2. Bring in a world event dependent on certain very seldom actions being performed by the players. Like Uber Diablo event.
Again, my applause to you for bringing this up. Was there a bigger thrill in D2 than to be mindlessly farming and see that boner-inducing message on your screen? DIABLO WALKS THE EARTH!!!
Sadly, the spawning of Diablo in this fashion was accomplished by selling thousands of duped SoJ. I would suggest that D3 devs cough up a slightly more sensible (yet still uber fuckin rare) manner of creating the spawns.
New, random events, like the few there are now, released on a consistent developmental basis could really spice up farming. Aand, dev/blues could advertise in what zone these events could spawn to encourage farming diversity and maybe achiev props?? Could be seerious boner-inducing stuff
Interesting that these changes come with Jay Wilson no longer at the helm. Who do we thank?
You're kidding, right?
90%+ of the big changes made to D3 so far were made before that change. And actually, anything that can be remotely called a "content patch" in Diablo 3 (aka, adds/changes actual gameplay-related content) was implemented before as well.
Don't get me wrong. I love ID all, better monster density, AH comparing tooltip, multiplayer buffs and all. But those are mostly quality of life changes, there was very little "content" in these last few patches (compared to new legendaries, ubers, paragon lvls, Monster Power, changes to enemies).
Actually I don't believe we've seen anything that hasn't been in the making from the Jay Wilson period.
The WoW team plans and builds on 1-2 expansions in advance. There is an enormous pile of ideas that have been on a wall at Blizz HQ since likely during or maybe even before the Beta started. Stuff just can't get done so fast.
The first thing we're going to see that isn't JW is when a new Director steps in. He'll likely want to make small amendments to things and all ideas currently in the works will likely get some iteration. That's when we'll see post-JW material.
^ then there's what my much-more-well-informed-than-me mate, Overneathe, said.
I'm sure the new director has some sweet ideas in store for us, and I'm eagerly waiting to see them, but until we've actually seen such ideas we can't take the credit away from the dev team and the previous director.
I'm being 100% objective here, I've never been on the JW hate wagon.
I may be wrong, but I've always sensed a sort of smugness from him. As if many of the mistakes that were made, were influenced by his ego. And I felt this way before the "fucking loser" incident.
Itemization. That was under his care and that's a huge miss. How could he approve those Legends? To what end were these items 'tested' before launch? That's a question I'd love to hear some details about.
But he should always be given a great deal of respect and credit for all the great designs that came under his direction. He lead a team that designed a very impressive ARPG combat experience. It's top-shelf stuff imo. Much respect to him for that and many other great framework designs that really laid a solid foundation to build on. kudos
^ then there's what my much-more-well-informed-than-me mate, Overneathe, said.
I'm sure the new director has some sweet ideas in store for us, and I'm eagerly waiting to see them, but until we've actually seen such ideas we can't take the credit away from the dev team and the previous director.
I'm taking nothing away from the dev team, as I've been a supporter for them throughout all the complaints and hate for the game. But with JW gone, there is an atmosphere now that appears to be more open-minded with the community, flexible, and eager to keep making the game better.
As an example, one of the biggest complaints about the game was how badly the chat system sucked and lacked innovation. JW pretty much told us tough crap, get over it. All of a sudden, Heart of the Swarm comes out with the ideas demanded by the player base, and then bam, Diablo's chat gets an upgrade.
And just because JW was at the helm with the patches mentioned by you guys, it doesn't mean they were his ideas - it just means he gets credit for it. Behind the scenes, he could have fought vehemently against those additions, and we wouldn't know. My company had a record year in profits last year, so the president of our company got all the credit... but there is only much you contribute being on the golf course 4 days a week.
I'm taking nothing away from the dev team, as I've been a supporter for them throughout all the complaints and hate for the game. But with JW gone, there is an atmosphere now that appears to be more open-minded with the community, flexible, and eager to keep making the game better.
Whenever a soccer team (or any other sports, but that's the only sports I follow closely) gets a new manager, there is a change in atmosphere. Something new! A change! Usually lasts for a couple of weeks or months until he gets sacked, and then rinse and repeat. Sure, there are exceptions, but all I'm saying is... the community was bitching about JW to an extent that was unbearable, and as soon as he left the community itself was responsible for the change in atmosphere. Stuff like "ask the devs" what some might refer to as Blizzard being more open-minded was planned way before JW left.
As an example, one of the biggest complaints about the game was how badly the chat system sucked and lacked innovation. JW pretty much told us tough crap, get over it. All of a sudden, Heart of the Swarm comes out with the ideas demanded by the player base, and then bam, Diablo's chat gets an upgrade.
And then bam, all of the sudden you realize that the chat system is part of B.Net and decoupled from Diablo 3, neither JW nor any developer on the D3 was responsible for that. Thanks for another perfect example of wrong perceptions of JW's responsibilities.
And just because JW was at the helm with the patches mentioned by you guys, it doesn't mean they were his ideas - it just means he gets credit for it. Behind the scenes, he could have fought vehemently against those additions, and we wouldn't know. My company had a record year in profits last year, so the president of our company got all the credit... but there is only much you contribute being on the golf course 4 days a week.
Blizzard's game designers don't play golf. They're nerds, they might do some sword fights with the sword they get after being part of the company for some specific time (I believe it was 5 years or so). Anyways, lots of assumptions there, and absolutely no proof for that to be true. In fact, every blue post that was released after JW left the team indicated that they were eager to stress that all the changes that were made and many of the changes that are to come are his legacy. But we could speculate a bit more what might have happened even though we wouldn't have proof for anything... lemme just get my tinfoil hat.
Or we could get back on topic and acknowledge that this game still contains 95% of JW's ideas and concepts, juiced up with some improvements based on players' feedback, and keeps getting better - regardless of who was, is, or will be in charge.
Or we could get back on topic and acknowledge that this game still contains 95% of JW's ideas and concepts
I'm amazed you took the time to dissect my post with your opinions about my point of view and end it with this gem. I tried re-reading your comments, but all you did was take my points and go off on an illogical tangent. The sword fighting comment instead of golfing makes no sense, but I laughed.
You can't turn back time, but I also haven't heard an explicit "we screwed up royally" from Blizzard thus far. You want the benefit of "letting go of past mistakes and looking towards the future", you have to cop to those mistakes first.
I'm more than willing to give them the break they deserve (and I am, by playing the game)
I think it's telling that you used the word "royally." You are, for all intents and purposes, wanting a mea culpa whereby Blizzard apologizes for producing complete trash. You're not going to get that. You may get "we screwed up on these things: X, Y, Z" but you will never get "we screwed up royally." The reason why is simple... they didn't screw up royally. They botched certain aspects of the game. Period. Nothing more, nothing less. "Royally" is completely subjective nonsense.
I'm much more pragmatic. The fact that they engage in iterative design, to me, is implicitly stating that they know they're not going to get everything right and they are ready and willing to fix what isn't right. To me the apology comes in the form of patches that address the issues and make the game more enjoyable - something they have been delivering.
They say that actions speak louder than words. If you don't truly believe that the patches (which are heavily derived from community feedback) speak loudly enough then, honestly, I don't think a two-page letter from Mike Morhaime that has no purpose other than to placate you is going to have the desired effect.
Personally, I don't want people to placate me. I'm not a fuckin child and I don't want a lollipop to make me stop crying. I want people to show me, through actions. And, thankfully, that's what Blizzard has chosen to do.
I don't appreciate the "cover your years and sing la-la-la until everyone's gone" mentality.
It bothers me that you think that's what they've done. They're a business and what you've proposed is counterintuitive to how businesses work. If you really think their prime directive is to drive customers away then I think you've kinda jumped the shark on the topic.
So, tell me again why this wasn't done during a proper Beta, but instead with the live game?
Bad decisions are being made anytime, anywhere, by anyone. Would be nice if after one year you could finally get over it and be happy that we're heading into the right direction instead of keep beating on that dead horse. No one can turn back time, and I'm pretty sure Blizzard has learned their lesson.
You can't turn back time, but I also haven't heard an explicit "we screwed up royally" from Blizzard thus far. You want the benefit of "letting go of past mistakes and looking towards the future", you have to cop to those mistakes first.
I'm more than willing to give them the break they deserve (and I am, by playing the game), but I don't appreciate the "cover your years and sing la-la-la until everyone's gone" mentality.
This is the closest they will ever come to such an admission.....
This "oops" video highlighted some 14-15 revamped Legendaries. Out of all the items shown, only the Manticore turned out to actually be useful. The rest are utterly useless, except maybe as a follower weapon.
1.04 DID make many Legendaries much better. But I found it curious that they choose to highlight all these *still useless Legendaries in this pre-1.04 hype vid. It really speaks to the players about what the old regime found important. Useless proc effects and useless aesthetics.
"WOW that looks cool!!!"
"But will people want them?"
"NO"
This was under JW's watch. This was the best he could do, that is what I'm left thinking.
The new dev direction acknowledges the absolute need for better items, and they'll get their chance to prove it soon. Still, I'm left wondering...... why was the culture under JW incapable of getting the most important aspect of a Diablo game right, it's items?
He gets full credit for all the great things he brought to the table (deservingly so), but why was his template for itemization so insulting to the players, even after revamping them?
Skycutter has a chance to spawn an angel to fight with me and do 500 DPS (whatever), but will I want to find one?
The answer, always a "NO".
How come they didn't know this? Why did the man in charge not know this? Did he know this, and if so, why implement insulting items to the players?
But ruksak, they were half-decent and useable for a while (some at least). Until the really good Echoing Furies and other legendaries started saturating the market. By now, we all know the consequences of not having Bind-on-Account items, and how the baseline for a "decent" item is increased every single day.
I used a Fire Walkers for a couple months after the legendary patch, with All Resist. I bought it really cheap and it worked amazing for my Barb back then.Dannetta's Spite can roll a decent end-game handbow to this day. And Revenge was actually a pretty decent handbow for a meele tanking DH back in the day (I remember having both on my DH).
Same goes for the Grandfatherand Maximus. No, they don't have crit-dmg and insane stats, but they were useable yes (aka you can use them in mid MPs, it's just pointless because other cheap stuff is much better). My second Barb (a female one) had a pretty good Grandfather which gave her like 15k HP by itself (I was building her as a tank) and still allowed me to deal 70k+ dps unbuffed (and Rend made that pretty good).
For the average gamer, most of those legendaries had something to offer. A friend Wizard used a Sky Splitter with 1k~ dps for months, and he was awed at how it was one of the most amazing items he ever found (he barely uses the AH, mostly self-found play).
With that in mind, what they did with Legendaries was actually a decent job.
The screw up before that was unforgivable, though, Legendaries should have always had interesting stats/unique-traits on them.
And what they did afterwards was even worse - what I thought would be a monthly trend ended up as a one-time change, which is also unforgiveable imho.
And what they did afterwards was even worse - what I thought would be a monthly trend ended up as a one-time change, which is also unforgiveable imho.
We're not far apart on this. I too thought that some amount of itemization improvement would be thrown in with each patch. The fact that this was never revisited has been a let down. I get that they're working hard on it and plan to release all the changes at once, but I really expected tweaks along the way.
For the average gamer, most of those legendaries had something to offer. A friend Wizard used a Sky Splitter with 1k~ dps for months, and he was awed at how it was one of the most amazing items he ever found (he barely uses the AH, mostly self-found play).
With that in mind, what they did with Legendaries was actually a decent job.
Admittedly, without the AH, these items have use. Problem is, we have an AH. Being that's the case, I'm not sure how a little bit of foresight and reason wouldn't elude them to understanding that MOST of the weapons they revamped were invalid to any player that chooses to use the AH (most players).
They have millions of players dumping their wares into the AH. That signals to me that Blizz should've understood how fast saturation would occur, rendering their AWESOME glittery special effects on these weapons as the only added bonus. This isn't Guild Wars. We don't care how much our weapon shimmer and sparkle. We want OP GTFOMGodly items.
What they created was a hand full of BiS offerings. They should've had the vision to see that anyone whom uses the AH would reckon most of their revamped weapons as trash. 2-handers got buffed. Still useless with the exception of maybe 2 types (Manticore and Skorn).
IMO...they're going to have to go ahead and let us be able to add sockets to any weapon. They've pigeon holed themselves on this issue. There is no alternative. It could work as an excellent gold sink. Unlike the soc quest from D2, we should have a way to add sockets that requires something other than leveling chars to a certain point whereas the quest reward becomes available.
I would think having the Blacksmith being able to add a soc for some high price (maybe 50m+). Once an item is imbued with a soc, it's locked to your account as BoA. This would give people two reasons to pause before socketing. The cost and the permanence of having that item tethered to your account forever.
This would give some turning point. Maybe I would use this if I could soc it. Maybe I wouldn't need to take 50m to the AH if I had this and could soc it?
I see this kind of thing every time I play. Potentially viable weapons that are insta-shitcanned as soon as it's revealed there's no soc.
I kind of figured Travis Day was the de facto director, but Blizz is afraid to label him as such since it creates a target for people to aim at. Now they make it sound like they're just a bunch of bros making some video games, lol.
Blizzard ignoring issues like class balance, itemesation and a real endgame, which at best seem months away from being adressed, yet are core aspects of the game
Oh, I'm sorry, what was the amazing "endgame" in D1 and D2?
Also, I believe Druids would beg to differ with the assertion that D2 had great class balance and D3 doesn't.
I just pulled up a list of unique helms in D2 and, guess what? 80%+ of them were completely undesireable compared to the "good" helms. Sure you could equip them (much like you COULD equip an Andariel's Visage) but they weren't close to BiS. That sounds a lot like the problems D3 faces with itemization.
The difference? The D2 team never addressed any of that stuff. The D3 team, clearly, is addressing it.
D2 items *were* generally better than D3 items. But as far as uniques went, there were only 2-4 of each item type which could ever be construed as "desireable." It's pretty fuckin hypocritical to rail against the D3 team for "making shit decisions" when D2 panned out mostly the same way.
How many people did you see running around in D2 sporting a Nightwing's Veil? It's probably similar to the number of people you see running around D3 sporting an IK helm. As much as you want to believe, through all your rage, that the game is so much more inferior, if you take a good, hard, look at it you'll find that your rage is just typical ignorance.
Blizzard ignoring issues like class balance, itemesation and a real endgame, which at best seem months away from being adressed, yet are core aspects of the game
Oh, I'm sorry, what was the amazing "endgame" in D1 and D2?
Yep. D3 endgame is on-par with any such end-game realized by the previous two titles.
I just pulled up a list of unique helms in D2 and, guess what? 80%+ of them were completely undesireable compared to the "good" helms. Sure you could equip them (much like you COULD equip an Andariel's Visage) but they weren't close to BiS. That sounds a lot like the problems D3 faces with itemization.
The difference? The D2 team never addressed any of that stuff. The D3 team, clearly, is addressing it.
D2 items *were* generally better than D3 items. But as far as uniques went, there were only 2-4 of each item type which could ever be construed as "desireable." It's pretty fuckin hypocritical to rail against the D3 team for "making shit decisions" when D2 panned out mostly the same way.
This issue is a bit tricky.
Speaking directly toward uniques, yes there is a very similar dynamic between the two titles in terms of the number of useful Uniques. However, what these uniques DID, their effects on character depth, that's where D3 falls on it's face in comparison.
I'll use my Zealot as an Example. He was a sturdy lvl98 competition PvPer built for GM melee tourneys. Any respectable Zealot kept his stash packed with goods for switch-outs.
I used at least three different helms. A fucking rad Ber'd pally vision circ. A G-face and an ETH Andys.
I used 5 shields. ETH Exile Vortex. ETH Alma Negra (near perfect rolls, which was extremely extremely fucking rare). Pheonix and a HoZ for my BO switch. I also used an ETH HoZ for GM no-taps competitions.
3 sets of armor. A Leviathan. An ETH Shaftstop and a Fortitude (ETH Forts were seen as BM in competitions).
3 sets of gloves. Dracs, Rends and some rares with STR and attack rating.
Jewelry? Either dual Ravens or Angelics for rings. Ammy? Highlords or something else (cannot remember this part).
Weapons? Oh man....the weapons. Eth DC, Eth BotD, Eth Gris, several Eth Fools. Bstar (gimmick weap)
Keep in mind this is off the top 'o' my head and it's been exactly 6 years since I retired. I'm sure to be forgetting much.
Add anni's and torches, more dynamic gems and jewels and a bevy of extremely wide ranging charms to this mix, consider we could assign our own stat points to create a desired life/defensive/offensive dynamic, and Diablo 3 is nowhere even remotely close in terms of itemization. It's not even calculable within the same context. We're talking light-years apart.
I LOVE a lot of the things D3 presented us with. Much of it is top-shelf fucking silky smooth. But the staple of the genre, items, D3 devs should've kept the basic template from D2 and expanded upon it greatly. Because they did not, we're 1 year into D3 and nobody is arguing that items aren't static and disappointing.
There just isn't very much that differentiates D3 items from each other, other than how much Main stat, Resistance, Vita, Crit and IAS said item has. Instead of different effects, we see only different amounts of the same item affixes.
Good news is, the new direction seems to recognize this, though I am weary of to what extent they understand their folly.
I am making the prediction that within the next year, we'll be able to at least assign our Paragon level attribute point as we see fit. This one thing, automatically assigned attributes upon leveling, directly affects itemization. How they failed to see this, I have no idea.
Would I really need to search the AH for that extra 10k life on an item if I could simply reassign wasted attribute points that went to STR or INT? No.
Maybe I want to make a Monk with 10k armor just using stat points? I could cut back on Vita and Dex (because *hypothetically, I have gear to cover that area of my build) and beef up my str.
What if I wanted to make a Monk with 100k life? I betcha I could do that by reassigning stat point to vita.
This issue has got to be on their plate. I'm betting they're looking at it right now, as I type this, as a keystone to better character building.
One liiiitle thing you're leaving out: the D3 dev team had D2 to look at and go from there. They just decided not to. So you saying "yeah, they screwed this and that up, but D2 had the same problems" doesn't actually let them off the hook, but instead it makes them look even worse.
I'm not trying to let anyone off the hook.
I'm saying that D2 was a *great* game in light of the fact that it had "no endgame" and in light of the fact that 85%+ of the uniques were not considered viable gear.
Trying to paint D3 as a *horrible* game for having "no endgame" and "bad itemization" is just ignorant of how D2 panned out despite having the same issues. Trying to paint D3 as a *horrible* game for having "no endgame" is particularly laughable because NO Diablo title has ever had "endgame." It's absolutely trolling to complain that D3 is bad because it doesn't have "endgame." I want to hurt kittens when people bring that particular point up.
EDIT
Also it's presumptuous (and impossible to actually prove) that they "decided not to" look at D2 itemization. For all we know they poured over it for weeks and thought that what they developed was better. For all we know they simply decided to go with a basic "framework" that they could refine and expand upon after we beat the shit out of it. The point is we don't know what they did, or did not do, and it's pretty asinine to base anything on the assumption that they chose not to learn from the past. I mean.... unless you sat in on the D3 development meetings!
@Ruksak
Like I said - D2 itemization was BETTER, but we still left tons of completely un-usable items on the ground and I'm just not ready to say that "better than bad" equates directly to "FUCKING AMAZING" like some people would want me to say. Speaking particularly about legendaries vs uniques here, the "quality" of uniques in D2 was just as atrocious as D3. You've spoken a lot to PvP and, that obviously creates a need for diversity among gear - your strat vs a sorc probably isn't exactly the same as your strat vs a barb and your gear should reflect that.
PvM did not have that inherent necessity for gear diversity and, looking at uniques from a PvM perspective the D2 uniques were just as bad (if not worse) than the D3 uniques. My point was not that things shouldn't be changed (because they should be). My point was simply that D2 was a successful game in light of these "shit decisions" and it's absolutely ridiculous for the guy I quoted to be that ignorant and naive.
If I managed to play D2 for years and years despite most of the uniques I found remaining on the ground... I think that playing D3 for a year while they analyze and work on itemization is not out-of-the-question and certainly not a "shit decision" or however else anyone wants to claim it's the deathknell for the series, company, or anything else.
My point was simply that some people like to overdramatize problems. Whether or not they should, or can, be fixed... if D2 was able to be a great game in light of these problems, D3 sure can because D3 is obviously receiving more intensive support and patching.
One thing I'll readily admit. I didn't find valuable items in D2 via farming with any more regularity than I do in D3. I remember doing 50 straight Meph runs many times, and nothing. Nothing. Literally the same fucking Gris armor over and over. So in some respects, we're not too far apart.
What encourages me is that there are some great things about D3's itemization that rarely get mentioned. The RMP aspect creates truly unique items, for one.
More good news is that they just need to twist the shit a little bit with some semblance of inspiration and Diablo 3 itemization can easily knock the shit outta D2's itemization.
Might wanna remove that rose-tinted-glasses. Either that or jump off the "I swear I played D2" bandwagon. I'm getting really tired of all these "fan wannabes". People seem to didn't even play the game.
A lot like most people are doing to D3 right now. I still see people on the official forums who haven't played in 6-8 months (judging from gear/20k dps) complaining about the same things - some complaining about problems solved months ago. Same goes for some ppl on my friends list.
Just this week I heard (from a friend) the good old "there's nothing to do in the game anymore" "game's too easy now derp".
Really? That makes me wanna say "are you fucking kidding me"? You have ONE shitty character that hasn't even finished Inferno. You never tried MP. You never tried Ubers. You wanted a D2-style grind, but didn't lvl a single paragon lvl. You never tried other classes. You never tried any other items or builds besides the FotM shit. You never experienced public games with improved mob density where you're farming faster on a higher MP despite having random ppl with shitty gear (I include myself in this category), and comboing coop-useful skills feels great.
/rant-off
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New, random events, like the few there are now, released on a consistent developmental basis could really spice up farming. Aand, dev/blues could advertise in what zone these events could spawn to encourage farming diversity and maybe achiev props?? Could be seerious boner-inducing stuff
Battle.net Profile / Diablo Progress Profile
90%+ of the big changes made to D3 so far were made before that change. And actually, anything that can be remotely called a "content patch" in Diablo 3 (aka, adds/changes actual gameplay-related content) was implemented before as well.
Don't get me wrong. I love ID all, better monster density, AH comparing tooltip, multiplayer buffs and all. But those are mostly quality of life changes, there was very little "content" in these last few patches (compared to new legendaries, ubers, paragon lvls, Monster Power, changes to enemies).
The WoW team plans and builds on 1-2 expansions in advance. There is an enormous pile of ideas that have been on a wall at Blizz HQ since likely during or maybe even before the Beta started. Stuff just can't get done so fast.
The first thing we're going to see that isn't JW is when a new Director steps in. He'll likely want to make small amendments to things and all ideas currently in the works will likely get some iteration. That's when we'll see post-JW material.
Ha. Bagstone.
I'm sure the new director has some sweet ideas in store for us, and I'm eagerly waiting to see them, but until we've actually seen such ideas we can't take the credit away from the dev team and the previous director.
I may be wrong, but I've always sensed a sort of smugness from him. As if many of the mistakes that were made, were influenced by his ego. And I felt this way before the "fucking loser" incident.
Itemization. That was under his care and that's a huge miss. How could he approve those Legends? To what end were these items 'tested' before launch? That's a question I'd love to hear some details about.
But he should always be given a great deal of respect and credit for all the great designs that came under his direction. He lead a team that designed a very impressive ARPG combat experience. It's top-shelf stuff imo. Much respect to him for that and many other great framework designs that really laid a solid foundation to build on. kudos
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I'm taking nothing away from the dev team, as I've been a supporter for them throughout all the complaints and hate for the game. But with JW gone, there is an atmosphere now that appears to be more open-minded with the community, flexible, and eager to keep making the game better.
As an example, one of the biggest complaints about the game was how badly the chat system sucked and lacked innovation. JW pretty much told us tough crap, get over it. All of a sudden, Heart of the Swarm comes out with the ideas demanded by the player base, and then bam, Diablo's chat gets an upgrade.
And just because JW was at the helm with the patches mentioned by you guys, it doesn't mean they were his ideas - it just means he gets credit for it. Behind the scenes, he could have fought vehemently against those additions, and we wouldn't know. My company had a record year in profits last year, so the president of our company got all the credit... but there is only much you contribute being on the golf course 4 days a week.
Battle.net Profile / Diablo Progress Profile
Whenever a soccer team (or any other sports, but that's the only sports I follow closely) gets a new manager, there is a change in atmosphere. Something new! A change! Usually lasts for a couple of weeks or months until he gets sacked, and then rinse and repeat. Sure, there are exceptions, but all I'm saying is... the community was bitching about JW to an extent that was unbearable, and as soon as he left the community itself was responsible for the change in atmosphere. Stuff like "ask the devs" what some might refer to as Blizzard being more open-minded was planned way before JW left.
And then bam, all of the sudden you realize that the chat system is part of B.Net and decoupled from Diablo 3, neither JW nor any developer on the D3 was responsible for that. Thanks for another perfect example of wrong perceptions of JW's responsibilities.
Blizzard's game designers don't play golf. They're nerds, they might do some sword fights with the sword they get after being part of the company for some specific time (I believe it was 5 years or so). Anyways, lots of assumptions there, and absolutely no proof for that to be true. In fact, every blue post that was released after JW left the team indicated that they were eager to stress that all the changes that were made and many of the changes that are to come are his legacy. But we could speculate a bit more what might have happened even though we wouldn't have proof for anything... lemme just get my tinfoil hat.
Or we could get back on topic and acknowledge that this game still contains 95% of JW's ideas and concepts, juiced up with some improvements based on players' feedback, and keeps getting better - regardless of who was, is, or will be in charge.
I'm amazed you took the time to dissect my post with your opinions about my point of view and end it with this gem. I tried re-reading your comments, but all you did was take my points and go off on an illogical tangent. The sword fighting comment instead of golfing makes no sense, but I laughed.
Battle.net Profile / Diablo Progress Profile
I think it's telling that you used the word "royally." You are, for all intents and purposes, wanting a mea culpa whereby Blizzard apologizes for producing complete trash. You're not going to get that. You may get "we screwed up on these things: X, Y, Z" but you will never get "we screwed up royally." The reason why is simple... they didn't screw up royally. They botched certain aspects of the game. Period. Nothing more, nothing less. "Royally" is completely subjective nonsense.
I'm much more pragmatic. The fact that they engage in iterative design, to me, is implicitly stating that they know they're not going to get everything right and they are ready and willing to fix what isn't right. To me the apology comes in the form of patches that address the issues and make the game more enjoyable - something they have been delivering.
They say that actions speak louder than words. If you don't truly believe that the patches (which are heavily derived from community feedback) speak loudly enough then, honestly, I don't think a two-page letter from Mike Morhaime that has no purpose other than to placate you is going to have the desired effect.
Personally, I don't want people to placate me. I'm not a fuckin child and I don't want a lollipop to make me stop crying. I want people to show me, through actions. And, thankfully, that's what Blizzard has chosen to do.
It bothers me that you think that's what they've done. They're a business and what you've proposed is counterintuitive to how businesses work. If you really think their prime directive is to drive customers away then I think you've kinda jumped the shark on the topic.
This is the closest they will ever come to such an admission.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=3SquWnPo9GI
This "oops" video highlighted some 14-15 revamped Legendaries. Out of all the items shown, only the Manticore turned out to actually be useful. The rest are utterly useless, except maybe as a follower weapon.
1.04 DID make many Legendaries much better. But I found it curious that they choose to highlight all these *still useless Legendaries in this pre-1.04 hype vid. It really speaks to the players about what the old regime found important. Useless proc effects and useless aesthetics.
"WOW that looks cool!!!"
"But will people want them?"
"NO"
This was under JW's watch. This was the best he could do, that is what I'm left thinking.
The new dev direction acknowledges the absolute need for better items, and they'll get their chance to prove it soon. Still, I'm left wondering...... why was the culture under JW incapable of getting the most important aspect of a Diablo game right, it's items?
He gets full credit for all the great things he brought to the table (deservingly so), but why was his template for itemization so insulting to the players, even after revamping them?
Skycutter has a chance to spawn an angel to fight with me and do 500 DPS (whatever), but will I want to find one?
The answer, always a "NO".
How come they didn't know this? Why did the man in charge not know this? Did he know this, and if so, why implement insulting items to the players?
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I used a Fire Walkers for a couple months after the legendary patch, with All Resist. I bought it really cheap and it worked amazing for my Barb back then. Dannetta's Spite can roll a decent end-game handbow to this day. And Revenge was actually a pretty decent handbow for a meele tanking DH back in the day (I remember having both on my DH).
Same goes for the Grandfather and Maximus. No, they don't have crit-dmg and insane stats, but they were useable yes (aka you can use them in mid MPs, it's just pointless because other cheap stuff is much better). My second Barb (a female one) had a pretty good Grandfather which gave her like 15k HP by itself (I was building her as a tank) and still allowed me to deal 70k+ dps unbuffed (and Rend made that pretty good).
For the average gamer, most of those legendaries had something to offer. A friend Wizard used a Sky Splitter with 1k~ dps for months, and he was awed at how it was one of the most amazing items he ever found (he barely uses the AH, mostly self-found play).
With that in mind, what they did with Legendaries was actually a decent job.
The screw up before that was unforgivable, though, Legendaries should have always had interesting stats/unique-traits on them.
And what they did afterwards was even worse - what I thought would be a monthly trend ended up as a one-time change, which is also unforgiveable imho.
We're not far apart on this. I too thought that some amount of itemization improvement would be thrown in with each patch. The fact that this was never revisited has been a let down. I get that they're working hard on it and plan to release all the changes at once, but I really expected tweaks along the way.
Admittedly, without the AH, these items have use. Problem is, we have an AH. Being that's the case, I'm not sure how a little bit of foresight and reason wouldn't elude them to understanding that MOST of the weapons they revamped were invalid to any player that chooses to use the AH (most players).
They have millions of players dumping their wares into the AH. That signals to me that Blizz should've understood how fast saturation would occur, rendering their AWESOME glittery special effects on these weapons as the only added bonus. This isn't Guild Wars. We don't care how much our weapon shimmer and sparkle. We want OP GTFOMGodly items.
What they created was a hand full of BiS offerings. They should've had the vision to see that anyone whom uses the AH would reckon most of their revamped weapons as trash. 2-handers got buffed. Still useless with the exception of maybe 2 types (Manticore and Skorn).
IMO...they're going to have to go ahead and let us be able to add sockets to any weapon. They've pigeon holed themselves on this issue. There is no alternative. It could work as an excellent gold sink. Unlike the soc quest from D2, we should have a way to add sockets that requires something other than leveling chars to a certain point whereas the quest reward becomes available.
I would think having the Blacksmith being able to add a soc for some high price (maybe 50m+). Once an item is imbued with a soc, it's locked to your account as BoA. This would give people two reasons to pause before socketing. The cost and the permanence of having that item tethered to your account forever.
This would give some turning point. Maybe I would use this if I could soc it. Maybe I wouldn't need to take 50m to the AH if I had this and could soc it?
I see this kind of thing every time I play. Potentially viable weapons that are insta-shitcanned as soon as it's revealed there's no soc.
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Oh, I'm sorry, what was the amazing "endgame" in D1 and D2?
Also, I believe Druids would beg to differ with the assertion that D2 had great class balance and D3 doesn't.
I just pulled up a list of unique helms in D2 and, guess what? 80%+ of them were completely undesireable compared to the "good" helms. Sure you could equip them (much like you COULD equip an Andariel's Visage) but they weren't close to BiS. That sounds a lot like the problems D3 faces with itemization.
The difference? The D2 team never addressed any of that stuff. The D3 team, clearly, is addressing it.
D2 items *were* generally better than D3 items. But as far as uniques went, there were only 2-4 of each item type which could ever be construed as "desireable." It's pretty fuckin hypocritical to rail against the D3 team for "making shit decisions" when D2 panned out mostly the same way.
How many people did you see running around in D2 sporting a Nightwing's Veil? It's probably similar to the number of people you see running around D3 sporting an IK helm. As much as you want to believe, through all your rage, that the game is so much more inferior, if you take a good, hard, look at it you'll find that your rage is just typical ignorance.
Yep. D3 endgame is on-par with any such end-game realized by the previous two titles.
This issue is a bit tricky.
Speaking directly toward uniques, yes there is a very similar dynamic between the two titles in terms of the number of useful Uniques. However, what these uniques DID, their effects on character depth, that's where D3 falls on it's face in comparison.
I'll use my Zealot as an Example. He was a sturdy lvl98 competition PvPer built for GM melee tourneys. Any respectable Zealot kept his stash packed with goods for switch-outs.
I used at least three different helms. A fucking rad Ber'd pally vision circ. A G-face and an ETH Andys.
I used 5 shields. ETH Exile Vortex. ETH Alma Negra (near perfect rolls, which was extremely extremely fucking rare). Pheonix and a HoZ for my BO switch. I also used an ETH HoZ for GM no-taps competitions.
3 sets of armor. A Leviathan. An ETH Shaftstop and a Fortitude (ETH Forts were seen as BM in competitions).
3 sets of gloves. Dracs, Rends and some rares with STR and attack rating.
Jewelry? Either dual Ravens or Angelics for rings. Ammy? Highlords or something else (cannot remember this part).
Weapons? Oh man....the weapons. Eth DC, Eth BotD, Eth Gris, several Eth Fools. Bstar (gimmick weap)
Keep in mind this is off the top 'o' my head and it's been exactly 6 years since I retired. I'm sure to be forgetting much.
Add anni's and torches, more dynamic gems and jewels and a bevy of extremely wide ranging charms to this mix, consider we could assign our own stat points to create a desired life/defensive/offensive dynamic, and Diablo 3 is nowhere even remotely close in terms of itemization. It's not even calculable within the same context. We're talking light-years apart.
I LOVE a lot of the things D3 presented us with. Much of it is top-shelf fucking silky smooth. But the staple of the genre, items, D3 devs should've kept the basic template from D2 and expanded upon it greatly. Because they did not, we're 1 year into D3 and nobody is arguing that items aren't static and disappointing.
There just isn't very much that differentiates D3 items from each other, other than how much Main stat, Resistance, Vita, Crit and IAS said item has. Instead of different effects, we see only different amounts of the same item affixes.
Good news is, the new direction seems to recognize this, though I am weary of to what extent they understand their folly.
I am making the prediction that within the next year, we'll be able to at least assign our Paragon level attribute point as we see fit. This one thing, automatically assigned attributes upon leveling, directly affects itemization. How they failed to see this, I have no idea.
Would I really need to search the AH for that extra 10k life on an item if I could simply reassign wasted attribute points that went to STR or INT? No.
Maybe I want to make a Monk with 10k armor just using stat points? I could cut back on Vita and Dex (because *hypothetically, I have gear to cover that area of my build) and beef up my str.
What if I wanted to make a Monk with 100k life? I betcha I could do that by reassigning stat point to vita.
This issue has got to be on their plate. I'm betting they're looking at it right now, as I type this, as a keystone to better character building.
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I'm not trying to let anyone off the hook.
I'm saying that D2 was a *great* game in light of the fact that it had "no endgame" and in light of the fact that 85%+ of the uniques were not considered viable gear.
Trying to paint D3 as a *horrible* game for having "no endgame" and "bad itemization" is just ignorant of how D2 panned out despite having the same issues. Trying to paint D3 as a *horrible* game for having "no endgame" is particularly laughable because NO Diablo title has ever had "endgame." It's absolutely trolling to complain that D3 is bad because it doesn't have "endgame." I want to hurt kittens when people bring that particular point up.
EDIT
Also it's presumptuous (and impossible to actually prove) that they "decided not to" look at D2 itemization. For all we know they poured over it for weeks and thought that what they developed was better. For all we know they simply decided to go with a basic "framework" that they could refine and expand upon after we beat the shit out of it. The point is we don't know what they did, or did not do, and it's pretty asinine to base anything on the assumption that they chose not to learn from the past. I mean.... unless you sat in on the D3 development meetings!
@Ruksak
Like I said - D2 itemization was BETTER, but we still left tons of completely un-usable items on the ground and I'm just not ready to say that "better than bad" equates directly to "FUCKING AMAZING" like some people would want me to say. Speaking particularly about legendaries vs uniques here, the "quality" of uniques in D2 was just as atrocious as D3. You've spoken a lot to PvP and, that obviously creates a need for diversity among gear - your strat vs a sorc probably isn't exactly the same as your strat vs a barb and your gear should reflect that.
PvM did not have that inherent necessity for gear diversity and, looking at uniques from a PvM perspective the D2 uniques were just as bad (if not worse) than the D3 uniques. My point was not that things shouldn't be changed (because they should be). My point was simply that D2 was a successful game in light of these "shit decisions" and it's absolutely ridiculous for the guy I quoted to be that ignorant and naive.
If I managed to play D2 for years and years despite most of the uniques I found remaining on the ground... I think that playing D3 for a year while they analyze and work on itemization is not out-of-the-question and certainly not a "shit decision" or however else anyone wants to claim it's the deathknell for the series, company, or anything else.
My point was simply that some people like to overdramatize problems. Whether or not they should, or can, be fixed... if D2 was able to be a great game in light of these problems, D3 sure can because D3 is obviously receiving more intensive support and patching.
One thing I'll readily admit. I didn't find valuable items in D2 via farming with any more regularity than I do in D3. I remember doing 50 straight Meph runs many times, and nothing. Nothing. Literally the same fucking Gris armor over and over. So in some respects, we're not too far apart.
What encourages me is that there are some great things about D3's itemization that rarely get mentioned. The RMP aspect creates truly unique items, for one.
More good news is that they just need to twist the shit a little bit with some semblance of inspiration and Diablo 3 itemization can easily knock the shit outta D2's itemization.
*waits to get flamed for my last remark....
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Wizard | Demon Hunter
A lot like most people are doing to D3 right now. I still see people on the official forums who haven't played in 6-8 months (judging from gear/20k dps) complaining about the same things - some complaining about problems solved months ago. Same goes for some ppl on my friends list.
Just this week I heard (from a friend) the good old "there's nothing to do in the game anymore" "game's too easy now derp".
Really? That makes me wanna say "are you fucking kidding me"? You have ONE shitty character that hasn't even finished Inferno. You never tried MP. You never tried Ubers. You wanted a D2-style grind, but didn't lvl a single paragon lvl. You never tried other classes. You never tried any other items or builds besides the FotM shit. You never experienced public games with improved mob density where you're farming faster on a higher MP despite having random ppl with shitty gear (I include myself in this category), and comboing coop-useful skills feels great.
/rant-off