Blizzard's Community Relations

[waffel]

Oh come now, the bit where you had to save your points and not spend them until you could dump them all in one skill was pretty silly.  I mean, I thought D2's skill system was pretty retarded at the time I played it.  This isn't some revisionist history thing. 

And yeah, I do see that the retarded-on-its-own skill system did allow for some interesting itemization, definitely, so I don't disagree that D3 is probably missing something that D2 had.

But I mean, come on.  Next we'll be saying that rolling for your character's attributes over and over in Baldur's Gate was a good system.  That shit was dumb, it was noticeably dumb even at the time, and it is ok to say that it was dumb (and I loved the hell out of BG).

It may have been dumb, but the alternative we got was worse.

[Rendakor]

Except you don't have to save skill points if there are respecs, so this is a fixed problem even in D2. Yet, they still decided to throw the baby out with the bathwater. And despite everyone saying "D2 at launch sucked" D3 isn't competing with Launch-D2, it's competing with D2:LoD v1.whatever in the same way that any MMO that launches isn't competing with Vanilla WoW but Cata WoW (see also: MMOs launching without LFG systems).

[Abelian75]

Except you don't have to save skill points if there are respecs, so this is a fixed problem even in D2. Yet, they still decided to throw the baby out with the bathwater. And despite everyone saying "D2 at launch sucked" D3 isn't competing with Launch-D2, it's competing with D2:LoD v1.whatever in the same way that any MMO that launches isn't competing with Vanilla WoW but Cata WoW (see also: MMOs launching without LFG systems).

That's a fine point, and I'm not at all trying to say D3 is perfect, or even not severely flawed.  While I am enjoying the hell out of the game, I do think it's got some severe problems that make me facepalm in dismay.  I'd even go so far as to say it is arguably not up to Blizzard's standards.

I was only responding to the idea that it's horribly offensive to point out that the D2 skill system (the one before the respecs, which was, let's be honest, the vast majority of D2's lifespan) was pretty fucked up.  In general I agree with most of the actual complaints people have about this game.  It's the glorifying of D2 that I tend to kind of eyeroll at a bit.  In general I think this is a vastly more enjoyable game to actually play "in the moment" (imho, of course), but I agree with the baby/bathwater comment.

Even with my limited D2 playtime I remember finding items more exciting.  For fuck's sake, I've played D3 for like 200 hours and have yet to see a single set item.  I have gotten around six legendaries!  All of them utter shite.

Edit:  I should probably clarify that by "enjoying the hell out of the game" I mean "enjoying the hell out of leveling each character to 60."  Inferno has been meh.

[Merusk]

Except you don't have to save skill points if there are respecs, so this is a fixed problem even in D2. Yet, they still decided to throw the baby out with the bathwater. And despite everyone saying "D2 at launch sucked" D3 isn't competing with Launch-D2, it's competing with D2:LoD v1.whatever in the same way that any MMO that launches isn't competing with Vanilla WoW but Cata WoW (see also: MMOs launching without LFG systems).

If you have respecs and points, why do you have the points?

[Ingmar]

Except you don't have to save skill points if there are respecs, so this is a fixed problem even in D2. Yet, they still decided to throw the baby out with the bathwater. And despite everyone saying "D2 at launch sucked" D3 isn't competing with Launch-D2, it's competing with D2:LoD v1.whatever in the same way that any MMO that launches isn't competing with Vanilla WoW but Cata WoW (see also: MMOs launching without LFG systems).

If it is actually competing with D2 LoD v1.11 or whatever, it is clearly winning given their relative player populations. 

[Malakili]

Except you don't have to save skill points if there are respecs, so this is a fixed problem even in D2. Yet, they still decided to throw the baby out with the bathwater. And despite everyone saying "D2 at launch sucked" D3 isn't competing with Launch-D2, it's competing with D2:LoD v1.whatever in the same way that any MMO that launches isn't competing with Vanilla WoW but Cata WoW (see also: MMOs launching without LFG systems).

If you have respecs and points, why do you have the points?

My guess is some limited respecs.  Enough to fix mistakes/bad choices for the end game, then maybe a dropped item seems to be the thing that has come up several times in these threads.  I think the dropped respec token type thing is no good though.  They tried it in Hellgate: London and it was a mess of a system - granted it could be done BETTER, but at that point you're just haggling over the cost of respecs more than anything else.

Still, if I can make another guess, I'd say it is about investing deeply into one tree so that if you have a skill at the end of the tree it means you really are a "Whatever(Fire, Nova, Ice) sorceress" But  as you suggest, with respecs that is just as temporary as having no prereqs or trees - it is just a matter of how frequently you can do it, and how expensive it is to do it.  If any of the skill design in Diablo 3 is bad (and it is for sure on some skills) than it has less to do with the respec system than the skill design itself. Furthermore, it sounds like people feel like their characters aren't really "theirs." because the progression has no choice.   

[Arinon]

I think the game would have been better with some sort of throttle, however small, on changing builds.  It's not like the actual nuts and bolts of the skill system are that complex.  You have six slots for shit to go.  Pick one you want to remove, fill an XP bar then bam, you can take that skill off and put whatever else you want in there.  Tune the time it takes to whatever seems reasonable, an hour or so?  At this point people are too used to having access to everything for any sort of limitation to go in though. 

Still think the game is pretty sweet but the current skill system kicks the game's longevity in the nuts.

[Lantyssa]

If you have respecs and points, why do you have the points?

Constraints.  SWG essentially had free respecs, but you were still limited in how you could spend them at any given time.

[Margalis]

I am a bit sympathetic to the idea that completely free respecs can hurt the game in some way. That does prevent you from having to commit to something and see it through through good times and bad, forcing you to get creative in those bad times. Nephalem Valor is a super-hacky and heavy-handed way of approximating that.

But Nephalem Valor is very clearly not an organic system that makes sense and more of an "oh shit, after observing people playing we see some flaw...hmm how can we put a band-aid on this?" It's more fixing a sprung leak than creating plumbing that doesn't leak in the first place.

[Malakili]

I am a bit sympathetic to the idea that completely free respecs can hurt the game in some way. That does prevent you from having to commit to something and see it through through good times and bad, forcing you to get creative in those bad times. Nephalem Valor is a super-hacky and heavy-handed way of approximating that.

But Nephalem Valor is very clearly not an organic system that makes sense and more of an "oh shit, after observing people playing we see some flaw...hmm how can we put a band-aid on this?" It's more fixing a sprung leak than creating plumbing that doesn't leak in the first place.

I think Nephalem Valor is much more them enforcing a particular way of playing the end game (clearing entire dungeons) instead of pure boss runs like Diablo 2 - which they openly said they didn't like as a design.

The respecing part of it was added in after the fact, perhaps as a bandaid for what you are talking about.  But I don't think they originally conceived it as a mechanic that had much to do with respeccing.

[Soulflame]

The problem with Blizzard not liking pure boss runs as a design is that I did like pure boss runs.  If I had fifteen minutes to kill, I could knock over Meph a few times, or Pindle a bunch, and have a shot at something good.  That isn't  the case with D3, and the 20+ minutes needed to develop NV just to farm a boss once is often enough to keep me from logging in.

I don't really have the desire, or often even the time to sit down for a dedicated hour clear of Act 1 Inferno.  Additionally, I don't have the gear to clear the act in an hour, nor can I afford it.

[Malakili]

The problem with Blizzard not liking pure boss runs as a design is that I did like pure boss runs.  If I had fifteen minutes to kill, I could knock over Meph a few times, or Pindle a bunch, and have a shot at something good.  That isn't  the case with D3, and the 20+ minutes needed to develop NV just to farm a boss once is often enough to keep me from logging in.

I don't really have the desire, or often even the time to sit down for a dedicated hour clear of Act 1 Inferno.  Additionally, I don't have the gear to clear the act in an hour, nor can I afford it.

I actually agree.  I was worried about this before release, and it has definitely cut down the amount I play because I often have short breaks where in Diablo 2 I couldn't fit in a few runs, but in Diablo 3 I just don't have the time to actually build up to 5 NV.  I do actually enjoy doing the full runs when I have time, but I don't always actually have it.

[Rendakor]

Except you don't have to save skill points if there are respecs, so this is a fixed problem even in D2. Yet, they still decided to throw the baby out with the bathwater. And despite everyone saying "D2 at launch sucked" D3 isn't competing with Launch-D2, it's competing with D2:LoD v1.whatever in the same way that any MMO that launches isn't competing with Vanilla WoW but Cata WoW (see also: MMOs launching without LFG systems).

If you have respecs and points, why do you have the points?

So you can create a build that's more complex than "Pick six skills (2-4/class of which are mandatory) with their runes, pick 3 passives, go". Additionally, with limited respecs you're free to tweak your build or scrap it if you've gimped yourself, but less inclined to cover every build possible with a single class and therefore you have an incentive to actually play the game again. In D3 I've got the two classes that interest me to mid-Hell and I'm done. I could power through and at least get to Inferno but what's the point, an even sillier difficulty? There's no point in playing through as another Wizard because any build I wanted to try, I did while leveling up. There are other factors here (shitty itemization, static maps) but the skill system was a big part of my D2 experience.

[Margalis]

A lot of the decisions around the design of Diablo 3 seem centered around stopping the players from playing the "wrong" way - which is any way that Blizzard did not intend. Even in cases where the game is designed in such a way that the wrong way is entirely predictable and the most effective.

[Shatter]

A lot of the decisions around the design of Diablo 3 seem centered around stopping the players from playing the "wrong" way having fun

Fixed

[Phred]

I think the game would have been better with some sort of throttle, however small, on changing builds. 

Neph valor isnt enough?

[Setanta]

A lot of the decisions around the design of Diablo 3 seem centered around stopping the players from playing the "wrong" way - which is any way that Blizzard did not intend. Even in cases where the game is designed in such a way that the wrong way is entirely predictable and the most effective.

You think they would have learnt from... oh what's that company's name that made WoW?

[Lantyssa]

Making a Diablo clone is hard.

[Merusk]

A lot of the decisions around the design of Diablo 3 seem centered around stopping the players from playing the "wrong" way - which is any way that Blizzard did not intend. Even in cases where the game is designed in such a way that the wrong way is entirely predictable and the most effective.

You think they would have learnt from... oh what's that company's name that made WoW?

You mean the one that completely fucked-up their last expansion and are now trying to shovel things out the door that might appease the disgruntled fan base that left?

[Paelos]

You mean the one that completely fucked-up their last expansion and are now trying to shovel things out the door that might appease the disgruntled fan base that left?

Still amazed more people weren't fired over Cataclysm. You'd think that a fuckup of that magnitude would cause somebody at the top to lose their job.

[01101010]

A lot of the decisions around the design of Diablo 3 seem centered around stopping the players from playing the "wrong" way - which is any way that Blizzard did not intend. Even in cases where the game is designed in such a way that the wrong way is entirely predictable and the most effective.

You think they would have learnt from... oh what's that company's name that made WoW?

I believe that was Blizzard (pre-Activision).

[schild]

The core gameplay here, disconnected from the itemization, is light years beyond Diablo 2.

The itemization and flair bits in the environment (bookshelves, pots, etc) are absolutely shit compared to Diablo 2.

I love both games - unfortunately Diablo as a series is about the second bit more than the first bit. I think in time they can fix the second bit though.

That said, out of the gate, Diablo 2 was nigh unplayable. Buggy piece of rushed-out-the-door shit.

[Setanta]

A lot of the decisions around the design of Diablo 3 seem centered around stopping the players from playing the "wrong" way - which is any way that Blizzard did not intend. Even in cases where the game is designed in such a way that the wrong way is entirely predictable and the most effective.

You think they would have learnt from... oh what's that company's name that made WoW?

You mean the one that completely fucked-up their last expansion and are now trying to shovel things out the door that might appease the disgruntled fan base that left?

That was what I was trying to imply

[waffel]

I'm sure some people on this forum will want me lynched, but here we go:





Today was yet another 'patch' and still nothing is done about gold farming and botting. Sarkoth has remained untouched for well over a month.

I keep expecting to be banned for botting, yet it never happens. My bot literally runs 24x7, killing Sarkoth over and over again. My character has well over 100 million gold picked up (nothing any legit player could ever do). My character has remained logged in for close to 20 hours a day, every single day, for a month, and ONLY killed Sarkoth (nothing any legit player could ever do)

I started doing this because I figured "fuck it, the game isn't what I expected, might as well see how much money I can make by not playing" and I've passed over $600 bucks by simply buying items on the GAH and reselling on the RMAH. This has slowed down to a crawl recently because the prices of decent items has fucking skyrocketted. Between the AH bots and the massive inflation of gold prices, and the RMAH sales drying up it seems like I'm actually falling BEHIND other, more successful botters. My fucking BOT can't keep up with the gold inflation and all it does is farm gold...

I'm not sure what my point is, other than it's shocking to me how little Blizzard seems to care about botting and exploits in their game. You have AH bots snatching up every single poorly priced item and flipping it again. Bot farms running Sarkoth or Nightmare Azmodon reverse runs pulling 500k+ an hour and dumping a fuckload of gold into the economy. You have trade window exploits which remains unfixed (yet, they fixed it in D2...) and you have massively successful botters pulling in thousands using Blizzard's OWN RMAH. They're actually more successful now using Blizzard than they ever would be on their 3rd party sites...

I look on the popular botting/exploit forums and I see so many different bots. Ones for each class, different resolutions, Sarkoth, AH, leveling exploits, MF swap bots, trade expoit bots, bots that tap into the game and actually dynamicly kill shit, maphacks, insta-leave bots, etc etc etc. And these forums and threads have HUNDREDS of pages and thousands of views.

It's out of fucking control, man...

[LK]

 

[Paelos]

I think the real question here is how much of that $600 are you going to blow on the Steam sale?

[waffel]

 

... well I still need to get Skyrim + the expansion. And portal 2. Torchlight 2. HL2 Episode 3. Plus whatever sweet deals rolls out.. since you asked...

[KallDrexx]

Today was yet another 'patch' and still nothing is done about gold farming and botting. Sarkoth has remained untouched for well over a month.

I was intriqued so I looked it up and found http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0zrntehf5s
lol

[Abelian75]

Well, if it's any comfort, waffel, you'll probably be banned eventually.  Usually the strategy is to wait to do a mass banning, in order to collect as many botting accounts as possible before alerting them that a given bot has been detected for banning.  It works better for banning bot accounts over time in much the same way as a virus with a long incubation time is much more dangerous than one with a short incubation time, even though the short one seems scarier and more dangerous at first glance.

That said, it does nothing to get the gold out of the economy, as you point out.  But it's not like there was anything salvageable about the AH to begin with.  The whole item game is a gigantic piece of shit.

[Lantyssa]

Unfortunately, it's compounding the problems they're having keeping the interest up of those who play legitimately.  It might be a good strategy when the game has been out for a while, but at this stage it's critical to try and be a little more pro-active.

[Hutch]

... and you have massively successful botters pulling in thousands using Blizzard's OWN RMAH. They're actually more successful now using Blizzard than they ever would be on their 3rd party sites...

Blizzard gets a cut of each transaction on the RMAH. So they may be taking the "it ain't broke" stance.

[Xanthippe]

I'm sure some people on this forum will want me lynched, but here we go:
<snip>
It's out of fucking control, man...

While I wouldn't do this myself, I don't put the blame on you for how broken Diablo 3 is. These things were predicted.

Blizzard made a broken game.

Their stance toward botting has never made sense to me. In WoW, I used to report every bot I came across. It would sometimes be weeks before the bot would disappear - as in several weeks, more than 3. How much "data" do they need to collect to see a bot? It's ridiculous. I don't buy Blizzard's explanations; I think they are full of shit. They simply do not care about botters much, and in D3, probably not at all. Botters enrich Blizzard.

[Malakili]

I'm sure some people on this forum will want me lynched, but here we go:
<snip>
It's out of fucking control, man...

While I wouldn't do this myself, I don't put the blame on you for how broken Diablo 3 is. These things were predicted.

Blizzard made a broken game.

Their stance toward botting has never made sense to me. In WoW, I used to report every bot I came across. It would sometimes be weeks before the bot would disappear - as in several weeks, more than 3. How much "data" do they need to collect to see a bot? It's ridiculous. I don't buy Blizzard's explanations; I think they are full of shit. They simply do not care about botters much, and in D3, probably not at all. Botters enrich Blizzard.

It isn't about confirming that it is a bot, it is about getting a big database of them and banning them all at once so that that the bannings don't alert other botters that the bot is being detected.    If they ban individually, people catch on and change the bots before they get detected.  Valve does the same thing with VAC.

[waffel]

Most of the bots use AutoIT or Autohotkey. Most randomize just about everything, from sleep timers, to locations clicked on the screen (randomized in a small space, but not enough to throw the bot off course) and use imagescan to find items, locations, whatever else (it'll scan the screen at a set time and if it sees the orange color from a legandary item it clicks on it) They auto repair when broken gear is detected, auto stash and sell, and some even look sell all items that aren't ilvl 60+

They're getting pretty advanced, imo, because they're not being stopped. The creators and botters keep building off their code. If Sarkoth's location was randomized, moved, mobs placed in the way, or hell even straight up REMOVED the bot would need to be constantly updated which would scare off and stop the casual botters.

I'm hoping Blizzard has some grand plans in place to stop the botting. They are so many ideas they can do to at least slow it down. The only bot they cracked down on was the AH bot but only after a month of it being out there. The game limit change they sneaked in before was great. Most of the bot threads claimed it was the end, that it wasn't worth it anymore, etc etc. Yet Blizzard removed it and everyone rejoiced and fired up their bots again. Ahh well...

[Paelos]

So why Sarkoth, waffel?

Do you just put on GF gear and pick up the gold? What's the take per kill? How is that one mob outriding everything else? I'm confused as to why it was isolated as a farm target.