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On February 22 2013 07:14 emythrel wrote:
well you can already have a total of 6 spells active, thats the 4 main buttons plus shoulder buttons and directional controls, boom done. There was a reason they simplified the controls and available active skills, this was probably it. D3 is very much like Baldur's gate: dark alliance in controls and that was my favourite console game ever.
Actually, having 6 spells isn't a bad game design choice. It was probably inspire from Guild Wars. In addition, most builds only use around 3-4 skills in D2 anyway.
So I don't buy the argument that the game was dumbed down because of consoles. In fact, there's no reason why consoles can't handle a "complex" game like D2. D1, which was very similar to D2 in its game systems was also a console game. If you follow WoW, it's apparent that a lot of the design decisions in D3 are an attempt to avoid designs that have been tried and failed in WoW.
I'm more concerned about the people they've hired. For example, B.net 2.0 was consolized, although the recently updated B.net UI for SC2 is less so. They originally hired a console designer to design B.net 2.0. Now they have a console team, and have to divert resources to supporting console development. Essentially, they've sold out.
I hate D3 because of the RMAH, and I don't play the game. So I'm glad that I have no horse in this race. But the implications of entering the console market on Blizzard's future and on the talent of the people they hire, is very concerning to me.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
having 6 active skill slots isn't hte only aspect of the game people focus on though. stuff like 4 member party size, nonopen world, lack of custom games and other social aspects of bnet etc
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On February 22 2013 23:59 oneofthem wrote:
having 6 active skill slots isn't hte only aspect of the game people focus on though. stuff like 4 member party size, nonopen world, lack of custom games and other social aspects of bnet etc
Those aren't even the biggest offenders though. The worst aspect is how they designed the entire game around the RMAH. If you remember back at launch, Inferno difficulty was little more than a scheme to force you to use the real money auction, or unless you wanted to grind Act 1 all day everyday for a slim chance at finding an upgrade. There was no real difficulty, just a big fat gear check between each Act. The goal was incredibly transparent and obvious, force people to use the RMAH if they wanted to conquer Inferno. This was only made worse by the fact there is hardly any character customization or "build" diversity in the game, which leads me to the second biggest offender. Lack of depth.
Comparing the depth behind character builds in D3 to D2 or PoE, D3 is embarassingly simple. This was an obvious attempt to harness console players, and to make the RMAH an even more appealing attraction for those that wanted to try and "beat the game" (in other word, pay to win). Once the original Inferno failed miserably, they made it incredibly easy to complete, and now the true colors of the game shine. There is nothing really to do in the game but farm. Everything was originally designed to force players to spend money in the game, but now that they have taken the "force" part out, there is just simply nothing to do.
It all smells of a desperate company attempting to exploit their fans.
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On February 22 2013 23:59 oneofthem wrote:
having 6 active skill slots isn't hte only aspect of the game people focus on though. stuff like 4 member party size, nonopen world, lack of custom games and other social aspects of bnet etc
Having 4 party members was to reduce plasma soup. Having a nonopen world was a really bad design choice. The quest lobby, which puts the game on a railway track is also a needlessly restrictive and bad design choice. But I don't see how you can blame consoles for it. Related to that is not being able to name games (is this what you mean by no custom games?), this isn't necessarily bad, e.g. in WC3 the only information people conveyed in the title is game mode, which is automatic in SC2, so it's OK. But in D2 people tagged their games for farming, trading, PvP, etc, that's not possible in D3, so it's bad that this feature is missing. On B.net having terrible social features, I agree with you. We can blame that on Xbox Live and B.net 2.0 lead designer, Greg Canessa. That's probably the only thing out of the list that can be directly blamed on consoles.
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On February 23 2013 00:28 paralleluniverse wrote:Show nested quote +On February 22 2013 23:59 oneofthem wrote:
having 6 active skill slots isn't hte only aspect of the game people focus on though. stuff like 4 member party size, nonopen world, lack of custom games and other social aspects of bnet etc Having 4 party members was to reduce plasma soup. Having a nonopen world was a really bad design choice. The quest lobby, which puts the game on a railway track is also a needlessly restrictive and bad design choice. But I don't see how you can blame consoles for it. Related to that is not being able to name games (is this what you mean by no custom games?), this isn't necessarily bad, e.g. in WC3 the only information people conveyed in the title is game mode, which is automatic in SC2, so it's OK. But in D2 people tagged their games for farming, trading, PvP, etc, that's not possible in D3, so it's bad that this feature is missing. On B.net having terrible social features, I agree with you. We can blame that on Xbox Live and B.net 2.0 lead designer, Greg Canessa. That's probably the only thing out of the list that can be directly blamed on consoles.
PoE does just fine with more than 4 party members, so does D2. Not to mention, grouping was completely discouraged with the original vision for the game. Even after they nerfed the difficulty and changed the penalities for grouping, there still isn't really a good reason to group. I guess ubers is the only one?
In any case, I think the game wouldn't have really benefited from having larger groups anyways. The gameplay was clearly not developed with grouping in mind, it's a very isolated and lonely experience.
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On February 23 2013 01:10 AnomalySC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 23 2013 00:28 paralleluniverse wrote:On February 22 2013 23:59 oneofthem wrote:
having 6 active skill slots isn't hte only aspect of the game people focus on though. stuff like 4 member party size, nonopen world, lack of custom games and other social aspects of bnet etc Having 4 party members was to reduce plasma soup. Having a nonopen world was a really bad design choice. The quest lobby, which puts the game on a railway track is also a needlessly restrictive and bad design choice. But I don't see how you can blame consoles for it. Related to that is not being able to name games (is this what you mean by no custom games?), this isn't necessarily bad, e.g. in WC3 the only information people conveyed in the title is game mode, which is automatic in SC2, so it's OK. But in D2 people tagged their games for farming, trading, PvP, etc, that's not possible in D3, so it's bad that this feature is missing. On B.net having terrible social features, I agree with you. We can blame that on Xbox Live and B.net 2.0 lead designer, Greg Canessa. That's probably the only thing out of the list that can be directly blamed on consoles. PoE does just fine with more than 4 party members, so does D2. Not to mention, grouping was completely discouraged with the original vision for the game. Even after they nerfed the difficulty and changed the penalities for grouping, there still isn't really a good reason to group. I guess ubers is the only one? In any case, I think the game wouldn't have really benefited from having larger groups anyways. The gameplay was clearly not developed with grouping in mind, it's a very isolated and lonely experience.
D2 has major problems with plasma soup, especially in 8 player Baal runs. I can't speak for PoE, I don't know how flashy their spell animations are. I played that game for 2 hours and it was the most mind-numbing, monotonous, ugly, and boring game I've ever played. I'm completely serious when I say that PoE is literally the worse game I have ever played, I've never ever played a worse game. But given how flashy animations are for D3, there is no hope that any more players in a game would be viable without the screen exploding in a firework of flashy colors and unreadable gameplay.
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On February 23 2013 01:30 paralleluniverse wrote:Show nested quote +On February 23 2013 01:10 AnomalySC2 wrote:On February 23 2013 00:28 paralleluniverse wrote:On February 22 2013 23:59 oneofthem wrote:
having 6 active skill slots isn't hte only aspect of the game people focus on though. stuff like 4 member party size, nonopen world, lack of custom games and other social aspects of bnet etc Having 4 party members was to reduce plasma soup. Having a nonopen world was a really bad design choice. The quest lobby, which puts the game on a railway track is also a needlessly restrictive and bad design choice. But I don't see how you can blame consoles for it. Related to that is not being able to name games (is this what you mean by no custom games?), this isn't necessarily bad, e.g. in WC3 the only information people conveyed in the title is game mode, which is automatic in SC2, so it's OK. But in D2 people tagged their games for farming, trading, PvP, etc, that's not possible in D3, so it's bad that this feature is missing. On B.net having terrible social features, I agree with you. We can blame that on Xbox Live and B.net 2.0 lead designer, Greg Canessa. That's probably the only thing out of the list that can be directly blamed on consoles. PoE does just fine with more than 4 party members, so does D2. Not to mention, grouping was completely discouraged with the original vision for the game. Even after they nerfed the difficulty and changed the penalities for grouping, there still isn't really a good reason to group. I guess ubers is the only one? In any case, I think the game wouldn't have really benefited from having larger groups anyways. The gameplay was clearly not developed with grouping in mind, it's a very isolated and lonely experience. D2 has major problems with plasma soup, especially in 8 player Baal runs. I can't speak for PoE, I don't know how flashy their spell animations are. I played that game for 2 hours and it was the most mind-numbing, monotonous, ugly, and boring game I've ever played. I'm completely serious when I say that PoE is literally the worse game I have ever played, I've never ever played a worse game. But given how flashy animations are for D3, there is no hope that any more players in a game would be viable without the screen exploding in a firework of flashy colors and unreadable gameplay.
I see I see. Well to each their own I guess, I find PoE to be vastly superior to D3 in every way outside of animations. With D2 I never had a problem seeing what was going on because of this "plasma soup", as you call it (not to mention, it's hard to deny the incredible coincidence of 4 player split screen on consoles....). I find that to be a silly excuse to lower the amount of players in a group. And again, I don't think it even matters discussing it anyways, the game was clearly originally intended to be played solo.
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I think it's funny because now that the game is a critical disaster they should take the money and run. I can't imagine it'll do well for PS4, and if it does I'll be disgusted with the human race.
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the game was a huge dissapointment for 90% of the players and instead of patching it up and providing better content and stuff they did nothing and now they wanna sell that ctap on PS ? Its just lol .....
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Man. I don't understand this. I thought blizzard was one of the company's out there who were faithful to the fans. This is cheap and an insult to Diablo. (More so than D3 already was.)
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On February 23 2013 03:08 esprsjsalvz wrote:
Man. I don't understand this. I thought blizzard was one of the company's out there who were faithful to the fans. This is cheap and an insult to Diablo. (More so than D3 already was.)
Ha, since the Activision merger the only thing they're faithful to is money. A friend of mine kept warning me that SC2 being split up into 3 different games was a good sign they were going down that road but I didn't believe him. Shoulda listened. It seems like independant studios are the only devs that are capable of making great games these days.
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Best post from the reddit thread:
Games brought to PC = Praise the Developer.
Diablo to Consoles = Fucking greedy assholes.
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On February 23 2013 04:04 Teddyman wrote:Best post from the reddit thread: Show nested quote +Games brought to PC = Praise the Developer.
Diablo to Consoles = Fucking greedy assholes.
No. The outrage is over how it's obvious now they based all their gameplay decisions in this plan, eliminating stuff like 8 players at the same time while not being honest with the fans who spent money on the game. Le witty frases don't help, as usual.
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On February 23 2013 04:17 LuisFrost wrote:Show nested quote +On February 23 2013 04:04 Teddyman wrote:Best post from the reddit thread: Games brought to PC = Praise the Developer.
Diablo to Consoles = Fucking greedy assholes. No. The outrage is over how it's obvious now they based all their gameplay decisions in this plan, eliminating stuff like 8 players at the same time while not being honest with the fans who spent money on the game. Le witty frases don't help, as usual.
What makes it so obvious? Are TL2 and PoE also designed for consoles since they don't support 8 players? How long would it take to make a separate version with 6 player limit for PC? 1 week?
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On February 23 2013 04:27 Teddyman wrote:Show nested quote +On February 23 2013 04:17 LuisFrost wrote:On February 23 2013 04:04 Teddyman wrote:Best post from the reddit thread: Games brought to PC = Praise the Developer.
Diablo to Consoles = Fucking greedy assholes. No. The outrage is over how it's obvious now they based all their gameplay decisions in this plan, eliminating stuff like 8 players at the same time while not being honest with the fans who spent money on the game. Le witty frases don't help, as usual. What makes it so obvious? Are TL2 and PoE also designed for consoles since they don't support 8 players? How long would it take to make a separate version with 6 player limit for PC? 1 week?
I don't see why you're only focusing on the 8 player aspect.
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Let's say you are a designer in a company that has a huge following of PC gamers. You are planning to make a PC game and release a console port a year or two later. You haven't released anything for consoles in over 10 years, and the genre of the game you are making is not well established there. That means the PC version is going to vastly outsell the console version, probably at least 3:1. Would you design the PC version with console limitations in mind? Wouldn't it be easier to make the PC version as normal, then change the console version in the areas where it needs to be different?
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On February 23 2013 04:48 Teddyman wrote:
Let's say you are a designer in a company that has a huge following of PC gamers. You are planning to make a PC game and release a console port a year or two later. You haven't released anything for consoles in over 10 years, and the genre of the game you are making is not well established there. That means the PC version is going to vastly outsell the console version, probably at least 3:1. Would you design the PC version with console limitations in mind? Wouldn't it be easier to make the PC version as normal, then change the console version in the areas where it needs to be different?
Ok. I accept it's not obvious. Maybe you are right. But unless we can submit Jay to questioning, how can we tell for sure? It's not just the 8 player thing, there's all the stuff in Zelniq's post on page one of the thread.
But did you play the game? Like, from the start? It's been a rollercoaster of annoyance. I never before had payed to become a beta tester. All I'm saying is that people do have reasons to be annoyed, it's not just "lol, le angry people". It was a bad experience, not for all, but for most players - at least the ones in my circle of friends. The last time I logged in, months ago, there was nobody left in my friends list. But yeah, in the end it's my fault for trusting Blizz blindly. Live and learn, they say.
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OK here are the extremely simple refutations to the 4chan post.
4 players: very simple to make a 6 player game and then just limit it to 4 on console
No open world to keep people on the same screen: they have to solve the (non-)problem of people walking off screen anyway. Just make it jump back to splitscreen if people are not close. Lego LOTR does the same.
No skill points or number crunching: plenty of console games have skill points. D1/D2 never had any complicated number crunching.
"4-5 skills on your bar at once": it's not 4-5, it's 6. Either way you could make a normal skill system and just have option to bind 6 of them. I think Mass Effect 2 on console did the same. D1 was based on this, unlimited skills but bind only 4. Wait, 4 is less than 6??
No runes/"complicated shit": not seeing how the fun or lack thereof is platform dependent in any way.
Can't make game name: standard bnet2 lack-of-feature.
Achievements: every game has them.
Passive skills: D2 had them.
No VOIP: Nobody uses their VOIP in any of the other titles.
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D3 will sell like absolute shit on consoles for three reasons.
1. Everybody who was interested has already bought it.
2. The game has a bad reputation and bad word of mouth. It sold initially due to being "Diablo" but that grace period has passed and the game must stand on it's own, not the prior games.
3. Let's face it, the PC version is bad, the console version is going to be even worse, just in terms of control and UI.
Blizzard wanting to get into the console market is smart. Them destroying one of their important franchises and pissing off their most loyal customers to do so was stupid.
They should have developed a complely new game or franchise on consoles only.
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EPT
