EPTReaper of Souls General Discussion - Page 62
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Sindriss
Denmark263 Posts
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crms
United States11933 Posts
while the writing is harsh and I wish better written and a bit more comprehensive, this 'info-graph' highlights the major issue with D2 vs D3 loot itemization. While doing my re-play of Diablo 2 this week, I've run Nightmare Meph about 10-15 times and found ~12 uniques (legendaries). Including some nice niche uniques that are great for certain builds on other classes. Stuff like that just doesn't happen in D3. It won't happen because you'll never spend 15-20m doing quick boss runs to obtain ~12 legendaries, and the legendaries you would find in ACT3NM wouldn't be worth IDing. When characters have no depth of customization, the items are boring and undesirable. + Show Spoiler + ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/ZL8Qoo2.jpg) | ||
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Markwerf
Netherlands3728 Posts
Massive inflation is the easiest way for them to make the new stuff interesting, ie new items will massively outclass existing ones. I expect top items in the expo to be about 2-3x better than the ones now so ubergeared characters now will still find new better stuff relatively easily at lvl 70. With gold it's more difficult though since some the prices for top stuff are just so massive, drop rates will increase but unlike for items it needs to massively increase. Existing players are probably best off hoarding money asap selling all stuff and then using that to gain an edge in the new expo if that's your thing. Would be cool though if they just introduced a new currency, silver instead of gold in the expo with a harsh but fixed exchange rate to go from gold to silver. | ||
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Black Gun
Germany4482 Posts
On August 29 2013 02:20 Markwerf wrote: Would be just much cooler if they reset everything but the fact many people paid real money for lots of stuff probably prohibits them from doing that. Protecting the players that have invested already is probably a must for them to prevent the massive whining but on the other hand makes the barrier to entry quite high for new players, it's sort of like the restricted list in magic which ended up hurting them much more than actually helping the game. Massive inflation is the easiest way for them to make the new stuff interesting, ie new items will massively outclass existing ones. I expect top items in the expo to be about 2-3x better than the ones now so ubergeared characters now will still find new better stuff relatively easily at lvl 70. With gold it's more difficult though since some the prices for top stuff are just so massive, drop rates will increase but unlike for items it needs to massively increase. Existing players are probably best off hoarding money asap selling all stuff and then using that to gain an edge in the new expo if that's your thing. Would be cool though if they just introduced a new currency, silver instead of gold in the expo with a harsh but fixed exchange rate to go from gold to silver. i wouldnt call it silver, since gold > silver is ingrained in our minds... lets call it platinum or something like that. couldnt they make it so that some stuff in the game can only be purchased with "platinum"... say crafting or rerolling single stats on existing items or something like that which everyone will want to use. now comes the trick: platinum doesnt drop in the game, it can only be purchased for gold via a flexible ratio. that way, blizz could adjust the gold to platinum ratio whenever gold inflation occurs and thus create a gold sink that will not lose its efficiency, even if gold itself inflates. for example, new monster power levels are introduced which, after some weeks of adjusting, result in much more gold being found per hour of playtime than before. thus, gold loses value. no problem, they just have to adjust the gold to platinum ratio accordingly, problem solved. what do you think? | ||
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MrTortoise
1388 Posts
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dAPhREAk
Nauru12397 Posts
On August 29 2013 02:41 Black Gun wrote: i wouldnt call it silver, since gold > silver is ingrained in our minds... lets call it platinum or something like that. couldnt they make it so that some stuff in the game can only be purchased with "platinum"... say crafting or rerolling single stats on existing items or something like that which everyone will want to use. now comes the trick: platinum doesnt drop in the game, it can only be purchased for gold via a flexible ratio. that way, blizz could adjust the gold to platinum ratio whenever gold inflation occurs and thus create a gold sink that will not lose its efficiency, even if gold itself inflates. for example, new monster power levels are introduced which, after some weeks of adjusting, result in much more gold being found per hour of playtime than before. thus, gold loses value. no problem, they just have to adjust the gold to platinum ratio accordingly, problem solved. what do you think? bots would destroy this economy immediately. they would inflate the amount of gold in the universe, which would force the "flexible" ratio so high that people who don't bot will have useless gold. people would be forced to buy gold just to get platinum. | ||
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Black Gun
Germany4482 Posts
On August 29 2013 03:23 dAPhREAk wrote: bots would destroy this economy immediately. they would inflate the amount of gold in the universe, which would force the "flexible" ratio so high that people who don't bot will have useless gold. people would be forced to buy gold just to get platinum. true, i didnt think this to the end... well, it would solve the inflation problem IF blizzard was finally able/willing to ban botters quickly enough. | ||
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chaos021
United States258 Posts
On August 29 2013 00:50 crms wrote: i like a lot of these suggestions but itemization and character development are by far the most important issues. paragon system 2.0 is a nice baby step but the items and character interaction needs an overhaul. while the writing is harsh and I wish better written and a bit more comprehensive, this 'info-graph' highlights the major issue with D2 vs D3 loot itemization. While doing my re-play of Diablo 2 this week, I've run Nightmare Meph about 10-15 times and found ~12 uniques (legendaries). Including some nice niche uniques that are great for certain builds on other classes. Stuff like that just doesn't happen in D3. It won't happen because you'll never spend 15-20m doing quick boss runs to obtain ~12 legendaries, and the legendaries you would find in ACT3NM wouldn't be worth IDing. When characters have no depth of customization, the items are boring and undesirable. + Show Spoiler + Amen. | ||
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TheFish7
United States2824 Posts
My buddy today at work "Dude! I heard Diablo 3 is coming out for Xbox! Should I get it?" Me: "Hell no, you should buy Diablo 2 for PC instead" Him: "Hmm, guess I'll stick to Borderlands" | ||
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SarcasmMonster
3136 Posts
On August 29 2013 05:58 TheFish7 wrote: So basically this expac is going to be a bunch of stuff we should've got in vanilla, and attempt to fix the loot system which will still remain broken due to the dumb DPS stat on weapons affecting all spells. And no PvP. Cool I'll pass thanks. My buddy today at work "Dude! I heard Diablo 3 is coming out for Xbox! Should I get it?" Me: "Hell no, you should buy Diablo 2 for PC instead" Him: "Hmm, guess I'll stick to Borderlands" Most of the interesting stuff will be in vanilla. I think expac only unlocks a new class and a new act, everything else will be accessible to the vanilla player. In fact, vanilla players can even play with expac players (except for the new act). | ||
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Mistakes
United States1102 Posts
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rezoacken
Canada2719 Posts
The really insulting part is that they had 5years to think upon a system (and test it), 40hours a week and with 2 games as precedents. Took 2 days for people to recognize the stat system as boring. That's really sad. | ||
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dmfg
United Kingdom591 Posts
On August 29 2013 00:50 crms wrote: i like a lot of these suggestions but itemization and character development are by far the most important issues. paragon system 2.0 is a nice baby step but the items and character interaction needs an overhaul. while the writing is harsh and I wish better written and a bit more comprehensive, this 'info-graph' highlights the major issue with D2 vs D3 loot itemization. While doing my re-play of Diablo 2 this week, I've run Nightmare Meph about 10-15 times and found ~12 uniques (legendaries). Including some nice niche uniques that are great for certain builds on other classes. Stuff like that just doesn't happen in D3. It won't happen because you'll never spend 15-20m doing quick boss runs to obtain ~12 legendaries, and the legendaries you would find in ACT3NM wouldn't be worth IDing. When characters have no depth of customization, the items are boring and undesirable. I think there are 2 separate issues that this infographic is trying to pass off as one. The stat allocation issue is completely separate to the diversity of gear issue. If you couldn't allocate stats in D2, the exact same gear would still be desirable to the exact same builds (the only difference being the number of str/dex charms required to equip it). Character stat allocation did absolutely nothing for gear diversity; having unusual and gamechanging affixes is what did it. As for what makes gear "interesting", every single item from D2 that I would call "interesting" has one thing in common: they grant unique spells that are normally locked to one class. Whether that be Enigma, Andy's visage, Insight, Passion, Chaos, Atma's scarab, Demon Limb, Wolfhowl, etc. Yes, there are other powerful items like BotD, but there is nothing interesting about BotD other than it being really really powerful. These items were interesting because they let you make (effectively) cross-class hybrids. They did nothing for itemisation - maybe you aimed for a different IAS breakpoint but that was really it. Some of them changed nothing at all about how you build or played your char (2x CTA in alt weapons anyone?). I don't think these are an answer to "the loot problem" - you get a few interesting items, but you won't really add any depth to gearing. And I think that is my problem with analyses like the one in that image. D2 had a lot of pieces of gear which were interesting in isolation (all of them added after LoD, and almost all of those added in 1.10 or beyond when LoD had already been out for years). But they didn't make building a gear set interesting, because by and large it wasn't. What it came down to was meeting some caps (resist all and IAS, and IAS was almost entirely based on weapon IAS so the rest of your gear hardly mattered) and calling it a day. Yes you could stack different things, like going for pure weapon speed (enchantress, firebear, tesladin), stacking CB, stacking DS, whatever. But none of those things really changed anything about how you played the char, or how combat felt. They were just generic DPS increasing affixes that happened to use different mechanics. They were (to use the phrase in the infographic) toast. I think Blizz needs to be very careful, because if they give in and just give D2 patch 1.10-style loot in D3, we might have fun initially until the clear cookie cutter builds come out, and then we will be in the exact same situation as we are now, where after you decide you are going Monk + claw that lets you use whirlwind, the gearing is just as uninteresting as it is today (and as it was in D2). | ||
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SarcasmMonster
3136 Posts
On August 29 2013 06:55 rezoacken wrote: The really insulting part is that they had 5years to think upon a system (and test it), 40hours a week and with 2 games as precedents. Took 2 days for people to recognize the stat system as boring. That's really sad. To be a little fair, the stat system is the same in D1/D2 for some classes. For example, the Barb in D2, almost all of his spells scales off weapon damage + strength, where each point in strength increases damage by 1%, ie. same as D3 Barb. The D3 devs took that system and mirrored it for all the classes with their own primary stat, which turned out to be a bad move. | ||
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crms
United States11933 Posts
On August 29 2013 06:55 dmfg wrote: + Show Spoiler + On August 29 2013 00:50 crms wrote: i like a lot of these suggestions but itemization and character development are by far the most important issues. paragon system 2.0 is a nice baby step but the items and character interaction needs an overhaul. while the writing is harsh and I wish better written and a bit more comprehensive, this 'info-graph' highlights the major issue with D2 vs D3 loot itemization. While doing my re-play of Diablo 2 this week, I've run Nightmare Meph about 10-15 times and found ~12 uniques (legendaries). Including some nice niche uniques that are great for certain builds on other classes. Stuff like that just doesn't happen in D3. It won't happen because you'll never spend 15-20m doing quick boss runs to obtain ~12 legendaries, and the legendaries you would find in ACT3NM wouldn't be worth IDing. When characters have no depth of customization, the items are boring and undesirable. I think there are 2 separate issues that this infographic is trying to pass off as one. The stat allocation issue is completely separate to the diversity of gear issue. If you couldn't allocate stats in D2, the exact same gear would still be desirable to the exact same builds (the only difference being the number of str/dex charms required to equip it). Character stat allocation did absolutely nothing for gear diversity; having unusual and gamechanging affixes is what did it. As for what makes gear "interesting", every single item from D2 that I would call "interesting" has one thing in common: they grant unique spells that are normally locked to one class. Whether that be Enigma, Andy's visage, Insight, Passion, Chaos, Atma's scarab, Demon Limb, Wolfhowl, etc. Yes, there are other powerful items like BotD, but there is nothing interesting about BotD other than it being really really powerful. These items were interesting because they let you make (effectively) cross-class hybrids. They did nothing for itemisation - maybe you aimed for a different IAS breakpoint but that was really it. Some of them changed nothing at all about how you build or played your char (2x CTA in alt weapons anyone?). I don't think these are an answer to "the loot problem" - you get a few interesting items, but you won't really add any depth to gearing. And I think that is my problem with analyses like the one in that image. D2 had a lot of pieces of gear which were interesting in isolation (all of them added after LoD, and almost all of those added in 1.10 or beyond when LoD had already been out for years). But they didn't make building a gear set interesting, because by and large it wasn't. What it came down to was meeting some caps (resist all and IAS, and IAS was almost entirely based on weapon IAS so the rest of your gear hardly mattered) and calling it a day. Yes you could stack different things, like going for pure weapon speed (enchantress, firebear, tesladin), stacking CB, stacking DS, whatever. But none of those things really changed anything about how you played the char, or how combat felt. They were just generic DPS increasing affixes that happened to use different mechanics. They were (to use the phrase in the infographic) toast. I think Blizz needs to be very careful, because if they give in and just give D2 patch 1.10-style loot in D3, we might have fun initially until the clear cookie cutter builds come out, and then we will be in the exact same situation as we are now, where after you decide you are going Monk + claw that lets you use whirlwind, the gearing is just as uninteresting as it is today (and as it was in D2). Good post. I would argue that stat allocating is rather unimportant to the point of the image and to the point of my post. Stat allocating was more or less inconsequential for the 'average' player. The mix/max players would get str to equip limit, dex to block cap and dump vit. The point about the items being interesting coorelates more to the skill tree. The fact you could build items (at any level range) that could beef spells into interesting builds offered a lot of diversity. The 'one-size fits all' style of the d3, gear, skill and character development is what makes the items extremely boring main stat/off stat/crit/crit dmg/as etc. If d3 had re-specable characters with spells that weren't effected by weapon dps and itemization with +skills, +unique modifiers (d2/poe) and made a ton of them throughout the game that were actually farmable (the drop rates for a useable/great/ideal/ piece of gear in d3 is atrocious in comparison to D2) I think the majority of what's wrong with the game could be fixed. Your naked lv60 d3 character shouldn't feel marginally better than your lv1. That certainly isn't close to the case in d2. | ||
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dAPhREAk
Nauru12397 Posts
they can do the same thing in d3 as they did in d2, but they just havent been creative with their legendaries. edit: there is also an ice wizard build developed around those frostburn gauntlets and an occulus. | ||
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Amaril
Germany105 Posts
All the new Legendaries will be fun. There are crazy good lowlevel legendaries - if they can now drop at Level60+ this will shape up things. Things like http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/pride-of-cassius *gg* | ||
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Yrr
Germany804 Posts
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Najda
United States3765 Posts
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dmfg
United Kingdom591 Posts
On August 29 2013 07:16 crms wrote: Good post. I would argue that stat allocating is rather unimportant to the point of the image and to the point of my post. Stat allocating was more or less inconsequential for the 'average' player. The mix/max players would get str to equip limit, dex to block cap and dump vit. The point about the items being interesting coorelates more to the skill tree. The fact you could build items (at any level range) that could beef spells into interesting builds offered a lot of diversity. The 'one-size fits all' style of the d3, gear, skill and character development is what makes the items extremely boring main stat/off stat/crit/crit dmg/as etc. If d3 had re-specable characters with spells that weren't effected by weapon dps and itemization with +skills, +unique modifiers (d2/poe) and made a ton of them throughout the game that were actually farmable (the drop rates for a useable/great/ideal/ piece of gear in d3 is atrocious in comparison to D2) I think the majority of what's wrong with the game could be fixed. Your naked lv60 d3 character shouldn't feel marginally better than your lv1. That certainly isn't close to the case in d2. The caster vs melee distinction in D2 was an interesting one. On the one hand, it did open up 2 gearing strats: +skills (perhaps with +elemental dam/-resist items) or weapon damage with IAS. On the other hand, it didn't really introduce any choice. A sorc couldn't choose to throw on a high DPS weapon and stack weapon damage mods - it would be terrible. A barb couldn't make up for terrible weapon DPS by stacking +skills. There will still only one true path for each class, and the main difference was just that casters could get by with bad weapons and melee couldn't. Yes, naked casters were far more powerful than naked melee, but that's not really applicable to D3 where there's no reason to be naked at level 60 unless you're deliberately doing it for whatever reason. Now if they added a way of caster gearing that was a genuine alternative (neither mandatory nor useless), I would be all for that. Imagine, say, if Witch Doctor got a new passive called.. hmm.. "Spirit of Decay" or something, which caused their weapon DPS to be set to (Poison Resist * scaling variable) and ignore the number on their weapon. Tuned right, a WD could then choose to either gear like they do now, or to stack poison resist on armour and have a massive choice of weapons available. You could do something similar for the Wizard. Now that's one of those things that initially sounds very cool (well, to me anyway :p ) but would it really be better? Even with this option, there's still a very clear cut set of affixes that are valuable (same as before + poison resist) so I'm not sure it would make gearing more interesting. It would make the toast green, but it's still toast. And no doubt the community would theorycraft which option scales better, and declare that beyond whatever threshold of gear, you should take this passive otherwise you're a noob who needs to L2P. I hope Blizz is testing things like this, but it's gonna be really hard for them to figure out how to make the gearing fun. At D3 launch I thought the various barb rage on crit mechanics would be fun, especially with perma-whirlwind. It seemed like an interesting interaction between skills, passives and gear. But it very quickly became "the one true way to gear barb" and isn't really thought of as interesting or clever at all. | ||
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