belial and Diablo.
Allow players to gain up to 7 stacks of Nephalem Valor. However, Elites and Resplendents stop giving stacks at 5. (you only need 5 for Keywardens) Storyline Bosses provide two stacks and can go up to 7.
Equalize monster density and elite density throughout the entire game, at least on Hell+Inferno. Cathedral, Caves of Araneae, Aqueducts etc should all be viable for farming. Put monsters in the monster-free zones like the area outside Caverns of Araneae.
===========
Leveling multiple characters was a major part of the Diablo 2 gameplay experience. Most people will point to the fact that you couldn't re-spec without starting a new toon. However, leveling had tons of benefits totally unrelated to spec change. For each new character you rushed from Normal to Hell, you gained 3x Imbues, "add sockets", and vanity names. In addition, you had a chance to earn reasonably good items in the Act Boss first-kill drops (very high % Unique) and the Hellforge Rune drop. For all of the above reasons, everyone made tons of characters all the time. There was an entire skill in D2 (Enchant) that existed just to help rushing toons.
It seems that leveling new characters was intended to be a major part of D3 as well. There are more low level Legendaries than level 60 legendaries in the game. Blue posts have discussed multiple mechanics introduced to allow "twinking" of new characters. High-level Gems in low-level items, "reduced level requirement" and "experience on kill" gear, and leveling Legendaries all exist to speed leveling. There are even achievements for leveling multiples of each character. And Normal, Nightmare and Hell difficulties are very well balanced with a smooth difficulty curve.
Yet the leveling process in D3 feels dramatically less rewarding than in D2. I believe it is the sum of several factors, listed from most to least important (in my opinion):
1) No tangible perks for having multiples of the same character. In D2, not only do I get to try a different character spec, I get a full set of Imbues, Sockets, and vanity names. (which cannot be obtained in any way other than leveling new characters) In D3 all I get is an achievement.
2) Lack of Nephalem Valor during leveling. When you're used to seeing fountains of blue and yellow spurt out of every Elite kill, going back to one or two blues per pack feels like "culture shock". It is especially painful when you are level 58 and clearing Hell Act 3, a zone that many undergeared 60s farm for loot (with NV). Even though you're killing the same mobs and the same bosses, at level 58 you get far less loot.
3) Lack of first-kill bonuses on Act bosses in NM and Hell. I believe there was a blue post addressing this earlier, but I can't find it. Fixing this issue would be nice, but I feel like it is a minor quibble compared to #1 and #2.
4) Lack of ladder resets. Resets wouldn't work with D3's game mechanics of course.
=====
I think the leveling process would be dramatically better if:
1) New characters gained some limited-use abilities.
Stamping your name on an item D2-style would be a good start. It would also be very cool if there was some kind of "D3 Imbue". It might be "crafting a class-specific item with an affix of your choice", or re-rolling affixes on items you already have, or something else entirely.
2) Nephalem Valor starts at level 30.
No one wants to be stuck using Magic Missile and Ray of Frost at level 6 because you just killed two elite packs and you don't want to lose your stacks. However, considering that you get all basic class skills by level 30 it is entirely reasonable to have NV start at level 30.
Plus, you still lose all NV stacks when changing Acts, or logging off, so you have plenty of opportunities to change your skill build.
3) Bring back Act Boss first-kill rewards in NM/Hell
This one is obvious, and easy.
=========
It would be ideal to have things balanced where leveling multiple characters of the same class is viable, but not mandatory (as in pre-respec D2). In a world with free re-specs, character-rushing for Imbues and Runes is not necessarily better or worse than regular Hell runs, it is just another way to get loot in addition to Baal, Pindle, Chaos, Meph, Pit etc. I think it would be ideal if D3 character leveling was balanced similarly.
A DoT that does 1260% damage over 15 seconds is already quite strong... that's a huge amount of damage for a single cast.
Add on the fact that you can cast Hydra tactically - for example, casting it around a wall so it can hit a boss but the boss cannot hit you - and it is really not bad.
The concept of Hydra is the same in D1, D2, and D3. It doesn't do a whole lot of damage per second, but it does the damage safely, and continues to deal damage even if you are running around, stunned, or otherwise unable to cast.
Wizard
Conflagration - fire damage causes a +10% damage taken debuff x 3sec.
Paralysis - lightning damage causes a 5% chance to stun for 3sec.
Temporal Flux - Arcane damage snares by 30% for 3sec.
WD
Bad Medicine - Poison damage causes a -20% damage dealt debuff x3sec.
Monk
Resolve - Damage you deal reduces enemy damage by 25% for 2.5sec.
Guiding Light - When you heal another player, you and the other player both gain +16% damage for 15sec.
DH
Thrill of the Hunt - Every 10sec your next bow attack will immobilize for 3sec.
Numbing Traps - Traps cause -25% damage debuff for 3sec.
Monk Resolve and WD Bad Medicine are actually stronger debuffs than the majority of the active skills in game. If multiple -%damage debuffs stack (There's no guarantee they will - they could be like Snares where only the strongest one applies) then having a monk and WD with those passives seems almost mandatory to Inferno difficulty.
============
That said, we could have something like: Monk:
Crippling Wave + Concussion = 30% snare, -20% enemy attackspeed, -20% enemy damage
Cyclone Strike + Soothing Breeze = AoE damage that heals the party
Breath of Heaven + Blazing Wrath = AoE heal + 15% party damage
Serenity + Tranquility = AoE invulnerability that breaks all snares and CCs
Mantra of Evasion + Hard Target = +15% party dodge, +20% party armor
(Any 6th skill)
Resolve = Passive -25% enemy damage debuff
Guiding Light = +16% party damage after heal
(Any 3rd passive)
WD:
Poison Darts + Snake to the Face = Stun proc for singletarget DPS
Acid Cloud + Acid Rain = Large AoE poison damage for poison debuff.
Soul Harvest + Languish = AoE 60% snare and self-buff
Zombie Dogs + Rabid Dogs = more poison debuffs
Hex + Jinx = hexed targets take +20% damage
Big Bad Voodoo + Ghost Trance = +20% party attack/movespeed, AoE party heal
Bad Medicine = Passive -20% enemy damage debuff
(any 2nd and 3rd passives)
Wizard
Magic Missile + Charged Blast = Single target damage, applies 30% snare passive
Disintegrate + Convergence = Large-AoE arcane damage, applies 30% snare passive
Frost Nova + Bone Chill = AoE freeze with +20% enemy damage taken
Wave of Force + Impactful Wave = AoE knockback and stun
Slow Time + Time Warp = -20% enemy attackspeed, 30% snare, +20% enemy damage taken
(Any armor ability)
Temporal Flux = Passive 30% snare with Arcane damage
(any 2nd and 3rd passives)
DH
Grenades + Stun Grenades = Spammable AoE damage with 25% stun chance
Impale + Impact = Singletarget damage with 65% stun chance
Cluster Arrows + Dazzling Arrow = AoE damage with 55% stun chance
Marked for Death + Death Toll = +12% enemy damage taken, 1% Life Tap
Caltrops + Hooked Spines = 80% AoE snare
Vault + Rattling Roll = Escape ability with knockback and stun
Numbing Traps - -25% damage debuff from traps
Thrill of the Hunt - Immobilizes 1 enemy every 10 sec.
(any 3rd passive)
If all debuffs stacked, that party of 4 could inflict an enemy with up to -20% * -25% * -20% * -25% = -64% damage dealt and +20% +20% +20% +12% = +72% damage taken.
Honestly, decreasing incoming damage by 2/3 seems a little too strong, and makes me wonder if multiple "enemy damage debuffs" will not stack.
1) The top of the Character Sheet should show HP and Mana/AP/Spirit/etc, in the same section that displays Level and XP.
2) The "Armor and Resistances" section should be togglable between raw numbers and percents. So if 100 Armor gives you 20% physical damage reduction, you could toggle the display between "100" and "20%". This would be especially valuable for magical resistances. I don't know what 180 fire resist means, but I do know what 75% fire resist means.
3) The section where it shows "Basic Attack: 3.46 Damage Per Second" should be able to display any ability that you have. I don't care how much DPS my Wizard's melee attack does, but I do care how much her Arcane Orb does.
4) The Character Details should display every stat possible. All those little things like thorns damage, light radius, faster hit recovery, "damage reduced by X", "X increased EXP from kills", any affix that can spawn on an item needs to be included on the Character Details.
5) All of the achievements (APM, monsters killed, EXP per minute, etc) can go on the Achievements page. They don't belong on the Character Sheet.
8
Why doesn't he just quit playing?
***
A lot of the post is completely valid suggestions that most players would agree with (better minibosses, more meaningful low level loot, better skill damage display) but it's worded in a super-negative, almost whiny manner.
Some of it is hilariously unrealistic. For example, calling the game a failure because it's not 100% cheat- and bot-free is absurd. No computer system is 100% secure, especially not multiplayer games. Worse yet, the OP implies that anyone who has over a billion gold is a scammer or botter, and that's just stupid. A billion gold is worth at most $40 USD, there are people who have spent hundreds of $ just on the Hearthstone Beta, I'm sure the majority of multi-billion-gold spenders are real money spenders.
1
* Making trading "painful" (difficult and time consuming) introduces the possibility that you will get loot faster by playing self-found and not trading at all. This is a good thing.
* No matter how difficult trading is, there will always exist a certain gear level where trading is more efficient than self-found. However, it is possible that most players are optimal, or near-optimal with self-found play. (for example - nearly all "casual" Diablo 2 players played self-found or very close to self-found)
* In an "efficient trading" universe, you only get a 15% incremental value from sharing free items among a trusted social circle - the difference between AH tax and no AH tax. Yet you get 1000% or more value from selling items on the AH, compared to playing self-found. This creates a strong disincentive to share items with your friends. In D2 if my RL friend found an item that's godly for my Sorc (and he doesn't have a Sorc), he would give me the item for free. (and vice versa if I found something for his Zon) In D3 if he found a comparable item, he would look on the RMAH and see that it's $100, and there's no way he'd give me the item for free.
* In a "painful trading" universe, you get an extremely high incremental value from freely sharing items. If a group of 6 friends shares free items, each friend has access to a pool of items that's 6x as large as self-found. (+500%) This is a much larger efficiency benefit than barter-style trading (which is inefficient and vulnerable to mistrades and/or scamming). Therefore, everyone has an incentive to share, and having trustworthy friends is worth major in-game benefits.
19
I've heard a lot of people argue that "barter trade is really painful" and therefore it is a mistake to remove the AH's. I beg to differ.
To put it simply, trade needs to be painful or else itemization will suck. It doesn't matter what they do with Loot 2.0, the AH removal is actually the most important part. And here's why:
-----
*** THE MATH ***
The simple mathematical fact is that AH's dramatically skew itemization. Let's assume there are 2 versions of the game with identical itemization: self-found and AH:
*Self-Found*: I find an "awesome" item every 20 hours of gameplay. However, 80% of the time, it's designed for a different class or spec. So I equip one "awesome" item after 100 hours of gameplay. Once I have one slot occupied by an "awesome" item, the next one that drops has a 1/12 chance of being a sidegrade. After two slots, each item has a 2/12 chance of being a sidegrade, etc.
Mathematically speaking, it will take me an average of 3,723 hours to find an "awesome" item in every slot.
*GAH*: I find an "awesome" item every 20 hours of gameplay. 80% of the time it's designed for a different class or spec, so I sell it on the AH and get 85% of the Gold required to purchase an equally awesome item. Better yet, I know exactly which item slot needs the upgrade. Even if I have terrible luck and never find a usable item in my life, on average I only need to play for 23.5 hours to earn enough Gold to purchase an "awesome" item.
Mathematically speaking, it will take me 306 hours to earn enough Gold to purchase an "awesome" item in every slot.
Using the GAH decreases the time needed to gear out your character by a factor of 12! Remember that this is a paper napkin estimate, completely ignoring the increase in kill speed and MF/GF for the GAH user.
If itemization was tuned to be "reasonable" for self-found characters, an AH user would have every item BiS after 2 weeks and could never get another upgrade again. In order to prevent this, Blizzard has to intentionally tune itemization to be extremely slow. (ie 3700+ hours to get all-BiS, the real number is probably even higher)
This is the reason why itemization is so bad on PC.
***
There are other reasons why the AH is so bad for itemization. One reason is that the AH is equally efficient regardless of your gear/wealth level. A player with 500k to his name can buy a whole bunch of 50k items just as easily as a player with 2B can buy a bunch of 200M items. This causes three harmful effects:
- There is no gear level at which AH'ing is not optimal (by an order of magnitude or more). D3 players are AH dependent from "cradle to grave".
- There is no change in optimal behavior from "poor" to "rich", therefore no sense of progression for the player.
- Since it is easy to turn items into gold, players sell all their items and don't just drop them on the ground. Think about how often you saw people give away stuff for free in D2, and compare to how often it happens in D3.
This is completely different from a barter economy. Bartering requires time and effort, and is highly inefficient - this is exactly why it is good for the game:- Bartering takes a large time investment. At a poor gear level, you will get more items playing the game rather than hanging out in trade chat. Only high-value items are worth the time and effort required to barter them.
- Therefore, the optimal behavior changes dramatically when going from a "poor" account (never barter) to a "rich" account (frequent barter). This gives a sense of progression.
- Bartering requires a huge amount of game knowledge. Therefore, the "real money player" does not have an insurmountable advantage over "in game players", unlike with GAH/RMAH.
- Bartering is a huge pain in the ass and a lot of players would rather play the game self-found. This is a good thing if you believe that videogames should be about gameplay.
- The players who don't barter because it's too much hassle give away their items for free. This feels really good for the newbies in their games and generally helps the sense of "friendliness" and "community".
So anyone who thinks that Blizzard will introduce another "efficient" method of trading, I beg to differ. They may put in trade channels and game names, but they will remain inefficient, spammy, and painful - just like D2. It's not a problem, it's intentional.Trade needs to be painful. It's the best way to improve the game.
2
What D3 needs is the opposite of super awesome items that appeal to everybody. What D3 needs is items that are more specialized and appeal to a very narrow niche.
As long as everyone wants exactly the same gear, everyone will compete for the same few stats. A relatively small difference in stats leads to an immense difference in sell price - just look at the sale prices for any Legendary. Even more importantly, there is nothing interesting you can do with gear. Unlike D2, you can't stack gear and turn an underpowered variant build into a decent farming build, or turn your class into a totally different class.
The best thing for Blizzard to do in an expansion pack would be to greatly nerf stats that benefit everyone (Primary stat, ASPD, CHC, CDB) and buff or add new stats that benefit specific skills, builds, or playstyles. (For example, "+% to Summoned Creature Damage", "+% to Single Target Melee Attacks", "+% to Bleed Damage", "+% to Damage over Time Spells", "+% to Ground Targeted Spells", "+% Damage to Enemies 30 yards or further", "+% Proc Damage", "+% Damage vs. Stunned")
1
http://us.battle.net...ic/7789719213#1
=========================
Diablo 3 is a good game that has the potential to be great. The famous "Complete Diablo Fix" thread had a lot of suggestions, but it was written from a Diablo 2-centered worldview. For reference,
http://eu.battle.net...ic/6444144744#1
I was wondering: what would Diablo 3 be like if it fully embraced its nature as a new game separate from Diablo 2? The following are my rather long ideas.
====================
TL,DR summary:
In order from smallest to largest game mechanic changes,
====================
1) Challenge players to compete against one another in PvE:
Competitive PvE has been a part of RPG culture for decades - in fact, long before videogames existed. Gygax's Tower. Moria/Angband. Final Fantasy Secret Bosses. Diablo 2 Ladder. World First C'Thun/Illidan/Heroic Lich King/Heroic Sha.
Diablo 3 has absolutely no mechanics for PvE competition. Inferno was beaten shortly after the game was released. Posting "4 MILLION DPS!!!!" videos on YouTube gets old fast. There is no ladder, no way for the most dedicated players to flaunt their insanity. Yet there is no reason for this to be the case. D3 could be an excellent competitive PvE game, and here's how:
Ladder: Not one, but many.
The argument against Diablo 3 ladders was that D3 loot is supposed to be "permanent", and having ladder seasons would make loot non-permanent. I will go into detail later on why permanent loot is a bad idea. The fact is, ladder was a very easy way for players to show off their insane competitiveness. Give players a choice between multiple different ladders with different objectives.
Ladders could be designed to be more like a leaderboard (ie, WoW Challenge Leaderboards) that shows elapsed time down to the millisecond.
- Paragon Ladder, Unlimited: Shortest real time from Level 1 to 60(100). Can freely group and trade including with non-ladder players.
- Paragon Ladder, Solo: Shortest in-game time from Level 1 to 60(100). Cannot group with other players but can exchange items from the Stash/AH.
- Short Ladder, Unlimited: Shortest real time from Level 1 to 60. Can freely group and trade including with non-ladder players.
- Short Ladder, Solo: Shortest in-game time from Level 1 to 60. Cannot group with other players but can exchange items from the Stash/AH.
- Short Ladder, Ironman: Shortest in-game time from Level 1 to 60. Cannot group with other players. Cannot take items from the Stash/AH. Stuck on MP10.
- Slayer Ladder, Solo: Shortest in-game time from Level 1 to beating Inferno Diablo on MP10. Cannot group with other players but can exchange items from the Stash/AH.
- Slayer Ladder, Ironman: Shortest in-game time from Level 1 to beating Inferno Diablo on MP10. Cannot group with other players. Cannot take items from the Stash/AH. Stuck on MP10.
- Slayer Ladder, Fixed Build: Shortest real time from Level 1 to beating Inferno Diablo on MP10. Once a skill is learned it cannot be unlearned, unless the character is transferred off-Ladder. Once a skill rune is learned it cannot be unlearned, unless the character is transferred off-Ladder.[/li]Items from restricted ladder (Ironman) should be transferrable to non-ladder characters (but not vice versa).
Scenarios: Faster than ladders.A lot of us don't have the free time to compete in ladders. We should have an alternative means to compete. Scenarios would provide those alternatives.
Each Scenario would have its own Scoring system allowing players to score points for impressive performances. Your name would show up on a leaderboard just like any Flash or iPhone game. For example, "I'm #16,234 worldwide on the Reign of Fire survival!"
- Dungeon Crawl, Random: An ordinary random dungeon (ie, Caverns of the Betrayer) with very high density of creatures and elites. Players would score points for damage dealt, killing sprees, etc. At the end of the scenario players would fight a boss and gain points based on how quickly they kill it.
- Dungeon Crawl, Designed: These scenarios would have be hand-crafted levels, somewhat like a D3 version of Halo "Spartan Ops". Point scoring works as above. Because they are non-random they would be more competitive, but would have to drop less loot. (or players would learn to farm them)
- Dungeon Survival, Random: Players are confined in a randomly picked area (ie, Skeleton King's Throne) and are faced with a never-ending spawn of random creatures and elites. Monster power increases by 1 with each round of spawns, and can increase to infinite values. Points are scored for every second alive, and also for damage dealt and elites killed.
- Dungeon Survival, Designed: Same as above but non-random.
- Speed Run, Random: A random dungeon populated with high difficulty creatures/elites, with a goal at the end. Players would be scored based on shortest time (down to the millisecond) to complete the speedrun. Some areas could be gated to force players to actually kill stuff instead of just running.
- Speed Run, Designed: Same as above but non-random.
Scenario loot would be different from regular loot in that you wouldn't loot during the actual scenario (it would slow down your times). Instead, you get a certain amount of loot in a box at the end of the Scenario. The loot should be somewhat less efficient than plain farming. The idea is to give players something to do that gives loot but isn't pure farming.====================
2) Make Nightmare and Hell relevant again.
A large number of Diablo 2 items and Diablo 2 builds were never intended to actually compete in the endgame (Hell Baal, Key Farming, and Ubers). Instead you had teleport builds that could clear Nightmare Andy/Mephy/Baal over and over for specific low level drops (SoJ, etc.) and builds highly optimized for farming Hell Countess or Hell Mephy. This is because low level stuff mattered.
Low level stuff doesn't matter in D3, largely because there is no reason to re-level a fresh character. This is a shame because the leveling process in D2 was a big part of the fun!
Frequently resetting ladders would encourage players to actually level new characters at a regular pace. In order to further emphasize lower-level items and builds:
- Crank up the drop rate of low level Legendaries and Sets.
- Give low level Legendaries and Sets more unique affixes.
- Introduce mechanics that allow players to "upgrade" items, like Cubing Exceptionals into Elites.
- Introduce recipes, quests, and/or scenarios that require farming of large masses of low level items. Burning SoJs for Uber Diablo would be a primitive example.
- After PvP is implemented, implement Twink Brackets and "Turn off EXP Gain". We'll soon find out what is the Strongest Possible Level 20 (or w/e).
====================3) Diversify loot, eliminate the Quadrafecta.
Primary Stat. %Attack Speed. %Crit Chance. %Crit Damage Bonus.
The Quadrafecta absolutely dominates D3 gearing because there is no other way to improve DPS.
Diablo 2 wasn't exactly perfect in this regard - most classes really had a Trifecta that looked like this:
- Attackspeed or Castspeed, up to breakpoint.
- Damage: For physical this was weapon damage + primary attribute, for casters it was +Skills
- Buffs/debuffs: "-20% to enemy resistance", "Conviction Aura", "Amplify Damage Proc", etc.
However, D2 had the advantage of having different stats appeal to different players. An Amplify damage proc was amazing for a Bowazon but useless for a Lightning Sorc. Vice versa for +lightning skills.Diablo 3's damage stats have one very interesting mechanic that D2 didn't, which is the multiplier effect of %CRIT and %CDB. %Crit doesn't do much good without %CDB. %CDB does absolutely no good without %Crit. I like this mechanic because it encourages players to commit to stacking DPS stats. Instead of removing Crit and CDB, we should add more stats so that we have a choice.
A few principles should be observed for the new damage stats:
- Don't let too many damage stats spawn on the same piece. If a Hexafecta item exists, it will eventually become the "gold standard" because it is the best possible item regardless of your build. Multiplicative damage stats should be limited in overlap, just like how a weapon cannot spawn with +200-600 Arcane Damage and +200-600 Fire Damage at the same time.
- Damage stats should be a choice, not an "all of the above". Alternative non-crit DPS stats should NOT crit, and should not work well with crit-heavy builds.
- Damage stats should be supported by passives and runes. Weapon Mastery, Critical Mass and APOC strongly favor Crit builds. In an expansion pack, new passives and skills should be designed around the new non-Crit DPS stats.
I think the following stats could be balanced to be similar in power to Crit and CDB, without directly stacking with Crit:- % Inflict Deep Wounds: Bleed already exists in game but is weak. Change it to a Deep Wounds that deals a percent of weapon damage.
- +% Bleed Damage: This modifier would improve the effectiveness of Deep Wounds as well as any existing Bleed procs and skills (Rend, etc).
- +% On-Hit Proc Damage: This modifier would improve the effectiveness of everything from Hellfire Rings to the skeletons summoned by Wailing Host. It would also increase player abilities such as the Magic Weapon rune that says "Chance to arc lightning for 10% of weapon damage."
- % Proc Effect on Hit: There should be enough pieces of gear with on-hit effects so that a player stacking Procs and +% Proc Damage could deal the majority of his damage with just procs. Procs should not be able to crit.
- +% Damage vs Demon/Undead/Beast/Human: Make this affix a lot stronger, but make it stack non-multiplicatively with %CDB. So +100% Damage vs Demon and +100% CDB would only equal 3x base damage, not 4x.
- +% Damage vs Stunned/Frozen/Feared/Confused: Make this affix very strong for CC-heavy builds but make it stack non-multiplicatively with %CDB. So +100% Damage vs Frozen and +100% CDB would only equal 3x base damage, not 4x.
====================4) Design "loot sinks" to get rid of loot accumulation.
Everyone knows that D3 loot feels extremely weak compared to loot found on the AH.
This has nothing to do with drop rates or itemization mechanics. Instead, it's all about the durability of loot. Namely, good loot is indestructable. A sufficiently powerful item will exchange hands many, many times and never be vendored or sharded.
Therefore, any newly dropped piece of loot has to compete with every other piece of loot dropped since Diablo 3 was released. Any time Blizzard buffs loot stats and drop rates, the newly dropped loot feels stronger only for a short time until it becomes commonplace. If every piece of loot was godlike for 6 months, then every piece of loot would have to compete with 6 months' worth of equally godlike loot.
The one and only way around this is some form of permanent loot destruction. I would suggest taking a cue from Diablo 2 and introducing loot destruction through ladder competition. D2 took the primitive approach of doing a Reset every once in a while (destroying EVERYONE's characters and loot on Ladder). I would take the gentler approach of "optional" loot destruction:
- Sealed Stash Ladder, Pennant Race: Players race from level 1 to 60(100) on permanent MP10. Upon character creation, loot may be transferred from your main stash to a "Sealed Stash". Any loot collected within a Sealed Stash game CANNOT be transferred to any other characters, it is effectively Soulbound.
- At the end of each Sealed Stash season, the top X% players recieve a title, a portrait, and a special item that gives a bonus you cannot get anywhere else in the game. For example, a unique Charm that gives +10% MF/GF and can exceed the Paragon MF/GF cap.
====================5) Embrace the action in ARPG.
When D3 was first announced, I recall Blizzard using an awful lot of action game terms to describe the gameplay. The names Zelda, God of War, and Ninja Gaiden were thrown around in several interviews. Right after the first Monk unveil, I imagined running around blocking fireballs and chaining mouse clicks into ridiculous Limit Break type combos.
None of that ever happened. The ability of melee characters to block incoming projectiles was rapidly removed from the game. Following this, melee became much weaker than ranged due to the ease of kiting. In response, Blizzard increased the size of player hitboxes and made it much harder to avoid enemy attacks with movement. This was a huge disappointment.
I still think that Diablo 3 would be a lot more fun if it played more like a true action game. For those who think that Blizzard servers are too slow to run an action game: Starcraft 2 is a lot faster paced (some would say too fast) than Brood War and it is online-only and doesn't lag much.
Melee abilities should work more like a fighting game, with a few basic melee classifications.
- Jabs: Jabs would deal low damage but interrupt fierce and stagger attacks. This mechanic could include Fists of Thunder, Frenzy, Regular Skeleton and Demon hits.
- Fierce: Fierce attacks would deal tons of damage and break Guard, but can be interrupted or run away from. This mechanic could include Wave of Light, Hammer of the Ancients, "overhead smash" slow monster hits.
- Stagger: Stagger attacks have less attackspeed and damage than Fierce attacks, but can inflict snares, interrupt Fierce attacks and wear down Guard. This mechanic could include Crippling Wave, Cleave, and knockback/snare monsters.
- Guard: Guard abilities would allow players to deflect ranged attacks and melee jabs, but remain vulnerable to fierce, stagger and grapple attacks. This mechanic could include Ignore Pain, Shield Skeletons, Shielding elites, etc.
- Counter: A Counter ability can interrupt an enemy attack and deal massive damage/stun, but is useless if not used at the right timing. This mechanic could be used for Exploding Palm - its base damage is weak but it triggers the explosion immediately if used to counter a Fierce attack.
Ranged characters should be vulnerable because they can't Guard/Counter, not because they inherently take more damage.- Bullet Hell: Creatures should throw more projectiles and more melee attacks, but players should have a very small hitbox so they can dodge.
- DPS Off: Creatures should have abilities that counter or reflect player projectiles, but with a notable "telegraph" so you can anticipate it and stop attacking.
- Stutter Step: Ranged classes should have some abilities and/or passives that actually reward continuous movement over standing still. For example, a runed Acid Cloud that "saves up" damage stacks over ~3 seconds so that casting it every 3sec will deal almost as much damage as spamming, but with much lower mana cost.
Enemies need to have more interesting behavior:- Random Monster Onslaughts: Like the skeletons falling from the ceiling in the Keep Depths, and Winged Moloks descending in flocks throughout A3. Make these encounters fancier, with a wider variety of attacking monsters.
- Random Monster Patterns: When trash monsters swarm you, have them come from all directions. Think of it like a "bullet hell" game rather than a traditional RPG. Some parts of Act 4 are fairly good at this. Do it in more Acts.
- Special Monster Behaviors: Stuff like Goatmen beating on drums to become huge, it's fun and it changes the pace.
- Traps that don't suck: Traps give a lot of flavor to Act 1 but honestly they are mostly unfun. The Act 3 fire grates are a random and crappy way to die. Make traps more entertaining to combat. Throw fires and lasers and sound orbs and plague pools at us, then give us a Resplendent Chest for surviving the traps.
- Using Monster Abilities against them: What if you could dodge a Dark Berserker's smash and have it kill off one of the Dogs around him? That would be fun.
Random elite pack behavior could be more varied:- Make the existing SuperUniques much stronger and more lootable, much like the Keywardens already are.
- Give them "AQ40/BWD" behavior where killing one gives the remaining elites more affixes.
- Have some of them change behavior after reaching a certain health %.
- Have some of them occur in a chain, where killing the first group of Elites automatically spawns a second pack.
Encourage players to actually fight storyline bosses. Better yet, encourage us to stay in game after killing a boss:1
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5836874790#1
===========
Leveling multiple characters was a major part of the Diablo 2 gameplay experience. Most people will point to the fact that you couldn't re-spec without starting a new toon. However, leveling had tons of benefits totally unrelated to spec change. For each new character you rushed from Normal to Hell, you gained 3x Imbues, "add sockets", and vanity names. In addition, you had a chance to earn reasonably good items in the Act Boss first-kill drops (very high % Unique) and the Hellforge Rune drop. For all of the above reasons, everyone made tons of characters all the time. There was an entire skill in D2 (Enchant) that existed just to help rushing toons.
It seems that leveling new characters was intended to be a major part of D3 as well. There are more low level Legendaries than level 60 legendaries in the game. Blue posts have discussed multiple mechanics introduced to allow "twinking" of new characters. High-level Gems in low-level items, "reduced level requirement" and "experience on kill" gear, and leveling Legendaries all exist to speed leveling. There are even achievements for leveling multiples of each character. And Normal, Nightmare and Hell difficulties are very well balanced with a smooth difficulty curve.
Yet the leveling process in D3 feels dramatically less rewarding than in D2. I believe it is the sum of several factors, listed from most to least important (in my opinion):
1) No tangible perks for having multiples of the same character. In D2, not only do I get to try a different character spec, I get a full set of Imbues, Sockets, and vanity names. (which cannot be obtained in any way other than leveling new characters) In D3 all I get is an achievement.
2) Lack of Nephalem Valor during leveling. When you're used to seeing fountains of blue and yellow spurt out of every Elite kill, going back to one or two blues per pack feels like "culture shock". It is especially painful when you are level 58 and clearing Hell Act 3, a zone that many undergeared 60s farm for loot (with NV). Even though you're killing the same mobs and the same bosses, at level 58 you get far less loot.
3) Lack of first-kill bonuses on Act bosses in NM and Hell. I believe there was a blue post addressing this earlier, but I can't find it. Fixing this issue would be nice, but I feel like it is a minor quibble compared to #1 and #2.
4) Lack of ladder resets. Resets wouldn't work with D3's game mechanics of course.
=====
I think the leveling process would be dramatically better if:
1) New characters gained some limited-use abilities.
Stamping your name on an item D2-style would be a good start. It would also be very cool if there was some kind of "D3 Imbue". It might be "crafting a class-specific item with an affix of your choice", or re-rolling affixes on items you already have, or something else entirely.
2) Nephalem Valor starts at level 30.
No one wants to be stuck using Magic Missile and Ray of Frost at level 6 because you just killed two elite packs and you don't want to lose your stacks. However, considering that you get all basic class skills by level 30 it is entirely reasonable to have NV start at level 30.
Plus, you still lose all NV stacks when changing Acts, or logging off, so you have plenty of opportunities to change your skill build.
3) Bring back Act Boss first-kill rewards in NM/Hell
This one is obvious, and easy.
=========
It would be ideal to have things balanced where leveling multiple characters of the same class is viable, but not mandatory (as in pre-respec D2). In a world with free re-specs, character-rushing for Imbues and Runes is not necessarily better or worse than regular Hell runs, it is just another way to get loot in addition to Baal, Pindle, Chaos, Meph, Pit etc. I think it would be ideal if D3 character leveling was balanced similarly.
2
Add on the fact that you can cast Hydra tactically - for example, casting it around a wall so it can hit a boss but the boss cannot hit you - and it is really not bad.
The concept of Hydra is the same in D1, D2, and D3. It doesn't do a whole lot of damage per second, but it does the damage safely, and continues to deal damage even if you are running around, stunned, or otherwise unable to cast.
2
Wizard
Conflagration - fire damage causes a +10% damage taken debuff x 3sec.
Paralysis - lightning damage causes a 5% chance to stun for 3sec.
Temporal Flux - Arcane damage snares by 30% for 3sec.
WD
Bad Medicine - Poison damage causes a -20% damage dealt debuff x3sec.
Monk
Resolve - Damage you deal reduces enemy damage by 25% for 2.5sec.
Guiding Light - When you heal another player, you and the other player both gain +16% damage for 15sec.
DH
Thrill of the Hunt - Every 10sec your next bow attack will immobilize for 3sec.
Numbing Traps - Traps cause -25% damage debuff for 3sec.
Monk Resolve and WD Bad Medicine are actually stronger debuffs than the majority of the active skills in game. If multiple -%damage debuffs stack (There's no guarantee they will - they could be like Snares where only the strongest one applies) then having a monk and WD with those passives seems almost mandatory to Inferno difficulty.
============
That said, we could have something like:
Monk:
Crippling Wave + Concussion = 30% snare, -20% enemy attackspeed, -20% enemy damage
Cyclone Strike + Soothing Breeze = AoE damage that heals the party
Breath of Heaven + Blazing Wrath = AoE heal + 15% party damage
Serenity + Tranquility = AoE invulnerability that breaks all snares and CCs
Mantra of Evasion + Hard Target = +15% party dodge, +20% party armor
(Any 6th skill)
Resolve = Passive -25% enemy damage debuff
Guiding Light = +16% party damage after heal
(Any 3rd passive)
WD:
Poison Darts + Snake to the Face = Stun proc for singletarget DPS
Acid Cloud + Acid Rain = Large AoE poison damage for poison debuff.
Soul Harvest + Languish = AoE 60% snare and self-buff
Zombie Dogs + Rabid Dogs = more poison debuffs
Hex + Jinx = hexed targets take +20% damage
Big Bad Voodoo + Ghost Trance = +20% party attack/movespeed, AoE party heal
Bad Medicine = Passive -20% enemy damage debuff
(any 2nd and 3rd passives)
Wizard
Magic Missile + Charged Blast = Single target damage, applies 30% snare passive
Disintegrate + Convergence = Large-AoE arcane damage, applies 30% snare passive
Frost Nova + Bone Chill = AoE freeze with +20% enemy damage taken
Wave of Force + Impactful Wave = AoE knockback and stun
Slow Time + Time Warp = -20% enemy attackspeed, 30% snare, +20% enemy damage taken
(Any armor ability)
Temporal Flux = Passive 30% snare with Arcane damage
(any 2nd and 3rd passives)
DH
Grenades + Stun Grenades = Spammable AoE damage with 25% stun chance
Impale + Impact = Singletarget damage with 65% stun chance
Cluster Arrows + Dazzling Arrow = AoE damage with 55% stun chance
Marked for Death + Death Toll = +12% enemy damage taken, 1% Life Tap
Caltrops + Hooked Spines = 80% AoE snare
Vault + Rattling Roll = Escape ability with knockback and stun
Numbing Traps - -25% damage debuff from traps
Thrill of the Hunt - Immobilizes 1 enemy every 10 sec.
(any 3rd passive)
If all debuffs stacked, that party of 4 could inflict an enemy with up to -20% * -25% * -20% * -25% = -64% damage dealt and +20% +20% +20% +12% = +72% damage taken.
Honestly, decreasing incoming damage by 2/3 seems a little too strong, and makes me wonder if multiple "enemy damage debuffs" will not stack.
1
2) The "Armor and Resistances" section should be togglable between raw numbers and percents. So if 100 Armor gives you 20% physical damage reduction, you could toggle the display between "100" and "20%". This would be especially valuable for magical resistances. I don't know what 180 fire resist means, but I do know what 75% fire resist means.
3) The section where it shows "Basic Attack: 3.46 Damage Per Second" should be able to display any ability that you have. I don't care how much DPS my Wizard's melee attack does, but I do care how much her Arcane Orb does.
4) The Character Details should display every stat possible. All those little things like thorns damage, light radius, faster hit recovery, "damage reduced by X", "X increased EXP from kills", any affix that can spawn on an item needs to be included on the Character Details.
5) All of the achievements (APM, monsters killed, EXP per minute, etc) can go on the Achievements page. They don't belong on the Character Sheet.