DiabloFans

Quote from FoxBatD2

Where is the downvote button?

We have enough marginally intelligent critiques of these points that your vague non-solutions do not deserve their own thread.

You made an excellent point. However the past experience told me making topics longer than 200 words was not a great idea.

Maybe you would be one of those exceptions?

Diablo 3 Analysis

http://www.diablofans.com/topic/58587-diablo-3-analysis-article/page__view__findpost__p__970808

Diablo 3 Items

http://www.diablofans.com/topic/43405-better-to-farm-gold-than-items/page__view__findpost__p__886435

I value the efforts that designer team from Blizzard is making. It certainly is a step forward.

But:


1) Us - AH - Game

AH is still the WALL that stands between us and the game.

How about knocking it down?



2) Clones & Mirrors

We are truly 'equal', we share the same skills, same runes, and luckily - the same Auction House.

How about more character customization, real customization - the one of the 21st century.



3) Why play again?

Would we (developer included) want to level up our Wiz/Barb/DH again for the 2nd time, using the prestige loots we found and feel excited about it, dreaming about it all day long?

Would we want to kill the Diablo for the 1000th time and looking for the loot of our dreams? Or go through the entire Act 3 over and over?

It is only a click away from our dream loot. Nothing is worth well anymore, it is only a matter of stats, you can be lucky to find a Windforce, only to find out it is not worth keeping even for your follower.



Questions:


- Development Team

How much are your bosses (Activision-Blizzard) willing to let you go without losing your job?


- Board members Activision-Blizzard

How far are you willing to sacrifice your player's experience to boost your quarterly financial results?


- Us

How long can we tolerant this?

^'The real inflation'

I remember before the game was released, Blizzard said the PVP patch would be released shortly after the game release.

I guess missing the 'TM' didn't help, and not many people care about to comment any more.

Hype moves on, to other games.

Quote from shamental

Y U USE TOO MANY " "

Taking them ALL out now, thanks.

Quote from AmirWINS

First comment , useless kid, second comment, doesn't read that I said set / legendaries only

-___-'

Hmm, did I say 'rare' items only, remember they are working out the legendary buff right now.

Understand how filter works in AH and their combination is the key, don't simply filter the main stats or AR when pricing.

Try filter stats such as MF%, GF% and Crit Hit%, Crit Damage% along with the stats and resistance.

It's gonna be next to impossible to know I reckon.

Considering rarity:

Perfect rolled Amulet will be the most expansive item in game,

Considering the demand and exposure (weapons are easier to filter and compare than amulet):

Highest DPS weapon with perfect stats / socket will be the most expansive item in game.

Offline mode would be a great improvement.

I would pay extra for that.

I felt it is tough to please everybody.

On one hand, introducing reduce level requirement on all items, reduces the work load for Blizzard, and pleases players who want to feel that they 'break' the game.

On the other hand, this renders low level legendaries in worse shape than they could have been. Limit the fun even futher.

I couldn't think of a solution other than switching the goal. I would aim to get the best helm with highest crit and stats with socket, or a 1 hander with 900 life on hit and perfect stats with socket.

You are welcome to check it out.

http://www.diablofans.com/topic/58587-diablo-3-analysis-article/

As much as I would like to have no personal bias, I felt it is next to impossible. It to some extend has to be a projection from my personal experience and background.

I'm was a hardcore Starcraft -Broodwar, Diablo 2, Starcraft 2 gamer, before Diablo 3. Off-topic: I am looking for an easy going yet hardcore Starcraft 2 practice partner, preferable Zerg at Diamond level or above.

Topics:

1. Fall of Starcraft Ghost, Resurrection of Diablo
2. Income & Expense – Gold doesn’t fall from the sky.
3. The introduction of Regional Auction House & Regional Real Money Auction House
4. Seeking balance – Fun, Profit
5. Summary of Diablo 3 design Philosophy and suggestions

1) Fall of Starcraft Ghost, Resurrection of Diablo


The Ghost had fallen.

You may very well remember Nova (from Starcraft Ghost) if I dig around, I’m sure I can come up with the flyers with her avatar from my old Warcraft 3 and World of Warcraft boxes. You may as well remember years of hypes and development, and the shock hearing the project’s suspension. Was it the game graphics outdated, no prior experience in FPS, or the noble reason “not releasing a game that is not ready or fun”? What had forced Blizzard gave up ghost?

When the idea was born, famous Starcraft and its epic expansion Broodwar was highly anticipated. The game sold out more than 10 million copies (over years), it was an epic success.

Developers naturally drew to the Starcraft and would like to add value to the same RTS title. Everything was on track, Warcraft 3 brought up customizable maps to a new level, famous customized games, such as DotA, Tower Defense were taking the lead and quickly become the most popular among fans. While as good as it seemed, game development companies, even as successful as Blizzard, were still under heaps of pressure. Blizzard as a company was seeking to maintain its sustainable, steady income. They prefer their pay check to deliver on time and keep rolling; instead of getting fired due to a game released not hitting the sales target. The company needs to minimize the risk.

Blizzard soon found the cure, - MMORPG. A game which we pay subscription monthly, in a similar fashion as our phone bills and had forever changed the entire gaming industry. Blizzard, like many other game developers had not only found a solution to secure their income, but also to some degree, eliminated piracy, thus in return, boosted sales.

The new model benefitted both parties in its prime. Players like us, generally have a better gaming experience being served online, while the developers worked hard to keep the game updated and players entertained. The relationships with the customers were well built under this model, thanks to the in-game support (such as GM), which have kept conversation going both ways and contributed to overall gaming quality. Take World of Warcraft for example, it had three expansions and countless major patches; it had arguably worked in favor of the players. There is another expansion hitting the market later this year.

As the result, World of Warcraft has born, Starcraft Ghost had to go. Blizzard will not head back to the old route and bet their jobs solely on initial sales.

Resurrection of Diablo

Many years have passed, since the mortals witnessed the world stone shattered into pieces and the prime evils banished back to hell. In the summer of 2008, Activision Blizzard Entertainment, the company who owns “Starcraft”, “Warcraft”, “World of Warcraft” and their numerous expansions and sequels, officially reviewed the development of “Diablo 3”.

Why the old way again, after all these years?

Short answer would be - No way in hell. Diablo 3 is not a traditional offline single, online / LAN co-op game like Diablo 2 or a competitive real time strategy game such as Warcraft or Starcraft.

Diablo 3 has no offline component what so ever; the game is completely built and developed for online experience. When the news first hit the audience, we can understand the persuasions Blizzard had gone through to mitigate frustrations of their customers. This online-only model didn’t come without sacrifices.

Despite the could-have-been-better launch on 15-05-2012, hitting Ctrl + V and Enter for almost 2 hours before I could log in, the game experience went well, the lag is there, but trivial for me to notice.
Yes, the auth servers could have been improved before launch, the error 37 should probably been handled in a different manner; error 3007 keeps disconnecting players off, and joining general chat may not help in some situations.

Given the pressure from millions of clients since Tuesday 15-05-2012, Diablo 3 game server did a decent job. Instead of processing queries gathered from these game clients every definite second traditionally, such as cast fireball in World of Warcraft, the game server had tanked a lot more. Spamable skills have many more targets; more loots to generate. On top of these, the game servers need to figure out the collision alone with path finding in a very limited time frame. You may remember back in World of Warcraft, monsters could group in pact; they could sit on top of each other. In Diablo 3, they would get stuck. I am sure there were many more technical challenges Blizzard was facing, that we were unaware of.

So why Blizzard went through so much trouble to bring a“should-been-easily-developed offline single play, co-op online game, to an always-online game?

I felt the key to this question cannot be easily answered without understanding further of the system.


2) Income & Expense - Gold doesn’t fall from the sky.



Diablo 3 is a game of treasure hunting. Everything such as skills, events, and soon-to-come PVP arena built upon loot. Thus it is important to find out how these spoils of war generated.

Dreaming gold could fall from the sky? Nope, not even in a game. Loots, such as equipments, potions, gems or gold, are mostly, if not only, after recent patches, obtainable through monster hunting.

I tried to categorize loot in Diablo 3 into the following aspects:

Character: Equipment – Weapon, Off-hand, Armor
Combat: Consumables – Health Potions, Shrines (Frenzy, Fortune, Protection)
Crafts: Gems, Blacksmith formulas, Crafting materials
Gold: Purchase, Repair, Craft, Customize character appearance.

Character related loots make offer killing power, defense and mobility, treasure hunt. Combat related loot offer killing power or defense, treasure hunt. Craft and Gold serve very similar purpose.

More importantly, loots in general always work towards speeding the rate of acquiring the next possible better loots.

Ideal case:

Assumptions: Identical – class, skills, follower, defense, gold and magic find %, area of playing, ideal drop rate. No trade allowed.

Jimmy - 80000 DPS
Tom - 20000 DPS

Should Jimmy always have a better rate of finding the next possible better item?

Very unlikely.

Yes, Jimmy hunts at 4 x rates as Tom, thus will spawn more loots in the same time frame. Something we are missing here, to have 4 times the killing power, Jimmy must ideally 4 times as well geared compared to Tom. Thus the possibility of finding an “upgrade” for Jimmy will not be so much more promising compared to Tom.

Considering the original patch 1.03, in inferno Act1
Item ilvl61 drops roughly 17.7%
Item ilvl63 drops roughly 2.0%

More assumptions: No stats are on the equipments, the drop rate of chest piece is 3%, Jimmy wears ilvl62 chest armor, Tom wears an ilvl60 chest armor

Chance of Jimmy finding an upgrade for his chest piece:
2.0% x 3% = 0.06%

Chance of Tom finding an upgrade for his chest piece:
17.7% x 3% x 25% (DPS is 25% compared to Jimmy) = 0.13%

Tom still comes on top. If we take stats roll into the equation, Tom will have an even stronger chance; since Jimmy’s chest piece will have fewer room to improve.

Does trade change the story?

Before we can answer this question, we need to take a look on how items are priced. In Diablo 3, almost all loots are tradable. Considering the above example, Jimmy (0.06%) has a lower rate of finding an “upgrade” as Tom (0.13%).

In the same ideal scenario as above, number of total items dropped, follows exactly the drop rate. If there would be a total 177 (from 17.7%) white chest armors of ilvl61 in game, there would also be 20 (from 2%) white chest armors of ilvl63.

It is not difficult to know that the value of the item is reversely proportional to the drop rate. Meaning if the white chest armor of ilvl63 would worth 5000gold (1000gold/ 2 % drop rate), and the white chest armor of ilvl61 worth 565gold (1000gold / 17.7% drop rate).

Back to the topic, Jimmy who have 4 times the money after the trade compared to Tom would have to pay roughly 8.85 (5000gold / 565 gold) times as much as Tom for a upgrade.

Conclusion:

Ultimately, as one gears up, the chance of finding the next possible upgrade goes down.

Reality- Luck:

There was something very important we left out, - the difference in each sample cases, or simply put - luck.

Due to the sample size as for each individual player like you and me, is extremely small compared to the entire game data, so called “standard” drop rate which requires millions or billions of drops to achieve.

It is very likely for someone who spent a friction of time to gain superior loot compared to more time invested individual.

For an extreme example, Tom may have a Windforce drop of 700DPS with almost pathetic stats on, where Jimmy may have a Blackthrone Medal rolled with high Strength or all resistance or Critical chance.

Given the importance of luck, feelings such as - it’s my lucky day! bring a whole new excitement to the item hunting. Even though the chance is low, considering the same assumption as above where there is 2% chance for an item of ilvl63 to drop in inferno Act 1, and much lower when the item is a Magic item, extremely rare when it is a Rare item, and almost impossible when multiple decent affixes getting rolled at the same time, many of us, still have the greed of being the lucky one. I would hope something with high rolls would drop, every single time an elite mob falls on ground.

It is clear for us, it is impossible for players to acquire the super elite loots, even if they get lucky from purely the looting in game.



3) The introduction of Regional Auction House & Regional Real Money Auction House



Why would we trade if we all want the same?

Diablo 3 is designed with differences in stats utilizations among all five classes, as well as diversity in playing styles.

We naturally would like to utilize our heroes in a way that we think or like over others. Thus there would be gears that may not seem to be beneficial to our hero, appealing to others.

Keep in mind the analysis in the loot section above, where individuals like you or me, cannot expect to loot best gear from spoils for all their gear slots. It is naturally necessary to bring trade onto the table.

Let’s take a brief look at the history of trades in Blizzard games.

The first Blizzard game that really involves heaps of trade I remember, was Diablo 1, where I could find a lucky buyer of the unique weapon “Butcher” drops for a decent spell book.

Diablo 2 brought trade to a whole new level, and there are many players I knew that spent more time on trade and barter than playing the game.

World of Warcraft introduced the server based Auction Houses, thus brought an ease for traders who would like to search specific item, with the help of powerful filters, offline Auctioning and bidding were also implemented. There were even apps developed at a later stage for mobile devices to follow up the Auctions without the use of a game client.

Diablo 3 has developed further; it introduced a powerful Regional Gold Auction House (AH), as well as Regional Real Money Auction House (RMAH) into the game. Improvements are bold and you can tell that the development team had put heaps of effort into this to make what we have today.

While there are obvious benefits of using AH or RMAH in Diablo 3, there are some features I felt easily over looked:

Regional

Auction House in Diablo 3 is not a traditional server based Auction Houses found in World of Warcraft; it collapses every auction in a game region into one. The obvious difference such as availability, price settling, all benefit from this. You may remember searched for weeks before certain item showing up in your server’s Auction House in World of Warcraft, in Diablo 3, as long as the item exist, it’s not that hard to spot it in regional AH due to the large collection of player base. Unfortunately, in the early stage of the game market, this also causes desperation for every player, such as astronomic prices observed for popular items.

Auto Bidding

Auction House in Diablo 3 can handle bid automatically. We can setup a certain price tag and the system will bid for us every time other players place a bid towards it and will stop at the set price. It will refund the difference once the auction complete, between the highest bid and your set price.

10 Items Limit

Auction House in Diablo 3 had limited the auctions for one to put up at 10 pieces at any given time. This greatly reduces the trade spam on the Auction Houses, as well as the instability of Auction House servers. On a side note, less items to choose from, helps to make better decision.

There are flaws to be patched. But I must say Blizzard had done a great job on Regional Gold based Auction House, and I would sincerely applaud if there is no other follow up (RMAH).
If you understood the reason behind Diablo 3 to be an always-online game in the beginning of this thread, you would probably not be surprised when Blizzard first introduced Regional Real Money Auction House last year.

RMAH is part of the new business model Blizzard is experimenting on, in the hope of sustainable income; it is only a tip of the iceberg.

Diablo 3 – a grand treasure hunting game, offers great opportunity to study customer behavior when it comes to digital property purchases, as well as not-set-stone long term profit. The feedback and data themselves are valuable, and will become profitable in the future, well constructed.
I felt not much could be said about RMAH, not without getting the big picture of the game design first.



4) Seeking the balance – Fun, Profit



Diablo is an action role play game, due to the role play component, customization would be a critical element in game design. Blizzard knows how to develop games; they have been proven to be good in the past.

Is Diablo 3 is lack of customization?

Diablo 3 had taken out stats allocation completely, Blizzard had commented in the past, that offering stats allocation to players would still create finite builds as the limited numbers of ways to allocate stats in Diablo 2, it will also create hesitation and fear. It would cost time investment outside the game, before the cautious player could feel safely allocate stats. Blizzard would want us to play Diablo 3 without constantly tabbing out seeking for help.

This is a valid and sound argument. I remember in Diablo 2 I had gone through forums searching for the perfect stats for my Paladin, and clicked the + button while kept focus 100%.

On the other hand, by taking stats allocation out completely, it eliminated some important element of the character customization. Taking out stats allocation, negates the ability to mitigate the gear stats imbalance via stats management. For instance, a barbarian in Diablo 3 with survival defensive build for Inferno Act 2, would struggle to gain more Vitality (HP), he will have to look for high rolled perfect gear with high Vitality, All Resistance, Life %. It would be less painful given the barbarian could allocate some of his Dexterity or Intelligence, Strength towards Vitality.

As a result, no stats customization with multiple high stats check later inferno acts, created high demand for perfect gear, bring up the price of these gears sky high. No stats customization also means there are less usable gears in game. These not favored gears usually lack of critical stats combination that certain character required, thus become almost, completely useless.

Let’s take a look at the skill system in Diablo 3 with the introduction of rune systems. The variation and possibilities seems overwhelming; millions of build looks great and promising on paper. These skills offered a lot of fun before inferno, before the multiple stats check come in.

Inferno with its current state of development checks the player stats in many ways. Take barbarian for instance, to success and being able to clear almost the full Act 2, he/she needs high All Resist, preferably 700+ to all or at least high Physical Resist with Fire Resist, high Armor, preferably 9k+, high Vitality 40k HP, or preferable 50k, decent DPS, 10K+ to avoid enrage timers from mirror image or shielding elite monsters encounters.

As a result of these stats checks, many of us felt certain skills and their specific rune are critical for the survival. These skills are irreplaceable. Take the barbarian for example; Warcry is arguably a must for every build to success, as well as passives such as Tough as nail, Nerve of Steels. I would even go further with my barb and reluctant to replace Power Armor from the enchantress.

The other factor which limited the skill diversity is the DPS meter. One would naturally like to boost or peak their DPS. Skills or runes with far more % weapon damage usually get picked over their low % weapon damage alternatives. (If you do not know, you can enable Advanced Skill Tooltip under Options Gameplay) Some players even felt obliged to take it in compete with their friends or showing their powerful DPS in videos or streams.

To some extent, the skills have helped to compensate the inferno stats check, and enabling a handful more gears to be usable. For example Warcry with Impunity rune boosts All Resistance to 150%, reducing the requirement of these stats from gear, thus filling some gears with no All Resistance stats becomes possible.

However rune skill system in Diablo 3 looks pale against the skill level system back in Diablo 2. Skill systems in Diablo 2, allows player to pour their skill points into specific skills thus boosting the benefit of these skills further. For example barbarian in “Diablo 2” could put 20 points in “Sword Mastery” to compensate lack of damage from a not so decent sword to boost their damage. Thus despite this sword may have less damage, their special affixes such as high life leech %, could still be considered useful and player feel OK to hold of it before finding the possible upgrade. The other benefit we had in Diablo 2 with skill level system, would be low level items with + All skills would be still considered quite useful at the end game.

If you have been following what I had been talking about, it is not hard to realize, that Diablo 3 end game at its current stage of development, is largely, if not solely, a gear check over specific stats groups.

Players may feel handicapped, not able to do anything else on their part to tune their characters. We are somehow inclined to rely on Auction Houses.

I understand and share my sympathy for players obtaining gear from RMAH. At this stage of the game, there is not much they can do, beside betting their luck for epic rare drops or spending countless hours to farm gold which becomes less valuable due to inflation. This reminds me of a world that not far from reach. There are people in that world, saving money and hoping one day enough to purchase their dream house.

Blizzard is facing the new challenge with“Diablo 3. How much fun is enough to keep players playing, while still makes decent profit?

Too much pain, not enough profit. is my personal favorite. It keeps reminding me of my opinion of the current state of the Diablo 3, every single time I hear it - Too much profit, not enough fun.
There is much fun in Diablo 3; though I do feel there is quite some room for improvement. I understand, everyone perceives fun in different fashion and we will never be able to have the exact fun. You have every right to disagree with me and the game may be very fun for you.

I can see that the development team agreed to this, at least partly. We need better item diversity and more combat elements in Diablo 3, better than what we have now. It is the consequence they have to tank, of the elimination of stats point allocation and skill level development completely.
Making a fun game while maintaining the profit, is the new challenge.



5) Summary of Diablo 3 design Philosophy and suggestions


Diablo 3 is a complex game. Individual like us, who try to comment on such a giant project, of tireless team efforts, would be biased, subject to our personal experience and resources.

I feel Diablo 3, struggled to deliver promises. While the early difficulties such as normal and nightmare had a great success in terms of viable skills, diversity in character customization at the end game however, felt strictly flawed both on skill customization, and gear customization. Fun was limited.

Patches and hotfixes which aimed to address specific issues on a certain small group of people ended up ruining the life of millions. I understand the necessity for patches, to combat bot and fix exploits. But at what cost? Taking item drops away from destroyable objects on top of reduced the gold drop had rendered object loot system useless and not rewarding; high repair bills on end level gears had made a tough life for the casual players to struggle even more from the already high prices from auctions. I felt these were a bit extreme to these legit players who only play a couple of hours daily, had no time to farm up as much as professional or dedicated gamers share the same “punishment”. Don’t forget as Blizzard stated few weeks back, that only 1.9% of characters (not accounts) had reached inferno, such measurements would only limit the fun for the 98.1% of characters.

Diablo 3 has no offline mode, every patch and hotfix affects everyone, there is no escape, nor alternatives. I understand that there are technical difficulties, making more complex patches tough to be deployed and tested in tight time schedule. And the game economy, considering the Real Money Auction House, is much more serious and vulnerable which require special attention and real-time efforts. I am merely in the hope that there would be follow up patches to address these issues. And future patches would care more towards the majority of population and minimize the collateral damage.

As discussed in previous sections, gear and skill diversity are the most important factors in customization. The development team is currently working hard to address these in future patch. My suggestion is, on top of the overall buff to legendaries, to separate the drop rate. For instance, increase the drop rate of common quality legendary items, and decrease the drop rate of super elite Legendary items. Majority of players would then have a better chance of finding one, making the game more rewarding, on the other hand, professional players would have something to brag about, and their hard effort would be easily recognized. Rarity of these relics will also make them more desirable for one to obtain, thus creating more rewards when being found. I felt it is not that much fun nor extremely rewarding, getting a Windforce drop, only to find out 46 pages of listing on the Auction House.

I feel there are endless discussions when it comes improve such a highly anticipated game, I’ll stop here without causing further boredom.

Diablo 3 is young, it has potentials.

Thank you for reading.




Edit - Removed ", fixed some typos

I'll hopefully finish up an article pretty soon. I'll post a link once its done.

Not much of a D2 vs D3, more of a D3 analysis in depth.

Quote from ZeroEdgeir

The 24HR Maintenance specifically states Diablo 2, StarCraft, and Warcraft 3's USEast/Azeroth server, is going down for 24hrs, for hardware upgrades.

That is Battle.net 1.0 servers.

Diablo 3, like WoW and SC2, runs on the Battle.net 2.0 servers. Not connected in ANY way, shape, or form.

Great, thanks for clearing it up.

Blizzard had said, they don't like the idea of putting in another "hidden" modifer to scale down attackspeed. (For example there is a 0.75 scaler to "Frenzy" when work on trigger abilities like "Life on Hit")

At least by nerfing the attackspeed openly and retroactively, everyone would be able to pick up the change and account it when planning or improving their heroes.

Somebody from this forum had brought up an interesting point towards this change, (sorry forgot who said it), that the retroactive nerf instead of only the future drops, will bring everybody more in line; more balance for newly created charactors and for people who haven't got many attackspeed % items beside the class balance and item affixes balance.