It's just how I feel about the guy. I don't think he "gets" the genre. I don't really feel like I'm playing an ARPG at this point. I feel like I'm playing an action-adventure game with a hell theme. What I mean by that is that, to me, one of the biggest things for an ARPG is that players have choices in things to do. As someone pointed out in this thread, or another, there actually were a lot of different things to do in D2 depending on what you actually wanted to farm. (EDIT: It's one of the issues I had with PoE and maps. What the fuck is the point of the entire rest of the game? A dumb story to get in the way of the real fun? To me "endgame" in an ARPG should be systems set in place ... like bounties, ubers, paragon, etc. ... that enhance the existing content and make it more tolerable when repeated ad infinatum and NOT completely-separate systems that rather invalidate the rest of the content. For me bounties are, generally a great idea, whereas rifts being the "best place to farm" is a horrible idea.)Quote from Bagstone
I disagree with your Josh rant. Towards the end of your post, you sound very similar to one of the bitter guys from the official forums. Yes, Josh might not have as much ARPG background as we wished the D3 Lead Director would have, but stating that he has never played an ARPG before makes it sound like RoS is a total failure in your eyes, and that's just ridiculous.
If you wanted to farm high runes you'd go to a different place than if you wanted to farm socketed gear to put them in. And, while I think specific boss farming (particularly any farming where you fire up a game for 90 seconds and create a new game) is generally bad, I am finding that I hate loading up a game just to do five rifts. Why is the endgame JUST rifts? Why isn't story mode remotely valid? Why doesn't adventure mode, aside from rifts/bounties, have any purpose? I mean they opened up the game so that all the acts were stitched together seamlessly (something I desperately thought the game needed) and then Josh buffs rifts so that the main meta-game is to spend as little time doing ANYTHING other than rifts as humanly possible.
As much as I wouldn't be interested in PvP, it's really sad that some very basic concerns (size of the brawling area, etc.) haven't been addressed yet. People do enjoy it and there's no doubt that NOT having it and NOT showing any intent to fix even the most simple aspects of it that people feel aren't working properly, actually hurts the longevity of the game.
And, honestly, I'm still not pleased at how many legendaries didn't have legendary properties. I had put much more faith in the team to know better than that, and they really left me down. I'd figured that given D3V and, moreso, the fact that Jay gave reworking legendaries a try and swung and missed, that they'd have been more detail-oriented on the subject. That they wouldn't have been content for half of the oranges that drop in RoS to be Skorns, Mempos, EFs, Angel Hair Braids, etc. It's almost like Josh has selective hearing. They want better legendaries.... check. What constitutes a bad legendary... NOT LISTENING.
I just don't get him. For me the RoS game isn't THAT much more playable than the vanilla game. Not because of BoA per se. But because the possibility that the game had with BoA was immense... and it just didn't live up to that. The game never should have went live with drop rates that were so low. BoA was supposed to, according to Josh, allow them to jack up drop rates so that we felt like we were finding things. I remember him saying 6 legendaries in a single act clear on Campaign Mode. We weren't remotely close to that in 2.0. Even after the anniversary buff becoming permanent we're arguably not close to that in Campaign Mode. Why did he make such a big deal about being able to increase drop rates being a benefit of BoA... and then go live with junky drop rates?
I thought BoA was supposed to allow them the freedom to go wild and get crazy with ideas. I haven't really seen that translate into anything revolutionary in RoS. If I saw him leading a team that really was thinking outside of the box and presenting me with those groundbreaking things that BoA was allegedly going to allow them to do, that they absolutely couldn't do with trading, then I'd probably STFU on the subject. But it really isn't there.
EDIT
The reality of the situation for me is that I agreed with him that BoA probably would let them do awesome things that they *may* not have been able to do without it. And I don't miss the AH. But in order for me to feel that BoA is justified, I want to see them go nuts. I want them to show me that BoA *is* the right choice by showing me all these mind-blowing ideas. I simply don't see ANYTHING mind-blowing about RoS. And that really rubs me the wrong way.
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we are not talking about what possibly could be or failed to be. That is the issue. Nobody of note IS talking about that.
instead the devs take a game, D3 version 2.3, take a few items from that game and give them a new stat that boosts skill damage by 100%.
and then because before they happened to add that boost, there was basically nothing at all, they think that they have "added to the game". Or they think that having a few items that boost damage is better than just one. and that adding it is the right way to go without question.
Then when Quin comes along and points out one of several reasons why this is not correct when viewing the issue in an abstract way, nobody understands. they have already convinced themselves that 2 items that do that is an improvement over 1. then they are unable to think any further.
who in their right mind would say "don't add items that boost skill damage..." I DARE you to answer this question honestly. WHO would say "dont do it. hmm?
I'll tell you who. The person who can want more from the game. More for it than "slap some damage on an item and the players will clap and cheer in January."
That's who would say don't do it. The smart and passionate ones. The ones who look at D3 and see that it could be better, and can expand upon this notion in a multitude of ways.
Diablo 3 is made by people who say "yea put it in, and any of the concerns brought up we can just say to the players "we feel you, we get you, we understand......" and that will handle all of the sloppy remainder of our careless "improvement"
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We never left the main topic, the main topic is items are boring, what could be fun?
you and others around you simply strive to ignore any discussion or claim it false if it happens to not have anything to do with items in a single player game that is of the same genre.....
the main topic is that items and the players choosing between them is becoming stale and automatic and flavorless....just like how your vision of being locked in Starcraft single player vs a hodge podge unchanging basic card dealing Innkeeper....would be stale and thankfully, unlike you are prepared to accept, the entire rest of both of those games exist and are immediately and forever playable and enjoyable.....
I'm sorry that you cannot see the issue for what it is and think outside the square and apply what you think about to potential solutions
So far in this thread I have heard:
-We cant use anything that has to do with PVP, to circumvent the issue,
-We can use games if they are a different genre, to circumvent the issue,
-Wyatt Cheng "knows more about it" than Quin
and
-certain players don't see and issue, and so there is no issue...
It's really heartbreaking to be honest...especially when in your next paragraph you look at a tiny cross section in WoW, the items, and say "The itemization was pretty much at the levels of Diablo 3 Vanilla" are you admitting that Diablo 3 is doing OK if it compares to a small slice of a small portion of a different game? or is the comparison void because "PeeVeePee" ?
Not to mention you're wrong anyway... items in Wow had many occurrences in its item landscape that were WAY more interesting, situation and unique than Diablo 3 Vanilla, reforging came and went, items were continuously added to the game professions yielded wild and wacky contraptions etc,etc....
High end items had interesting special powers, giving you creative boosts to certain situations....
..........OH but lets ignore all of that. and then lets say something like "oh its a different genre / game / it's PVP.....yes that's a good line of reasoning..."
lets look at a cross section of a several year old game, ignore everything around it, including the flair and the actual interesting features of items specifically....then come up with an excuse that seems to make sense....its an RPG.......not an ARPG. there that will do. it has subscribers.....
That should justify Diablo 3 items.
What's next? We cant look anywhere for examples unless the game begins with the letter D?
My god, what happened to this place....
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MANY games do not suffer from this disease of "best build"
Starcraft did not have best units......Hearthstone does not have best cards........and Wow does not have a best arena or raid composition.
As you examine this idea that the things you hope to capitalize on change from moment to moment, you see that these games "run themselves", and they surge forward and remain popular and develop into professional past times. and they command floorspace at conventions for intrigued players and audience members. You can see where D3 falls short.
D3 has no "eureka" moments. you just plod forward like a fucking moron searching for green percentages instead of red ones, delivered in the most boring way possible. Trifecta or +damage. I'd know I was that fucking moron and I will be that moron again when the patch finally hits. I'll play the game for a bit and realize its just more of the same. its as satisfying as sucking the salt of a chicken mcnugget and throwing it away.
Wyatt Cheng fails to see the bigger picture.
Here is a quote from his write up:
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"I understand Quin's critique and totally get where he's coming from. Putting large skill bonuses means you can't cube the item and reconfigure them around as much."
----------------------
So Wyatt understands that finding and choosing a piece with more damage automatically reduces the average appeal of all other items in the game for a player. Then he says this:
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If we were to increase the damage of base skills and lower legendary item +%s it gets the number where it needs to be for that configuration, but also affects every other configuration.
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What he is doing is alluding to one specific suggestion of Quins, shifting damage off of individual items and placing them on skills.
Then his is pointing out a flaw laced within that niche solution and using the flaw to ignore the ENTIRE basis of the fucking complaint.
THEN HE JUSTIFIES THIS IDIOTIC SHUTDOWN BY SAYING THIS:
Having lots of toys to play around with and configure in different ways is GREAT. We love that. But what will inevitably happen is if any one of those builds is 10% better than the others you don't get an increase the variety, you end up with a decrease in variety due to there being a "right answer".
this is the part everyone needs to pay attention to. Wyatt Cheng said this. here I'll quote it a few times so its painfully clear.
having lots of toys to play around with and configure in different ways is GREAT.
having lots of toys to play around with and configure in different ways is GREAT.
having lots of toys to play around with and configure in different ways is GREAT.
But what will inevitably happen is if any one of those builds is 10% better
But what will inevitably happen is if any one of those builds is 10% better
But what will inevitably happen is if any one of those builds is 10% better
you don't get an increase the variety, you end up with a decrease in variety due to there being a "right answer".
you don't get an increase the variety, you end up with a decrease in variety due to there being a "right answer".
you don't get an increase the variety, you end up with a decrease in variety due to there being a "right answer".
Yep. And that's exactly the issue that Quin was trying to point out in his video
and exactly what many MANY have said in the Official general discussion forum for years.
and exactly what should have been mined from the players feed back before the fucking game was released. especially when its the other games from their stable that taught us this concept of "no best build"
When a THING is better than the rest of your THINGS.........you end up with a decrease in variety due to there being a "right answer".
I've read his post over and over and over again.
I've studied the sentences and thought heavily on how the weapons and the builds interact as he wanders around Raekors and the Fury of the Vanquished Peak weapon and try as I might its nothing more than a laughably shallow and worthless deflection of the bigger issue that they refuse to acknowledge.
When players see bigger damage, they grab it and everything else in that moment and forever forward, is obsolete. It's a plague of a disease that destroys the potential of Diablo 3, while a laundry list of other games are virtually immune. and they're being created just down the fucking hallway.
Every blue post is the same, just little buzzwords meant to invoke a sense of compassion in the heart of the angry critic.
And thanks for letting us swear on this forum, its very refreshing.
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Why bother? anything I type in reply you're just going to say "It's horrible.." and "you are glad I'm not working on D3 haha..."
The pvp in your head is a train-wreck.
The IDEA of pvp as it covers decades of gaming and spans countless fan-bases and organizations and teams and genres of games is not.
PVP in D3 could be anything they imagine it to be, and instead they imagine it to be nothing at all. Just 4 players in brawling room hitting each-other. Did not even put so much as a a fucking score board up for Christ's sake. Because your version of PVP is a train-wreck and their attempted version was an unpolished log of my shit, does not even tarnish one molecule of the globe spanning Idea of Players competing with other players. an idea that their other games took and ran to the end zone for points.
And as far as the pathetic idea they are gearing up for next year, this putting a few hundred % damage of a skill on a handful of items and calling it a day and patting themselves on the back over it...well....
The bulk of the player base seems to think this is wonderful added content everyone should be thankful for so when they just roll it out as it is to please the masses and ignore Quin's video you will know that its just par for the course.
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why do situations where the Hearthstone AI does the exact same thing every time reinforce your argument and destroy mine when the situation you describe is hardly even possible without being able to choose what cards both you and him will draw? why is that?
In the case of starcrafts campaign, you may coast through campaign mode and find the AI doing the same thing over and over again....
But then you have to ignore the entire player vs player portion of the game, the portion upon which the legacy of the game was built. why the hell would you do that? why would you not see the good portion of the whole game as you state exactly "adapt to your opponent" why?
Why ignore the decade spanning legacy of starcraft PVP and latch on to the short comings of its AI????
and yet.... when you fight the same brain dead enemies in D3 year in year out....thats perfectly OK? why?
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OH I think comparisons to WoW are absolutely justified and beyond that...extremely healthy for Diablo 3...so thanks for bringing them into the spot light...Arguments otherwise have almost no merit, because in my mind when I view WoW and speak of WoW, I see a game that has attracted some of the most hardcore professional elitist jerk raid master 5000's ever born. And it did so with a big enough bone for them to chew on for years, never mind the sub fee and how many hundreds of millions of dollars it made along the way. I would predict you have about 10 times the play time and about 10 times the skill in WoW as I do, so you and I could probably harp on about it over drinks for hours on end...Along side that, WoW created a piddly little child's adventure while they trip over their shoelaces on the way up through Razor Fen Downs. In short when I view wow I see the strengths of it, that were not respected nearly as much as they should have been, and could have been, with the departments probably being within shouting distance...
WoW was the embodiment of a game that invited 5 year olds and within the exact same game engine and rule-set demanded players to devote, if they so wished it, several thousand actual hours logged in game, and god only knows how many out of game doing calculations and discussing arena comps.
And you are very correct in being wary of making things easy and perhaps making them to easy and drawing a line of distinction. And you are correct about it being hard to level either from 1-60 or from 1-100. But you are only correct WITH that wariness and WITH that consideration and WITH this discussion. Wariness and consideration and discussion that the team down in California either never had or completely failed to capitalize on.
I am not correct when I assert they need to take element X from WoW or difficulty Y. But I am correct when I choose to discuss and draw from it and think about it....the elements that one can be correct on, are things like your statement of "interesting" and my statement of "exciting"
if the devs realized this, We would not all be wearing the same boring as fuck predictable endgame set with emeralds in our weapons with zero alternative, with piles of skills and runes sitting almost completely ignored for months if not years on end, when the entire foundation of Diablo 3 is the exciting growth and exploration of skills and items. Everyone dressing the same way farming infinite paragon levels that grant +5 dexterity 2 thousand times in a row forever...as if thats how far APRGs have come in the past 15 years....such a ridiculous premise should have been laughed out of the meeting room years before the game ever hit the shelf.....to think we just barely got here.....just think about that.
I've said this before and I will say it again. it makes me sick and sad to see how easily the playerbase drums up good ideas that easily destroy the shit baked into D3, and your video does exactly that; you and your cronies, and the mods here and the pro players over there and the devoted fans over in official GD, they come up with amazing ideas and have great debates and coin up these ideas that would serve D3 until the end of time....and here we all sit waiting for Blizzcon to give us a tavern talk that will almost certainly be a let down.
for some reason the devs allowed the absolute entirety of levels 1-69 both inside and outside of seasons to become completely trivialized. it is boring and predictable and pointless. So yes you are correct in your assessment that the only solution is endgame...it appears they have sadly made it so...
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This is actually pretty fascinating. The only reply I can muster is that I takes all the intellect of a human mind to decipher the answer to that question "will I get banned?".
Rather than blather on about stories winding all the way back to Everquest and Ultima Online, And how once upon a time a pro gamer Athene triple checked a crazy boss "strategy" with a GM AND screen-shotted the conversation AND STILL had the kill wound back and nullified,
I'll just say answering the question "will I get banned?" is more of a craft than a science.
When I view the blood shard situation in this thread, I'm not even the least bit surprised to hear that bans were issued, because of how my mind processes all the little aspects of it.
I'm also not at all surprised to hear the poem of silly fuck ups associated with the list of previous exploits and "situations" as the came up in D3...
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it seems to be a real nod to the old school...have a look. it's turn-based tactical RPG...
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They gave us brawling...sure..but you'd think they do so much as give a god-damn Score board??....they did not even do that.
Tomorrow Im gonna hunt around the internet for some un-official D3 PVP organizations...I've glanced at them a time or two...they have gone so far as prohibited certain runes against certain comps....its interesting to look into
when I dipped my toes into the brawling arena it basically took 500 hours of gear/spec knowledge and compressed it onto a postage stamp and stuck it to my forehead....it was like a whole new thing for about 15 minutes......
I'd love to carry on and articulate this idea...but its my fucking bedtime