I just can't agree with this statement. Not that playing itself isn't or shouldn't be fun, of course it is/should. But this sounds like theorycrafting isn't supposed to be fun, while the opposite is true.
I mean, spending time at the "drawing board", doing research, figuring things out and then seeing them work out ingame ("work out" as in being noticeably stronger than before, just by virtue of having made the right -well thought out- choices) is so much more rewarding and complex as a game system than a game, in which you can only decide between doing red or yellow combat animations.
It's a night and day difference, like American Football vs 100m sprints. In the latter you can't improve via the use of your brain. There is no tactics, no nothing, trained animals can do this, in fact they do. AF on the other hand, well, most of you know the game better than I do, there is so much strategy and tactics involved, so much potential to outsmart the competition.
To me, a game that doesn't have this, is rather boring. And not to insult anyone, but such games are made for kids, seriously. They lack a whole dimension of fun.
In D2, you had to theorycraft in order to be successful. You could not beat it trough hell with a broken character.
In D3, you don't have to theorycraft to beat it on hell. But that does not mean you can't to optimize a class or build. They just took away the necessity, not the ability.
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i find theorycrafting in game 999999 times better cause you get to see how the skill works first hand for example i included dashing strike in almost every build i made but when i played the open beta i didn't like how it works and it felt clunky.
in D3 you are going to theorycraft but this time it is going to be more like a continious polish, testing and improvement of your build not a calculated build that you work towards.
The way it works now is that there is some direction to how you classes are categorized. This did exist in D2 as well but you didn't really work with as many skills there either. You can remove the button restriction and then have all the options you want available, the issue has been if given free reign to just throw things in there is no guidance. Even in D2 there was guidance, you gained skills one at a time with mainly 4 being used for the average player. Here the system supports a larger cast bar and that means more time spent feeling the spells out, not just reading about them.
After all is said and done you build your character the way you want with the abilities supporting your build as much as you want. It is all you, but that doesn't mean there won't be Uber builds just that they won't be required.
I really think what Jay Wilson said applies to a lot of their development decisions. For casual gamers, the fun comes from playing. For hardcore gamers, the fun comes from both figuring it out (mastering it) and playing it.
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Playing a Wizard. Looking for Demon Hunters to play with.
I don't think that Diablo 3 calls for less theorycrafting...there are many many MORE decisions about your build that you're going to have to make, because in lieu of there being 1-2 viable builds for each class at any given time, there will be infinitely many more viable options and small skill synergies that you can choose from. The difference is that instead of having to adopt a build going into it (which means you generally pick one online and follow it slavishly, eliminating ALL choice), you get to do your testing and theorycrafting BY playing the game and testing out each skill in different circumstances, in different combinations, etc. etc.
More choices, and they can be done by actually playing instead of having to be set on paper before you launch the game.
I just can't agree with this statement. Not that playing itself isn't or shouldn't be fun, of course it is/should. But this sounds like theorycrafting isn't supposed to be fun, while the opposite is true.
That's not what he said. Read again.
I think the fun is in playing the game, not working out how to play it.
He didn't say theorycrafting isn't fun. He said that "the fun" is in playing the game, that is, that essentially the core of fun of a video game is the game itself. And he's correct in that.
To me, a game that doesn't have this, is rather boring. And not to insult anyone, but such games are made for kids, seriously. They lack a whole dimension of fun.
You are insulting. And you're wrong. Not every game is about, or can have a theorycraft side. That per si doesn't make a game "for kids" at all.
I for one enjoy messing with theorycraft. But also enjoy purely action-oriented games.
Seems like yet another wow addicted trying to bring their addictions as necessary for any game success/quality. Anyone remember the threads about lack of customization? Or lack of WASD movement? Gosh WoW is a disease sometimes. It took the minds of so many fellows.
i think he meant it as you can experiment/theorize in practice instead of on paper. not to mention most variations of skills do more than change their color.
not sure about you... but playing x hrs to see a build come to fruition when i had done it many times before with the same class was NOT my idea of fun
I think there's plenty of room for research and deliberation still. Just fooling around in the beta, I was amazed at how differently 2 handed weapons and dual wielding felt. There will definitely be debates and calculation between faster attacks (faster resource generation) and slower attacking 2 handers (harder hitting and more efficient resource spenders). A theorycrafter will take the information, and break it down to numbers that tell them what is better for their situation. On the other hand, someone who doesn't will pick one and still be able to play effectively without investing the time and effort to figure out which is best.
I used to be in the crowd that researched my choices before making them, and am incredibly excited to play a game and make choices based on the way things 'feel' to me instead of worrying about squeezing every fraction of a % increase in effectiveness like I had previously.
I don't doubt that there will be plenty of caveats where spending the time doing the calculations will yield success, but if just playing the game can also yield success, that is a win to me.
In D2, you had to theorycraft in order to be successful. You could not beat it trough hell with a broken character.
In D3, you don't have to theorycraft to beat it on hell. But that does not mean you can't to optimize a class or build. They just took away the necessity, not the ability.
You had to theorycraft because the gap in power between different builds was much larger and the game difficulty required you to have the right amount of good skill choices + gear. They could have also toned the difficulty down to be doable by any build, which would have resulted in Hammerdins and Javazons having an even easier time. Now in D3 we don't get this gap, because if most non-elective builds are supposed to beat Inferno, then there just can't be some much better build like the Hammerdin, because he would destroy Inferno.
So, to put it short: The potential for char improvement via making choices is much smaller than it used to be.
i find theorycrafting in game 999999 times better cause you get to see how the skill works first hand
You cannot theorycraft ingame, these are mutually exclusive. In a game with any depth -like WoW- you have no chance to figure out rotations, skill point allocation etc on your own by hitting a mob twice with skill A and twice with skill B. Expanding this to 5 minutes nonstop doesn't change anything. You could find out that Bash deals more damage than using the regular attack. But Diablo 3, especially without Recount, has no way for you to figure out anything that isn't blatantly obvious ingame.
I think the fun is in playing the game, not working out how to play it.
He didn't say theorycrafting isn't fun. He said that "the fun" is in playing the game, that is, that essentially the core of fun of a video game is the game itself. And he's correct in that.
Well, I hoped to get around this. Of course you can read it as only a weighting between the two. But a) it's not worded that way and it's not actually required for a discussion if whether or not theorycrafting makes a game better.
Oh and if you felt insulted by my comment, than I could feel offended as well by the hint to read a single phrase again. Nevermind
If you think this game is built for children, you are a child yourself. Most kids aren't even smart enough to adjust their video settings, much less develop cohesive synergies from a pool of hundreds of unique skills.
I am pretty sure the majority of builds will not be optimal for Inferno. Aside form that, you are entirely forgetting what Inferno even is, a difficulty you can't surmount by just leveling up and becoming uber. I think all of you people who think you're just going to power through inferno are going to be sourly dissapointed, because Blizz has said time and time again that the point of Inferno is to provide an end-game challenge that will never become a walk in the park.
In any case, what you're really arguing for is a not-fun game with less diversity and a more boring, arbitrary end-game scenario; circa the 1990's. Sorry, some of us are ready for the future.
More choices, and they can be done by actually playing instead of having to be set on paper before you launch the game.
And that's the key thing. Trying a build you think will be fine, but you get to Inferno and it fails, you can tweak it w/o rerolling. That's a HUGE improvement in my book. Also, using some skill combos might be really fun in NM/Hell that you might know wouldn't work in Inferno. Fun is where you find it.
I never really understand how people can say that there are less viable builds, if everything is being balanced around a median point, then that means that it opens up much more viability than say, rolling a hammerdin and only using a small core of the abilities. This then leads to the fact that if everything is near equal (saying they are all equal would be foolish) then theorycrafting would more accurately called "personal playstyle".
I know when I was playing in Diablo 2 I much more prefered avoiding damage all together on some classes, and as such would use the spells that were most effective at long range, ie: were the fastest bullet-speed spells, had a homing aspect to the projectile, or would do a stune/snare.
Before getting into the beta and reading the skills, it seemed like there were some abilities that were no brainers for any build (ie: Soul Harvest). Then when I got into the beta, and they began patching and moving skills and I had the chance to test them. Using Soul Harvest seemed like a much more dangerous action than the reward for using it, running into melee range of 5 monsters just to hit them harder doesnt seem that smart. Through theorycrafting (personal playstyle) this might change when i get access to Spirit Walk and will let me run into melee, harvest, then spirit out, but by that time I might have already seen better skills that i prefer to use instead.
To say that there is little to no chance of theorycrafting, and little to no character customization is to say that you don't even try to look for any, you just assume everyone will play exactly like you will play. Jay Wilson was trying to say that the fun comes from learning how you want to play by playing, not from reading a website about how others play, then doing everything possible to play that way, including ignoring things you might find fun. I had WD builds prepared and started setting up what skills i would use as i was leveling, but as soon as i realized the depth of skills, i decided to just play the game, then figure out what i use most effectively
I think there's plenty of room for research and deliberation still. Just fooling around in the beta, I was amazed at how differently 2 handed weapons and dual wielding felt.
[...]
I used to be in the crowd that researched my choices before making them, and am incredibly excited to play a game and make choices based on the way things 'feel' to me instead of worrying about squeezing every fraction of a % increase in effectiveness like I had previously.
I don't doubt that there will be plenty of caveats where spending the time doing the calculations will yield success, but if just playing the game can also yield success, that is a win to me.
This is a good post and I think you're mostly right about Diablo 3 itself. We don't only get to choose between red and yellow guns, I'm well aware of that. Exaggeration is often used to depict something. Besides this isn't an anti-D3 thread, it's about a very generic statement.
I've already tried your approach in different games, I mean trying to find out what feels better. Don't like it, I'm a math guy. I want to know what I'm doing and why. And I expect a game to reward this and most pc games do. Even in action game missions you don't run around mindlessly. You have to plan ahead, make decisions and review your actions when you have failed. And then there's a lot of things you can do to improve other than hoping for a better roll of the dice or trying to hit the "A"-button even faster. By using your brain. To me that's a good thing.. and pretty mature.
With kid's games I mean games like Ludo(hope anyone outside Germany knows this, I consulted google for a translations), where you don't have tactics or anything. You roll the dice and you either win or lose. Nothing you can do to improve your odds.
"I think the fun is in playing the game, not working out how to play it".
Basically means to me, that there is no pleasure in learning. This is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. It basically nullifies skills and improvement in a single sentence.
Yes, thats out of context of his post, but I don't care. I don't really care for Blizzard's stupid gaming philosophies.
More choices, and they can be done by actually playing instead of having to be set on paper before you launch the game.
And that's the key thing. Trying a build you think will be fine, but you get to Inferno and it fails, you can tweak it w/o rerolling. That's a HUGE improvement in my book. Also, using some skill combos might be really fun in NM/Hell that you might know wouldn't work in Inferno. Fun is where you find it.
I absolutely agree with you and the person you quoted. I'm not here to advocate grinding, at least not in the form of rerolling the absolute same character again. Grinding for items is ok and leveling the same class again but with totally different skills is something that may be missed in D3.
But this is all off topic.
My point is that making smart decisions shall be rewarding in general, not that decisions should be permanent.
"I think the fun is in playing the game, not working out how to play it".
Basically means to me, that there is no pleasure in learning. This is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. It basically nullifies skills and improvement in a single sentence.
Yes, thats out of context of his post, but I don't care. I don't really care for Blizzard's stupid gaming philosophies.
FFS you guys are taking this all wrong. You don't care it's out of context? So... why are you arguing? Jay is clearly talking about why they made the interface easy to use, even for newcomers; Because it's more fun to play the game than sit there and try to figure out an interface. This statement has NOTHING to do with theorycrafting, so I'm not even sure what the argument is about. Go rage somewhere else.
( http://www.atomicmpc.com.au/Feature/299259,diablo-iii-interview---making-hardcore-hardcore-the-no-lan-issue-and-much-more.aspx )
I just can't agree with this statement. Not that playing itself isn't or shouldn't be fun, of course it is/should. But this sounds like theorycrafting isn't supposed to be fun, while the opposite is true.
I mean, spending time at the "drawing board", doing research, figuring things out and then seeing them work out ingame ("work out" as in being noticeably stronger than before, just by virtue of having made the right -well thought out- choices) is so much more rewarding and complex as a game system than a game, in which you can only decide between doing red or yellow combat animations.
It's a night and day difference, like American Football vs 100m sprints. In the latter you can't improve via the use of your brain. There is no tactics, no nothing, trained animals can do this, in fact they do. AF on the other hand, well, most of you know the game better than I do, there is so much strategy and tactics involved, so much potential to outsmart the competition.
To me, a game that doesn't have this, is rather boring. And not to insult anyone, but such games are made for kids, seriously. They lack a whole dimension of fun.
Discuss
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Sol77-2972/hero/66110450
In D2, you had to theorycraft in order to be successful. You could not beat it trough hell with a broken character.
In D3, you don't have to theorycraft to beat it on hell. But that does not mean you can't to optimize a class or build. They just took away the necessity, not the ability.
Find any Diablo news? Contact me or anyone else on the News team
in D3 you are going to theorycraft but this time it is going to be more like a continious polish, testing and improvement of your build not a calculated build that you work towards.
After all is said and done you build your character the way you want with the abilities supporting your build as much as you want. It is all you, but that doesn't mean there won't be Uber builds just that they won't be required.
More choices, and they can be done by actually playing instead of having to be set on paper before you launch the game.
I think the fun is in playing the game, not working out how to play it.
He didn't say theorycrafting isn't fun. He said that "the fun" is in playing the game, that is, that essentially the core of fun of a video game is the game itself. And he's correct in that.
You are insulting. And you're wrong. Not every game is about, or can have a theorycraft side. That per si doesn't make a game "for kids" at all.
I for one enjoy messing with theorycraft. But also enjoy purely action-oriented games.
Seems like yet another wow addicted trying to bring their addictions as necessary for any game success/quality. Anyone remember the threads about lack of customization? Or lack of WASD movement? Gosh WoW is a disease sometimes. It took the minds of so many fellows.
not sure about you... but playing x hrs to see a build come to fruition when i had done it many times before with the same class was NOT my idea of fun
I used to be in the crowd that researched my choices before making them, and am incredibly excited to play a game and make choices based on the way things 'feel' to me instead of worrying about squeezing every fraction of a % increase in effectiveness like I had previously.
I don't doubt that there will be plenty of caveats where spending the time doing the calculations will yield success, but if just playing the game can also yield success, that is a win to me.
You had to theorycraft because the gap in power between different builds was much larger and the game difficulty required you to have the right amount of good skill choices + gear. They could have also toned the difficulty down to be doable by any build, which would have resulted in Hammerdins and Javazons having an even easier time. Now in D3 we don't get this gap, because if most non-elective builds are supposed to beat Inferno, then there just can't be some much better build like the Hammerdin, because he would destroy Inferno.
So, to put it short: The potential for char improvement via making choices is much smaller than it used to be.
You cannot theorycraft ingame, these are mutually exclusive. In a game with any depth -like WoW- you have no chance to figure out rotations, skill point allocation etc on your own by hitting a mob twice with skill A and twice with skill B. Expanding this to 5 minutes nonstop doesn't change anything. You could find out that Bash deals more damage than using the regular attack. But Diablo 3, especially without Recount, has no way for you to figure out anything that isn't blatantly obvious ingame.
edit:
Well, I hoped to get around this. Of course you can read it as only a weighting between the two. But a) it's not worded that way and it's not actually required for a discussion if whether or not theorycrafting makes a game better.
Oh and if you felt insulted by my comment, than I could feel offended as well by the hint to read a single phrase again. Nevermind
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Sol77-2972/hero/66110450
I am pretty sure the majority of builds will not be optimal for Inferno. Aside form that, you are entirely forgetting what Inferno even is, a difficulty you can't surmount by just leveling up and becoming uber. I think all of you people who think you're just going to power through inferno are going to be sourly dissapointed, because Blizz has said time and time again that the point of Inferno is to provide an end-game challenge that will never become a walk in the park.
In any case, what you're really arguing for is a not-fun game with less diversity and a more boring, arbitrary end-game scenario; circa the 1990's. Sorry, some of us are ready for the future.
And that's the key thing. Trying a build you think will be fine, but you get to Inferno and it fails, you can tweak it w/o rerolling. That's a HUGE improvement in my book. Also, using some skill combos might be really fun in NM/Hell that you might know wouldn't work in Inferno. Fun is where you find it.
I know when I was playing in Diablo 2 I much more prefered avoiding damage all together on some classes, and as such would use the spells that were most effective at long range, ie: were the fastest bullet-speed spells, had a homing aspect to the projectile, or would do a stune/snare.
Before getting into the beta and reading the skills, it seemed like there were some abilities that were no brainers for any build (ie: Soul Harvest). Then when I got into the beta, and they began patching and moving skills and I had the chance to test them. Using Soul Harvest seemed like a much more dangerous action than the reward for using it, running into melee range of 5 monsters just to hit them harder doesnt seem that smart. Through theorycrafting (personal playstyle) this might change when i get access to Spirit Walk and will let me run into melee, harvest, then spirit out, but by that time I might have already seen better skills that i prefer to use instead.
To say that there is little to no chance of theorycrafting, and little to no character customization is to say that you don't even try to look for any, you just assume everyone will play exactly like you will play. Jay Wilson was trying to say that the fun comes from learning how you want to play by playing, not from reading a website about how others play, then doing everything possible to play that way, including ignoring things you might find fun. I had WD builds prepared and started setting up what skills i would use as i was leveling, but as soon as i realized the depth of skills, i decided to just play the game, then figure out what i use most effectively
This is a good post and I think you're mostly right about Diablo 3 itself. We don't only get to choose between red and yellow guns, I'm well aware of that. Exaggeration is often used to depict something. Besides this isn't an anti-D3 thread, it's about a very generic statement.
I've already tried your approach in different games, I mean trying to find out what feels better. Don't like it, I'm a math guy. I want to know what I'm doing and why. And I expect a game to reward this and most pc games do. Even in action game missions you don't run around mindlessly. You have to plan ahead, make decisions and review your actions when you have failed. And then there's a lot of things you can do to improve other than hoping for a better roll of the dice or trying to hit the "A"-button even faster. By using your brain. To me that's a good thing.. and pretty mature.
With kid's games I mean games like Ludo(hope anyone outside Germany knows this, I consulted google for a translations), where you don't have tactics or anything. You roll the dice and you either win or lose. Nothing you can do to improve your odds.
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Sol77-2972/hero/66110450
Basically means to me, that there is no pleasure in learning. This is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. It basically nullifies skills and improvement in a single sentence.
Yes, thats out of context of his post, but I don't care. I don't really care for Blizzard's stupid gaming philosophies.
I absolutely agree with you and the person you quoted. I'm not here to advocate grinding, at least not in the form of rerolling the absolute same character again. Grinding for items is ok and leveling the same class again but with totally different skills is something that may be missed in D3.
But this is all off topic.
My point is that making smart decisions shall be rewarding in general, not that decisions should be permanent.
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Sol77-2972/hero/66110450
FFS you guys are taking this all wrong. You don't care it's out of context? So... why are you arguing? Jay is clearly talking about why they made the interface easy to use, even for newcomers; Because it's more fun to play the game than sit there and try to figure out an interface. This statement has NOTHING to do with theorycrafting, so I'm not even sure what the argument is about. Go rage somewhere else.