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[turnbuckle]

From game designer, Travis Day

Thanks for taking the time to put your thoughts on paper for us. There are a lot of topics here that deserve attention and I want to share our views on them with all of you. Stay a while and listen.

Challenge

Challenge is certainly something that has value; players can’t feel a sense of accomplishment if everything in the game can be face rolled. I think many people would agree that, at launch, the game was too challenging. It was very difficult to progress through Inferno depending on your class or items and the challenge was a large part of the reason players felt like they were driven to the AH in the first place. When you present players with difficult content they will find a way to overcome it which usually means using only the most powerful items and abilities. The unfortunate side effect is it also drives players away from the play styles they feel are “just fun”. We have taken steps to improve this problem a number of ways; reducing the overall difficulty of Inferno, improving the potency of underused skills to allow players more diversity in their gameplay, and introducing Monster Power to allow players to set the game to a level which they feel is enjoyable. I think the right way to introduce challenge is to make it optional, for example having difficult content for the players that enjoy it without penalizing the players who prefer a more relaxed gameplay experience.

Items and AH

Items are a topic with a tremendous amount of depth and also a very sensitive subject, so I’ll do my best to provide some of our insights into the matter. Removing “bad” affixes is certainly a suggestion that surfaces from time to time, another suggestion is to group all the good affixes into a shared category so that they can’t all roll on the same item. I think on the surface those sound good but the reality of what they would do to the itemization isn’t what we want. I addressed the topic of the “bad” affixes in a prior post about items so I won’t go into too much more detail here, but I think it’s well within our ability to make those affixes compelling for some people, Pickup Radius and Witch Doctors are a good example of this. Specifically as it relates to Thorns, no one will disagree that in its current state is pretty lackluster, but it supports a play style that I’m sure we can capture with enough alterations to both the core mechanic and some supporting class abilities and passives.

As it relates to bucketing affixes so Crit Chance, Crit Damage, and Attack Speed are mutually exclusive, yeah that would add more choice to item selection, but it would be artificial. I think this issue has some underlying causes that we should look at before going to the extreme of preventing them from existing on the same item. One of the first reasons trifecta items are an issue isn’t that they are so good; it’s that they are the only thing that is good. Of course you want the only three stats that increase your character damage in a meaningful way on the same item, because there are ONLY three stats that increase your character damage in a meaningful way other than your primary stat. I don’t want to derail this by getting into why primary stats were introduced or debate whether they are good or bad. I do want to say that Diablo 3 has been through much iteration during which a vast number of approaches to stats and items were tested and in the end we felt primary stats were the right thing for Diablo 3. I think a better approach to this issue is to introduce more affixes that players are interested in, so there is a sense of tension over what the six affixes are on your “ideal gear”. When a perfect pair of gloves is “Core Stat, Vit, Res All, Crit Chance, Crit Dmg, Attack Speed” and you can’t even imagine another stat you would want instead of one of those, we have a bigger problem. Introducing more choice instead of less and giving players more ways to feel like they are customizing their character is what we want to see. If gloves also had the ability to roll +% School Damage, +Life on Hit, Skill specific affixes, plus a couple more things you want, than players may find themselves in a situation where trifecta isn’t as clearly defined anymore.

The “problem” with trifecta items can’t be discussed without also pointing out that it is only a problem because the AH makes obtaining these items so easy. On a basic level, I have no problem with items existing that players highly desire, but when it is a forgone conclusion that you will have those items then we have problems. If the auction house never existed, players wouldn’t be upset that trifecta exists, they would be upset that they haven’t been lucky enough to find their own trifecta items. To summarize, I think the right solution to this problem isn’t cutting trifecta items from the game, but rather it’s about getting to a point where you want more things than you can fit on an item.
I think your affix ideas are cool, and we have spent a lot of time lately talking about what kind of awesome effects we could put on items that we don’t currently have. I’d even say that as cool as some of these ideas are, we can go even further. We are putting a lot of effort into coming up with really awesome item ideas for future content. I’ll give one quick example of my personal favorite so far before moving on and also to give context to the direction we are moving in. Imagine a pair of Legendary boots that read “Makes you ethereal, allowing you to freely move through enemies”. Whether or not that idea makes the final cut is hard to say, but we want to really push the boundaries as much as we can, so legendary items become things that players can get really excited about.

Character Customization

Your system idea for Nephalem Power Stat is basically a roundabout way of suggesting we re-implement the Diablo 2 skill system. The old skill system was fun, back in the day, but I think it’s honestly dated in today’s landscape. People fondly remember making tons of characters and trying out different builds, and while I have a lot of those same fond memories, I also remember that usually the end result of my time investment in my “cool new character” was complete and utter disappointment.
Today the availability of web sites or posts about character builds would mostly overshadow any of that old character rerolling. You would read a post saying someone else tried the build that you had imagined would be amazing, only to find out it was awful, or you would find out it was great and build it also. The skill system today allows people the flexibility to try out things they enjoy without penalizing players who want to experiment with new ideas. The only difference is if their idea doesn’t pan out, you didn’t waste hours leveling a bad character.
Character customization is fun. People want more ways to feel different from their neighbor, and we want to help provide players with more options in this regard as well. There are lots of things that we have discussed and some ideas we have for long term system additions to the game to help in this regard. One of them which I mentioned in another post is the plan to eventually introduce a system to allow players to customize their character appearance more. Another system we haven’t talked about before is the long term plan to change the way the Paragon system works to allow it to offer more character customization in the form of actual power. The details of that system are still being worked out and players probably won’t get their hands on it for quite a while. We do agree that customization is important and we want more ways for players to both express themselves and differentiate themselves from their friends and other members of the community.

Too many items

I cover this topic in some depth in the upcoming Item Blog that community is in the process of getting ready for release next week. I will briefly say that we agree that too many items drop and we have plans to eventually reduce the rate that players see items, while also taking measures to improve the general quality of items you do see. The end result should be fewer items that are better instead of tons of items you don’t want.

Legendary and Set items

This is a topic I’ve touched on some in this thread and it is also a talking point of the upcoming Item Blog, so I’ll just say that we agree and we want Legendary items to feel game changing.

Finding your own gear

Whenever we talk about what the fantasy of Diablo is and what we want the core gameplay to be, never do we say “we want players to farm gold and go buy items off the auction house”. The AH definitely has made an impact on Diablo 3 and we talk about it constantly, but our conversations are usually in the context of “how can we get players to find their own loot instead of just buying it”. The new crafting recipes and Demonic Essences were added to provide a little bit of this gameplay but we have a lot of ideas for the long term about how we want to go about addressing this. At the end of the day, it is our intention that players are able to find their own items, because we feel the game is just more fun that way. There are several reason why it might not feel that way right now. One is the inherent randomness of our loot system. Another is the fact that the AH completely removes all friction between player trades. And another is when players DO find items they should be excited about, they are often disappointed because this items are not very good. All of these are very important and we hope to address them over time.

Skill Diversity

This is something we constantly strive to improve. Yes, there are a lot of runes and abilities that are lacking, but as you can see with our patches, we try over time to improve the balance of them regularly. In some cases runes are designed just to be fun or cool. In other cases, we try to make a large spectrum of runes competitive, but the math ends up favoring one over the others. In some cases, certain abilities or ability combinations are so potent that they overshadow almost every other option available. WW/Sprint/Battle Rage is a good example of this. There are some cool ideas here, but I don’t want to turn this post into a discussion about specifics of design. This is a problem that we can’t fix overnight, but we are confident that over time we can constantly improve the situation and hopefully the community can see that we are making efforts on this front with every patch we release.
Crafting
What crafting was meant to be and what it ended up being aren’t necessarily the same. Again there are a long list of reasons why it turned out to be a bit underwhelming for some people. Not the least of which is the existence of the AH. Why make random things when you can buy exactly what you are looking for? We are constantly exploring new ideas for how to make crafting more relevant and trying to carve out a more defined role for it within the scope of Diablo 3 itemization. We have discussed ideas such as letting players have some control over what stats will appear on the item they are crafting, using the crafting system to allow players to reroll the values of affixes an item already has, etc. This is a system that, with time, should be able to find a better place in the overall gameplay experience of Diablo.

Social Features

This is an area that has a lot of room for improvement. I personally used to talk about the fact that when I would play with my brother and two of my good friends, I constantly felt like they were a detriment to my ability to farm, which is at the core of my enjoyment of the Diablo series. Since then, we have made changes to improve the coop experience like reducing the health multiplier of additional players and removing the damage scaling when more players join the game. However, we need to do more to improve both the in and out of game experience. We want it to be easier for players to find other like-minded people to play with and this is a topic we are actively trying to improve in the near future.

Conclusion

Ok I’ve reread this thing enough times that my brain is starting to melt. The Diablo team is incredibly passionate and constantly striving to make the game we love even better. I hope this post helps clear the air about where we stand on a lot of these topics and I also hope I never find myself never feeling the need to write a post this long again lol.

 

[Cipherr]

We are putting a lot of effort into coming up with really awesome item ideas for future content. I’ll give one quick example of my personal favorite so far before moving on and also to give context to the direction we are moving in. Imagine a pair of Legendary boots that read “Makes you ethereal, allowing you to freely move through enemies”. Whether or not that idea makes the final cut is hard to say, but we want to really push the boundaries as much as we can, so legendary items become things that players can get really excited about.

That would be neat. Barbs wouldn't need whirlwind anymore would they? Would be even better if it worked on waller.

 

[nicoga3000]

It can be done even quicker than that, but 4 hours is a good target. I had my female barb hit 60 about 3 hours and I'm sure it could've been done quicker. My friend was using his archon wizard and I was specced with sprint, leap, and some survival stuff and various shields


The latest blue post Anorgeon quoted is extremely promising and it's one of the main things everyone has been clamoring for. Perhaps Blizzard will really bring their A game in the upcoming patches because the goodwill with fans has taken a beating. The itemization, build diversity, and other issues that exist outside of endgame/randomization of dungeons absolutely needs to be taken care of before the expansion.

So it's something that needs to be done with a partner? If so, I started my Wizard on MP10. Experience is SIGNIFICANTLY increased, so that's nice. I've still got that Star Ruby that kennah let me borrow on my WD, so that's even more experience. If anyone ever feels up for helping rush my new character....

Regarding your second point, I think you're dead on with the comment about the endgame needing to wait. By fixing/adding a more diverse endgame, they're ignoring the problems the game currently has. That being said, I have to wonder if the expansion is going to be preceded by a major mechanics patch. I can't see why they'd do a complete overhaul until the first expansion given the number of things that need to be addressed.

I would like to think that Blizzard has noticed the cries of the community regarding itemization and diversity. Adding "gear skills" and/or "gem skills" would be a huge game changer, but it would be an expansion thing I think. I also think more unique passives would add a lot to gear. The ability to roll "chance to cause/cast" affixes would be neat, too.

Thinking about skills and build diversity, I have to reflect and say that Blizzard took a pretty huge risk doing skills and runes the way they did. I really appreciate it from a theoretical standpoint. Looking back at D2, while a number of builds existed for a given class, they all revolved around a very specific set of skill points and gear. I primarily played a trapsin, and the entire build and playstyle revolved around like, 3 skills.

D3 has turned into that (the best builds being based around 2-3 skills), too. But I appreciate that they've tinkered with the "most popular" skills to try and bring other skills into play. The problem has been that the other skills simply aren't as effective, even with the buffs or debuffs on other skills. I think that some builds or skills being gear dependent is nice (LoH/LS builds or pickup radius builds), but itemization is a bit too broken at the moment for me to enjoy building with that in mind. And as much as we've all bitched about various skills being worthless or lack of diversity in general, it's pretty neat that they've tried to bring some shitty skills up to par.

I do hope that the expansion (whenever it may be) does bring forth some major changes that allow even more options. If that's through skill gear/gems, or complete class overhauls, I don't think I care. I've got high hopes that they can continue to improve the game as a whole, and all I can really do is wait.

Sorry for the eclectic nature of my post...I was thinking out loud and typing as shit came to mind, haha.

E: And as I posted this, turnbuckle posts that info. I like.

E2: After reading that entire post, I have to say, I'm really quite excited by the potential future of the game. It's always awesome to read that they get our complaints and know where we as players are coming from.

 

[turnbuckle]

That would be neat. Barbs wouldn't need whirlwind anymore would they? Would be even better if it worked on waller.

Yeah, a lot of cool things in that post. I came in with the intention of bolding certain parts but I realized about halfway through that there was going to be more bold than not and gave up the effort

@Nicoga

You don't need to have a partner to level up quickly, but it helps immensely since that player (assuming they're level 60) will have access to all of the acts and difficulties and all or most of the waypoints. You want to get to act III of each difficulty asap and hit up the craters, rakkis, and keep 2. Alternatively you can do whimsyshire. Because enemies have different xp values sub inferno the xp you get from act 1 and 2 is far less than acts 3 and 4.

If you're going to go solo, your first order of business is to ask someone to give you access to azmodan and diablo for each difficulty that becomes available.

If you're going solo without someone to take you to the later acts, it will take you a long and boring ass time


As for your other points, I think we pretty much agree but Blizzard needs to do a far better job sooner with improving some skills.

Just a quick example:

Battle Rage - Ferocity: Critical hits have a chance to increase battle rage by 2 seconds.

This was never a good rune, but when battle rage lasted 30 seconds it might have seen some use. But battle rage has lasted for 120 seconds for about half a year, and it's frequently used as a fury dump to keep wrath of the berserker going. And what does it cost, like 15 Fury? This rune has gotta go. There are other terrible runes for other skills and terrible passives and this applies for all the characters and I agree that some stuff will have to wait for the xpac, but they gotta do more before that happens if they hope to keep players interested. We can't forever latch on to promises of a better future

No apologies for your post. Many of my posts in this thread have been the same and I think they're fun to throw out there.

 

[nicoga3000]

If you're going to go solo, your first order of business is to ask someone to give you access to azmodan and diablo for each difficulty that becomes available.

If you're going solo without someone to take you to the later acts, it will take you a long and boring ass time

Battle Rage - Ferocity: Critical hits have a chance to increase battle rage by 2 seconds.

This was never a good rune, but when battle rage lasted 30 seconds it might have seen some use. But battle rage has lasted for 120 seconds for about half a year, and it's frequently used as a fury dump to keep wrath of the berserker going. And what does it cost, like 15 Fury? This rune has gotta go. There are other terrible runes for other skills and terrible passives and this applies for all the characters and I agree that some stuff will have to wait for the xpac, but they gotta do more before that happens if they hope to keep players interested. We can't forever latch on to promises of a better future

No apologies for your post. Many of my posts in this thread have been the same and I think they're fun to throw out there.

I'll keep an eye out for GAF folk on when I'm on to expedite my grind. Thanks for the tips!

And on the bolded portion, I agree 100%. I have been telling myself that they're going to improve things and fix things with time, but I think it's fair to say that there's an expiration date on that for most of us. A HUGE majority of folks playing at release probably haven't touched the game since the month after release because of the problems and lack of, well, a lot of shit.

 

[inky]

That would be neat. Barbs wouldn't need whirlwind anymore would they? Would be even better if it worked on waller.

Yep. the only reason to have WW is to place the tornadoes on top of the mobs. It does OK damage, but given the chance I'd think most people would favor a better single target damage ability, or a buff, or mobility skill, or something else.

There's a lot of 'acknowledgement' coming from Blizzard (at least more than it used to be) but the way they do patches and at the rate they have tried to fix things since launch (without making too much of a dent really) they know they are probably better off keeping their best ideas for an expansion. Which is sad and disappointing for the current state of the game.
They complain a lot about the AH too, but it's funny that they didn't anticipate most of the problems with it, when players most certainly did. I find solace now that with Wilson gone for example, this guy can come out and say that "loot explosions" (the whole concept behind having lots of useless items drop -like opening your wallet everyday and have moths come out from it instead of money- because it was cool-looking) is actually pretty shit design.

I still launch the game every now and then, and still plan on getting ever character to 60 eventually, but it just feels so mechanical and boring. I wouldn't be mad if at this point they just ripped PoE's endgame off (maps)... but for that, they'd have to make monster affixes matter again, instead of nerfing them until you can't tell one from the other, or having them where a single stat makes them all a non-issue.

 

[Rufus]

From game designer, Travis Day

Sage words from a community member from some months ago:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/7004016367?page=1

 

[turnbuckle]

Sage words from a community member from some months ago:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/7004016367?page=1

And the reply in that thread from earlier this week by the same designer

This is a great and constructive thread which brings up both a lot of good ideas and valid points. Items is a topic of conversation on a daily basis, we talk about where they are currently, where we want them to be, and how to get them there. Some of the future changes involve making item affixes that aren’t currently good into something that at least some players are really excited to see. A good example of this is Pickup Radius and Witch Doctors. Sure not everyone wants a lot of Pickup Radius on their gear but there are some specs of WD that love it and want as much as possible and we want to expand that idea further. Thorns is a good example of a stat that, at its core has potential, but in reality falls short. While we plan to improve thorns by allowing a players primary stat to increase its damage, we have other plans that help further embrace thorns for specific classes and specs.

Increasing the availability of skill specific affixes and school damage affixes is also something we plan on doing. They have the potential to open up more fun and varied character builds as well as simply giving players another way to improve abilities they enjoy. An example that has worked previously is Zombie Dogs and Sacrifice using Zombie Dog cooldown items, Wall of Zombies cooldown items with Pile On, and Hammer of Ancients with cost reduction items. We like that these builds exist and want to open up even more builds by virtue of expanding the availability of these affixes.

We want items to make you feel more powerful but more importantly we want players to feel like items can be game changers. We want players to find items and think to themselves “whoa I wanna try making a spec for this item” or “oh man I’m totally gonna level a Monk to use this thing”. Improving the overall feel of the Diablo item game is something that is incredibly important to us and is receiving a lot of attention from our development team because it's important to you all as well.

I'm thinking things are going to get better in a more meaningful way in subsequent patches. 1.06 was basically nothing, 1.07 has been a dud for a lot of veteran players, but I wonder what the game will look like when 1.1 or whatever finally hits.

 

[Rufus]

I'm with Inky. This is expansion material, if anything.

 

[Vio-Lence]

ppl use whirlwind because you can attack while on the move, prettty much all the other barb abilities require you to stand still to attack. whirlwind will always be king for speed farming.

 

[Fenderputty]

Everything in that post looked great actually.

using the crafting system to allow players to reroll the values of affixes an item already has, etc. This is a system that, with time, should be able to find a better place in the overall gameplay experience of Diablo.

FUCK YES PLEASE! Someting with a chance to blow the item up and take it out of the econ too.

 

[Talaysen]

FUCK YES PLEASE! Someting with a chance to blow the item up and take it out of the econ too.

Please no. I would never even use it if that's the case. Too many features in games become not worth it when you add the risk of losing the item because of THE ECONOMY. Having a chance to roll a worse item than you originally had is easily enough.

 

[Fenderputty]

Please no. I would never even use it if that's the case. Too many features in games become not worth it when you add the risk of losing the item because of THE ECONOMY. Having a chance to roll a worse item than you originally had is easily enough.

How man times can tyou roll the item? If you can just keep re-rolling the item then risk isn't really that great.

 

[Anoregon]

I'm glad this Travis dude is making these posts, it's nice to see pretty legitimate responses and not generic doublespeak nosense and "we have plans to improve stuff, just you wait!"

One specific itemization issue I would like to see him (or anyone over at blizz) address is the idea that the current socket/gem system is just awful. It's boring, uninspired garbage. Not only does shoehorning sockets in as an affix instead of it's own item modifier (as it was in D2) totally remove the alternative gearing path of finding good open-socket white items, but when combined with the static, sterile functions of current gems it just makes it another predictable number/stat increase. The entire gem/socket mechanic may as well not even exist, they could just as easily make affixes that do the same thing as the current gems and there would be virtually no difference. It provides the illusion of choice, and barely even functions in that capacity.

 

[Rufus]

I think Travis' entire responses so far on the topic read like a long 'mea culpa' regarding simplification (and the AH). Seems only stringent that they would want to address the gem situation as well, but you never know. I get the impression that they still want to build a railroad to success. Only people who are brain damaged like me are going to put 500+ hours into something like that.
It's like playing any game with invulnerability cheats on. It's fun for an hour, then it becomes a lesson on existentialism.

 

[Vodh]

I'm sad they don't even mention the need for more diverse content. Just add maps and an endless dungeon, throw in some enemies we don't usually see running around together, put the existing bosses Infernal Machine style in it and voila. Sure, the skills and items need work (especially the items), but even if they did fix them, unless they are going for a revolutionary overhaul, it's not going to draw players back in, it just might keep the ones already in for a little bit longer...

 

[Cipherr]

I'm sad they don't even mention the need for more diverse content. Just add maps and an endless dungeon, throw in some enemies we don't usually see running around together, put the existing bosses Infernal Machine style in it and voila. Sure, the skills and items need work (especially the items), but even if they did fix them, unless they are going for a revolutionary overhaul, it's not going to draw players back in, it just might keep the ones already in for a little bit longer...

Im sure maps will come, endless dungeons, and stuff like champ packs that aren't all the same mob (Imagine Fighting a 4 mob champ pack where one is a Serpent from Act 2, another is a Phasebeast From Act 3, another is a Corrupted Angel from Act 4 and the last one is a Herald of Pestilence from Act 3... Dear god.) among other things.

But they need to get the core itemization fixed first. People will play old maps if the game is fun to play and the itemization is fun.

People wont play new maps if the gameplay is still boring and the itemization still sucks.

 

[Talaysen]

How man times can tyou roll the item? If you can just keep re-rolling the item then risk isn't really that great.

They could use something like Demonic Essences to limit the uses.

Path of Exile has an item that does exactly what they're talking about. You can use it and you may end up with a worse piece of equipment and just lost the item you needed to reroll it (they're pretty rare/valuable I believe). It's not devastating, but still sucks.

 

[Ploid 3.0]

I just came across that epic thread on the forums where the blizz guy that replied is quoted here. Man that thread creator went all out with that thread. I still can't get my account to access the forums there but I'll give him props here. Interesting read and well done. I would love love love some of those WD changes, too bad he wasn't too familiar with WD to give more suggestions. Death to the cooldown!!!

 

[dog$]

I'm with Vodh about the disappointment of that post having no mention of maps.

I grant that the instinct is probably correct, in that more people would complain about boring items with new maps sooner than they would complain new items with boring maps; but that just strikes me as very myopic.

Let's assume that items aren't boring now. So now elemental damage does something. So now status effect proc rates are actually a perceptible amount rather than a laughable 3% or less. So now there's yet another batch of legendaries that let you pierce attacks or fly around or do all sorts of other crazy shit.

Great.

Now we get to do all sorts of crazy shit on the same Alkaizer run, on the same open fields, in the same VOTA, in the same Keeps, &c., with the same enemies to encounter in each, with the same quantity of enemies in each, and so on.

I play the game now exactly as I ever have before, only now I can add a socket to a weapon that doesn't have one, and a bunch of other bullshit related to gear. .... So what?

Diablo was a roguelike, right? More so than a straight RPG at least? In Nethack, every game held my interest because I had no idea what to expect at the end of every winding hallway. Why is that so much to ask for now? Why is a sense of exploration and truly randomized content so low on so many other people's list of priorities for things to bitch about regarding this game?

 

[Into]

I would love if, say for every 10th level you get a "talent point", meaning that at max level we would all have 6.

With these you can distribute them on skills, say you can put 3 talent points into Whirlwind, or 1 in Sprint or whatever to make the skill more efficient, it could also apply to passives but does not have to. This way they are not going back to the skill tree that they seem to dislike (for whatever reason) but still add more depth and customization

You can then add this suffix to items "1+ Whirlwind" or whatever and make items more interesting. In theory you would be able to put all 6 base talent points into a skill and raise it further with items to something like 10+ if you wanted.


I do not know, but the items in Diablo 3 are just not very interesting, the itemization in the game is its biggest problem. The core mechanics, animation, sound are brilliant, second to none.

 

[Vio-Lence]

I'm with you guys, some randomized dungeons would be great. I haven't been logging in lately because quite frankly I'm tired of running the same maps ad nauseum. D3 is a fun game to log into once or twice a week and do a few runs, but i can't imagine playing everyday in the games current state.

 

[IlludiumQ36]

....Why is a sense of exploration and truly randomized content so low on so many other people's list of priorities for things to bitch about regarding this game?

Probably because it's an item-based game with completely broken itemization. Every other quality and aspect of the game, good or bad, will always be masked by this. It's literally the cardinal sin of the genre.

 

[Talaysen]

With these you can distribute them on skills, say you can put 3 talent points into Whirlwind, or 1 in Sprint or whatever to make the skill more efficient, it could also apply to passives but does not have to. This way they are not going back to the skill tree that they seem to dislike (for whatever reason) but still add more depth and customization

Because grinding up a character for tens of hours just to find out your build sucks is really annoying and frustrating. Or having to grind up a new character just to try a new endgame build. I completely agree with them on skill trees. It hurts experimentation.

 

[nicoga3000]

Finally cleared Inferno! Despite being post-nerf, it felt pretty sweet.

 

[Suairyu]

Bah. Ancient Device farming is so dull. I've only gotten three outcomes so far, and that's taken a couple of hours. Going to leave it for a bit I think.

 

[Cipherr]

Why is a sense of exploration and truly randomized content so low on so many other people's list of priorities for things to bitch about regarding this game?

Probably because it's an item-based game with completely broken itemization. Every other quality and aspect of the game, good or bad, will always be masked by this. It's literally the cardinal sin of the genre.

Precisely what Illu said. Bad itemization ripples through whatever else is in the game, because its a loot game.

There will be new areas and new acts, at the very least in every expansion they offer, but it would be worthless unless itemization is fixed.

Don't mistake us prioritizing itemization over new maps as us declaring that new maps/areas aren't important. They are important, just not nearly as important as fixing what the games full foundation is: Loot.

 

[turnbuckle]

Precisely what Illu said. Bad itemization ripples through whatever else is in the game, because its a loot game.

There will be new areas and new acts, at the very least in every expansion they offer, but it would be worthless unless itemization is fixed.

Don't mistake us prioritizing itemization over new maps as us declaring that new maps/areas aren't important. They are important, just not nearly as important as fixing what the games full foundation is: Loot.

exactly.

we all want both. but if the game has the same itemizattion and build issues with new content that new content will feel as hollow as what's already there really quickly

 

[dog$]

I guess I just want more roguelike aspects to the game, then.

A similar ratio of junk drops from fallen monsters in Nethack as it does in D3. It never bothered me in the former game.

It just reminds me of a response to a picture posted a few pages ago, of some bad Lacuni Prowlers. Someone quoted that to say that the picture shown everything wrong with D3, in that the itemization was so terrible. I wanted to say that the picture shown everything wrong with D3, in that receiving drops is the only thing that the game gives players as a goal or reward.

 

[DTKT]

I'm a bit baffled that it took them so long to say something. To be honest, their output since release has been pretty mediocre. Mostly recycled content and very small things.

 

[Tarazet]

I guess I just want more roguelike aspects to the game, then.

A similar ratio of junk drops from fallen monsters in Nethack as it does in D3. It never bothered me in the former game.

It just reminds me of a response to a picture posted a few pages ago, of some bad Lacuni Prowlers. Someone quoted that to say that the picture shown everything wrong with D3, in that the itemization was so terrible. I wanted to say that the picture shown everything wrong with D3, in that receiving drops is the only thing that the game gives players as a goal or reward.

As a designer, you don't design four acts with plenty of maps, several of which are indeed randomized, expecting that 99% of the people who play will grind the same few parts of Act III and do nothing else at all. But, the whole game is the same shit and the only difference is the item level of the loot drops, so that's what happened. I can play from Act I through to Diablo and never have to do anything intelligent other than move out of shit on the ground. In fact, I have enough resistances and life steal on my gear, I don't even have to do that. I can just pound on enemies until they die and occasionally blow Serenity if the incoming damage starts to threaten me. If i misjudge it and die, I do the walk of shame but then just pick right up where I left off. The mobs have a lot of random affixes, but they're stale and neutralized. If you get a bad roll, like 4 damage affixes (Arcane, Molten, Plagued, Frozen), then it sucks a little more, but usually, the worst thing that can happen is getting feared so that you're not gaining back HP faster than it can be taken away.

The game design isn't the only problem, though. Nor is the fact that a couple of gear affixes are insanely overpowered and therefore mandatory. Nor is the auction house entirely to blame for facilitating and promoting cookie-cutter builds. It's a combination of all these things. If you don't build your Barb exactly the way Alkaizer did and play the way he did, your experience with the game is vastly more frustrating, fruitless and inferior. But if you do, the experience is so lifeless and boring that it's like a digital lobotomy. If you don't pull out your credit card and drop at least a couple hundred dollars, you're a second class citizen and have little hope of playing at a high level. But once you do, you've lost any reason to continue to play the game, because you will never get any drops to improve on what you bought even if you play for a million years.

If it were my problem to solve, I would make RMAH money non-removable (so any money you spent would have to stay in the game, you couldn't just hope to recoup it on the flip side), nerf the hell out of Act III's mob density, nerf Life Steal and Crit Damage by at least 50%, change monster scaling so they do a lot more damage at higher monster power, and redesign all boss encounters and rewards so that they were all interesting and worth doing in some way, even at 60. That would go a long way towards opening up the game to different experiences, and it would make better use of the existing game assets. There is the potential to be a lot more than it is.

 

[J2d]

Anyone on eu want to help me with ubers? I've got 3 machines.

J2d#2257

 

[eek5]

I'm a bit baffled that it took them so long to say something. To be honest, their output since release has been pretty mediocre. Mostly recycled content and very small things.

jay wilson was holding them back

 

[Rufus]

That guy is never going to live this down, is he?

 

[nicoga3000]

That guy is never going to live this down, is he?

No, and why should he? I don't want to dog the guy too hard, but from what I gathered, he really wasn't pushing the game forward in the way that he probably should have been being the director.

 

[neoism]

doesn't matter he's moved on to ruined there next game

 

[Svafnir]

Travis Day has been very active the past week and a bit, about posting meaningful information.

I just hope the itemization blog this week is what we have been waiting for... Don't let us down Blizzard!

 

[soxinthebox]

How can they fix itemization without removing crit, crit dmg, as, ar and primary stats altogether? Seems like something that could be forced with an expansion but why would they bother with a .1 update?

 

[Anoregon]

How can they fix itemization without removing crit, crit dmg, as, at and primary stats altogether? Seems like something that could be forced with an expansion but why would they bother with a .1 update?

Yeah, I'm of the opinion that sadly it's functionally impossible for a meaningful itemization change to occur unless it's part of a larger major game overhaul. The way the game systems are connected, I don't see how they can all of a sudden make items more interesting without fixing the systemic flaws that relate lousy items to skills and character power/customization.

 

[Cipherr]

How can they fix itemization without removing crit, crit dmg, as, ar and primary stats altogether? Seems like something that could be forced with an expansion but why would they bother with a .1 update?

Yeah, I'm of the opinion that sadly it's functionally impossible for a meaningful itemization change to occur unless it's part of a larger major game overhaul. The way the game systems are connected, I don't see how they can all of a sudden make items more interesting without fixing the systemic flaws that relate lousy items to skills and character power/customization.

Oh nah, its definitely possible. Buffs. Period.

If Stun/Fear on hit were available on more items, and they multiplied their quantities on items by 2, and continued to allow them to stack (while changing fear to an effect that caused the mob to cower in fear as opposed to running far away); along with lowering the internal cooldown on those proc effects then people would absolutely trade some crit in exchange for building their character around incapacitates.

I could see dropping crit chance for around 1k Life on hit if when I struck something with full life and there was no life for the effect to heal, it instead dealt 8x the amount of LOH I would have been healed for in damage to the monster I struck.

I would wear some Monsters Grant X% experience if it were changed to flat out exp % like on the crafted rings.

Massively increase the effect of thorns damage along with allowing your main stat to increase it, and let pets benefit from it 100%. I would play a pet WD in a hot second if they did that.

All the affixes are salvageable versus the current holy trinity if they are willing to buff them enough.

 

[Catchafire2000]

This game is great for what it is, lets just leave it at that. It was a fun romp, but thats it. It was never their intention for the game to be deep and meaningful at the level Diablo 2. This was immediate from the art direction they chose (while I like the art direction, it doesnt remind me of anything Diablo 1/2).

 

[Shifty76]

How can they fix itemization without removing crit, crit dmg, as, ar and primary stats altogether? Seems like something that could be forced with an expansion but why would they bother with a .1 update?

Did you read his post? He touched on that point exactly.

How about if you had gloves with say +20% chance to freeze or could roll life steal?
All of a sudden that becomes pretty damn attractive.

For the record, this is the part (quoted earlier on this page):

When a perfect pair of gloves is “Core Stat, Vit, Res All, Crit Chance, Crit Dmg, Attack Speed” and you can’t even imagine another stat you would want instead of one of those, we have a bigger problem. Introducing more choice instead of less and giving players more ways to feel like they are customizing their character is what we want to see. If gloves also had the ability to roll +% School Damage, +Life on Hit, Skill specific affixes, plus a couple more things you want, than players may find themselves in a situation where trifecta isn’t as clearly defined anymore.

 

[Dahbomb]

LOL what's School damage?

 

[Rufus]

LOL what's School damage?

Test-education that produces people who only know how to work in rigid frameworks and hierarchies at best and at worst only know how to fulfill the minimum requirements.

 

[turnbuckle]

LOL what's School damage?

+% to elemental damage.

They need to make elemental damage mean something. Right now only cold damage has an effect. Elemental damage on your weapon is basically a negative affix since the only damage desired is "black damage".

Adding something like 20%x elemental to a piece of gear would be fun, but so long as ias, cc, and crit damage mean so much all it will do is narrow down further what's valuable. Instead of wanting tri-fecta gloves, people will want quad fecta. If that elemental affix is only available for legendary slots, then it does nothing at all to address itemization.

 

[Opiate]

Can you dye legendary items yet? Is there any indication that you will ever be able to?

 

[DTKT]

Did you read his post? He touched on that point exactly.

How about if you had gloves with say +20% chance to freeze or could roll life steal?
All of a sudden that becomes pretty damn attractive.

For the record, this is the part (quoted earlier on this page):

But that's a role filled by the legendary. They have the special stats that aren't supposed to be there. Like run speed on a chest, or crit damage on a belt.

Fixing itemization would require a pretty massive rework of the entire system. I don't have the feeling they actually want to fix anything and are just going to wait for the expansion.

 

[Vodh]

Can you dye legendary items yet? Is there any indication that you will ever be able to?

You can make them invisible, that's something. Come back in a year for more info.

 

[inky]

Can you dye legendary items yet? Is there any indication that you will ever be able to?

It's in the to do list.

Edit: They need to redo all the textures to allow for different colors to be applied, so there's no ETA. I can't see it be a top priority thing the way they update the game tbh.

 

[spootime]

Coming back to this game with a friend after a long break. I used to make my money flipping stuff on the auction house (rings + ammys). Is flipping still possible? I figured it might not be these days.