Diablo IV - Page 66

On April 09 2023 00:29 sertas wrote:
it's not a basic skill-tree, poe just made evreones brains require a 2 hour youtube video before actually playing the game type of skill-tree where you cant respec. Diablo 2 is basic, diablo 1 also, this is far more complicated then diablo 2

On April 09 2023 00:29 sertas wrote:
it's not a basic skill-tree, poe just made evreones brains require a 2 hour youtube video before actually playing the game type of skill-tree where you cant respec. Diablo 2 is basic, diablo 1 also, this is far more complicated then diablo 2

On April 08 2023 05:52 Manit0u wrote:
One thing that seems kinda sus to me is how the UI looks. Not the HUD part with the orbs and skills but when you open up the menus. Skill trees and everything look super bland and uninspired. A bunch of simplistic icons on a grey background, with weird spacing so you have to scroll to see the tree (even though it isn't very big).



I really can't believe that in 3 years they actually went backwards in the design of this... Is it because of the consoles?

On April 09 2023 00:29 sertas wrote:
it's not a basic skill-tree, poe just made evreones brains require a 2 hour youtube video before actually playing the game type of skill-tree where you cant respec. Diablo 2 is basic, diablo 1 also, this is far more complicated then diablo 2

On April 09 2023 08:40 Archeon wrote:
Tbf that's exactly how I feel about a lot of the smaller nodes in d4. 3% more poison damage is neither interesting nor impactful and a lot of the x or y skill customization points are really lacking.

On April 09 2023 09:24 Turbovolver wrote:
[...] from what I gather. Legendaries encourage focusing on a specific skill, and monster immunes are presumably gone like they were in D3.

On April 09 2023 15:18 Excalibur_Z wrote:
It's a double-edged sword, right? You can plan your build, but you can't plan your gear. You're just at the mercy of what happens to drop for you. In that sense, free or low-cost respecs fit well, because you can easily tailor your build to suit the randomness of the game (and by the same token, expensive respecs feel annoying as you grind for the necessary materials and mull over whether it would simply be a better idea to make a new character). The downside then is the lack of permanent or sticky decisions when the costs are cheap.

One thing that irks me about ARPGs is the prevalence of "builds", and the more complex the skill tree, the more this necessitates "builds" which have been min/maxed by cave-dwelling Redditors who are gifted Reddit Golds by gracious players too busy or too lazy to plan out their own adventures. I'm reasonably sure designers don't like this either because any "best" thing invalidates the other options they've laid out for players - they want choices to feel meaningful and worthy of careful consideration as they try to anticipate which choices will suit which type of player. So how do they solve this dilemma? Surely something will be 1% "better" than something else, which means 90% (not 1%) of players will flock to that being the "obvious" choice at each successive fork in the road, right?

I keep coming back to a rather weird comparison: Dota. In Dota, the choices you make (in the form of items, skill paths, and talents) are generally permanent. Bad matchups exist, and you as the player must determine which items are most reasonable for you to buy, weighing cost-effectiveness, the pace of the game you intend to set, the realities of your lane matchups, the opposing draft and their expected power spike timings, and so many other nuances. So far, no ARPG that I've seen has really managed to capture this challenge - D2 came close with its immunities (how do I deal with them?), but I think they can push this further in D4 by making decisions more specialized and mutually exclusive, closer to Dota talents.

Say I need to make a choice between melee defense and ranged defense. As a Sorc, that might look like a form of Frozen Armor versus a form of Slow Time. As a Rogue, maybe that's deciding between a parry-riposte ability and an ability that lets you teleport to a ranged enemy that recently attacked you. These are thematically functional examples, but just as importantly, they force tough decisions. There are countless other possibilities: single-target vs AoE specialization; elemental affinities; drop quality vs drop frequency, etc. I think it's okay to allow for free or inexpensive respecs under this model, because they don't necessarily make the game easier, they make sections of the game easier, which inherently means there is no universally correct answer.

I will give credit to D4 for making some of the skill augmentations interesting. After all, stuff like piercing projectiles and chaining explosions is cool and fun. I just want the developers to avoid the pitfall of "why would I ever get that, though, when I could just get this?" Certainly there are X-factors involved here, like the fact that they want Legendary properties to be collectible, and that already kind of philosophically dooms this path. As exciting as they want Legendary items to be, and transforming playstyles definitely falls into that category, making their unique properties too impactful means that players can cover for weaknesses in unforeseen ways, leading to the "build" conundrum.

On April 09 2023 15:18 Excalibur_Z wrote:
It's a double-edged sword, right? You can plan your build, but you can't plan your gear. You're just at the mercy of what happens to drop for you. In that sense, free or low-cost respecs fit well, because you can easily tailor your build to suit the randomness of the game (and by the same token, expensive respecs feel annoying as you grind for the necessary materials and mull over whether it would simply be a better idea to make a new character). The downside then is the lack of permanent or sticky decisions when the costs are cheap.

One thing that irks me about ARPGs is the prevalence of "builds", and the more complex the skill tree, the more this necessitates "builds" which have been min/maxed by cave-dwelling Redditors who are gifted Reddit Golds by gracious players too busy or too lazy to plan out their own adventures. I'm reasonably sure designers don't like this either because any "best" thing invalidates the other options they've laid out for players - they want choices to feel meaningful and worthy of careful consideration as they try to anticipate which choices will suit which type of player. So how do they solve this dilemma? Surely something will be 1% "better" than something else, which means 90% (not 1%) of players will flock to that being the "obvious" choice at each successive fork in the road, right?

I keep coming back to a rather weird comparison: Dota. In Dota, the choices you make (in the form of items, skill paths, and talents) are generally permanent. Bad matchups exist, and you as the player must determine which items are most reasonable for you to buy, weighing cost-effectiveness, the pace of the game you intend to set, the realities of your lane matchups, the opposing draft and their expected power spike timings, and so many other nuances. So far, no ARPG that I've seen has really managed to capture this challenge - D2 came close with its immunities (how do I deal with them?), but I think they can push this further in D4 by making decisions more specialized and mutually exclusive, closer to Dota talents.

Say I need to make a choice between melee defense and ranged defense. As a Sorc, that might look like a form of Frozen Armor versus a form of Slow Time. As a Rogue, maybe that's deciding between a parry-riposte ability and an ability that lets you teleport to a ranged enemy that recently attacked you. These are thematically functional examples, but just as importantly, they force tough decisions. There are countless other possibilities: single-target vs AoE specialization; elemental affinities; drop quality vs drop frequency, etc. I think it's okay to allow for free or inexpensive respecs under this model, because they don't necessarily make the game easier, they make sections of the game easier, which inherently means there is no universally correct answer.

I will give credit to D4 for making some of the skill augmentations interesting. After all, stuff like piercing projectiles and chaining explosions is cool and fun. I just want the developers to avoid the pitfall of "why would I ever get that, though, when I could just get this?" Certainly there are X-factors involved here, like the fact that they want Legendary properties to be collectible, and that already kind of philosophically dooms this path. As exciting as they want Legendary items to be, and transforming playstyles definitely falls into that category, making their unique properties too impactful means that players can cover for weaknesses in unforeseen ways, leading to the "build" conundrum.

On April 09 2023 15:18 Excalibur_Z wrote:
One thing that irks me about ARPGs is the prevalence of "builds", and the more complex the skill tree, the more this necessitates "builds" which have been min/maxed by cave-dwelling Redditors who are gifted Reddit Golds by gracious players too busy or too lazy to plan out their own adventures. I'm reasonably sure designers don't like this either because any "best" thing invalidates the other options they've laid out for players - they want choices to feel meaningful and worthy of careful consideration as they try to anticipate which choices will suit which type of player. So how do they solve this dilemma? Surely something will be 1% "better" than something else, which means 90% (not 1%) of players will flock to that being the "obvious" choice at each successive fork in the road, right?

On April 09 2023 23:20 Gorsameth wrote:
D3 has limited variety but there are a bunch of sets which give different play styles. The problem, as with so much of modern gaming, is everyone looks at what the top 0.01% are doing and thinking that is the only way to play.

It feels like everyone plays the same build because your looking at the top of the ladder, the highest you can push which by definition shows only the 'best' possible combinations for speed running a tier 150 rift.
Every game will have this if your only looking at the very top of what is possible.

On April 10 2023 06:44 Fleetfeet wrote:
I did like the minor choices around D3 sets, though. You still had to pick what supplemental skills to run, the runes for those skills, and a handful of inventory slots / legendary affixes to choose between... it amounted to some level of choice that felt worthwhile. Obviously, I understand the issues that arise from "50-80% of your build is decided for you" but I did still enjoy the choices you got to make outside of that. I'm hoping for a similarly casual experience when I get around to D4 - I want it to be a funny shitshow with friends, not something I need a spreadsheet for.