Game Design Update

[waffel]

Some of those monster affix combos are beyond ridiculous. Had fast, arcane, invincible minions once and vortex molten vampiric.

They should have blacklisted certain broken combinations.

Back when my fresh monk entered Inferno, 50+% of all combinations would destroy me. Trying to farm anything was damn near impossible. So I did Hell (and discovered I could stack gold find, run a section of Nightmare and make nearly 300k an hour) and bought better gear. Mind you, I didn't farm that gear. I farmed the gold for that gear. By doing this, the experience was a lot, LOT less enjoyable than it should have been. Every single item that dropped in nightmare/hell I knew would be absolutely worthless to me (and mostly other people)

So I got better gear, stacked resists, and was slowly able to pull off some defensive skills for offensive skills. I can now farm Act 1 pretty easily and most minion packs/elites don't cause a problem. All because of gear and trying new specs.

However, now it's time for Act 2. Farming Act 1 nets me SOME useful items I can use or sell, but its still tedious. I don't know if i can do this again for Act 2, 3, and 4. I just want to fucking find exciting loot, not items that turn into gold.

Right now, it honestly feels like I'm a Chinese gold farmer. But, instead of farming gold, getting paid real life money and doing whatever I want with it, I'm farming gold to buy in game items. It makes me feel like a tool.

[Jeff Kelly]

Not anymore but they had huge concurrent numbers at one point during the heyday of WoW. They also managed to restructure their backend systems and code so that it scales reasonably well now (something that the server side code didn't at launch). Another point off of the "necessary backend features" list.

[Tarami]

Maybe because the programmers for D3 are different people than the ones for WoW? Some of them may even never have played WoW. Was D3 even made in the same studio where WoW is maintained?

Because it shouldn't be up to the programmer, is the point. Someone should be on top of it, providing specifications for how things are supposed to work.

Virtually everything seems like a one-off:

- Need a tooltip? Cut and paste that code from somewhere else, bugs and all (then don't fix the bugs in that copy when they're discovered, I guess.)
- There's even things like how the globe shows rounded HP values (so 1014.9 is rounded to 1015) and the overhead HP bars show truncated values (1014.9 -> 1014).
- The buyback tab occasionally forgets about half the items you've just sold.
- Comparing a two-hander when you have two one-handers equipped doesn't take both into account, so the stat changes are useless.
- The AH calls life steal just that, the tooltips call it "% damage converted to life".
- The minimum value for movement speed in the AH is expressed as fractions (+10% -> 0.1) yet the textbox doesn't allow more than three characters so you can only filter whole tenths (0.1, 0.2 et c), yet +%damage is expressed as percent. Maybe you skip the leading zero, I haven't tried that.
- Half the places you expect a tooltip (like the quick-access menu when you right-click the potion slot, or most of the AH) don't give you one.
- Recommended items in the AH can't be sorted. At all.
- Why am I seeing sold items in the AH? I guess it's the cache, but why aren't they just filtered out when displayed?
- Why does the "the game is NOT paused in a multiplayer game" text linger after I've closed the menu? I'm not expecting it to be paused any more in any case.
- How come I can't read the aggregated stats of someone I inspect in-game, yet I can see the last time they clipped their toenails if I look at their profile from the character screen?
- The same screen also displays what the game calls "damage" as "DPS" for no reason (other than being synonyms in this case.)
- At that, why are there two ways to look a character from the character screen, one of which offers no information other than the appearance of the toon?
- Edit: Oh, and the FPS meter is pointless, since it shows the timing of the last frame and updates (and varies wildly) every frame, rather than frames rendered the past second.

Finally, why do I get a button to join each of my three friends who are inside the same game? Shouldn't there be one button per game? Also, that tooltip you get hovering those join buttons is the least helpful ever - it doesn't help knowing he's playing with a barbarian and a demon hunter, I want to know if I know them. NAMES!

No, really, the UI is all over the fucking place. There are barely two seemingly identical functions in the game that actually behave the same way.

/rant

[Malakili]

Some of those monster affix combos are beyond ridiculous. Had fast, arcane, invincible minions once and vortex molten vampiric.

They should have blacklisted certain broken combinations.

Back when my fresh monk entered Inferno, 50+% of all combinations would destroy me. Trying to farm anything was damn near impossible. So I did Hell (and discovered I could stack gold find, run a section of Nightmare and make nearly 300k an hour) and bought better gear. Mind you, I didn't farm that gear. I farmed the gold for that gear. By doing this, the experience was a lot, LOT less enjoyable than it should have been. Every single item that dropped in nightmare/hell I knew would be absolutely worthless to me (and mostly other people)

So I got better gear, stacked resists, and was slowly able to pull off some defensive skills for offensive skills. I can now farm Act 1 pretty easily and most minion packs/elites don't cause a problem. All because of gear and trying new specs.

However, now it's time for Act 2. Farming Act 1 nets me SOME useful items I can use or sell, but its still tedious. I don't know if i can do this again for Act 2, 3, and 4. I just want to fucking find exciting loot, not items that turn into gold.

Right now, it honestly feels like I'm a Chinese gold farmer. But, instead of farming gold, getting paid real life money and doing whatever I want with it, I'm farming gold to buy in game items. It makes me feel like a tool.

Play alts, farm easier content just for fun?  It sounds like you don't actually like PLAYING the game very much, which is the core of your problem if I had to guess.  If you actually enjoyed playing for the sake of playing you wouldn't care so much when the drops didn't come.  That has actually why the Diablo series has been more or less the holy grail for me - I like the loot stuff, I like skill stuff, but I like that in tons of games, what sets Diablo apart for me is that it is just plain fun to play, so all that grinding has never felt like grinding to me in a Diablo game.  Even if I get jackall, I had fun blowing up monsters.  That has been a rarity for me in RPGs in the last say, 7-8 years.

[Jeff Kelly]

- If the buyback doesn't forget items it sorts them in any odd order it likes. The last item sold is never at the top or at the bottom of the list.
- There is no way to easily see what you have equipped when you browse the AH, you have to switch to the "sell" tab and hope that all of your items are repaired to 100% (otherwise you won't see the stats but rather a hint that you need to repair items before you can sell them).
- You can't reset your search parameters you have to quit the AH to do that
- If you look for certain stats, the AH interface adds the stat of a socketed gem and displays you the results accordingly (so a +40 dex item with a +28 dex socketed gem comes up if you look for +68 dex items)
- The AH tooltip doesn't show stat changes even though all other tooltips in the game do.
- I have to skip cutscenes even if it's my 100th attempt also all tutorial hints and tooltip still show up on Hell difficulty.
- the game doesn't pause during in-game engine cutscenes so the mob train you brought with you will kill you while you watch deckard cain being ominous. (That was a WTF moment for me)
- If you kill bosses too quickly they will sometimes execute all of the actions that they're supposed to do before the next scripted event all at once

If I go on this will turn into another complaints post but for a game that has been in development for the better part of 6 years (and had a cancelled predecessor) it seriously lacks polish.

[Sjofn]

- the game doesn't pause during in-game engine cutscenes so the mob train you brought with you will kill you while you watch deckard cain being ominous. (That was a WTF moment for me)

I'm sorry, that is hilarious. 

[Llyse]

- I have to skip cutscenes even if it's my 100th attempt also all tutorial hints and tooltip still show up on Hell difficulty.

If I go on this will turn into another complaints post but for a game that has been in development for the better part of 6 years (and had a cancelled predecessor) it seriously lacks polish.

I think you can turn off all tooltips and tutorials in options but everything else I agree with.
Still a fun game though.

[Amaron]

Even if you're farming gear that lets you farm better gear, it's still progress and something to be happy about. It's like, I have to get to level 2 to get to 3 and onwards all the way to 60, but I'm still happy with each level I attain.

I'd sort of agree if the gear felt like an "upgrade".   What happens is your damage goes down and your defenses try to keep up.   Increasing damage has some pretty weak yields too.  In general mobs don't have a lot of HP in Inferno they just hit you like a truck.

[Tarami]

Yeah, my rants aside, I'd just like to point out I really do like the game, as in the gameplay, it's just that it's horribly fucking shoddily put together in almost every other regard.

Really, really agree on the cutscenes bit though. Jesus, just remove them altogether from nightmare and up. Play normal to get the story. Or add a checkbox to the quest selection screen, "story mode".

[Paelos]

No you must watch them all every time. Metzen worked hard on this! 

[Sophismata]

No you must watch them all every time. Metzen worked hard on this! 

The story is the worst fucking cheese. It lacks the gravity of Diablo 1 and the brevity of Diablo 2 (and let's be honest, neither of those games had a stellar story). It bothers me to think that someone - anyone - thought it was anything other than fucking stupid, let alone wrote the damn thing for a multimillion dollar production.

[Paelos]

It's just a setback.

[Xanthippe]

I don't play Blizzard games for the story.

I enjoy the little mini-stories much more than the main stories. (Lyndon's, for example).

[Nebu]

There's a story?  I thought the cutscenes were meant as a respite from the constant button spamming.   

[Paelos]

I like how you know everyone is going to screw you over, but the other NPCs are like, "We don't have a choice!"

[Sjofn]

I enjoy the little mini-stories much more than the main stories. (Lyndon's, for example).

I agree, except maybe the enchantress. But I liked the other two followers, Covetous Shen and Haedrig!

[Ice Cream Emperor]

I like Covetous Shen because he makes my Witch Doctor suddenly seem like a subtle portrayal of ethnic diversity and tolerance. Once the racism knob gets stuck at 11 there's really not much to complain about.

[Sjofn]

Yeah when we first picked up Shen, Ingmar was like "I think this guy might be offensive." Which is how I feel when I see the witch doctor. 

[Soulflame]

That's just James Hong.  Roll with It.

[Ironwood]

Yeah, have any of you watched ANY Kung-Fu Panda or even Big Bang ?

That's what the guy does.  Chill.

I don't get upset at the UK voices in there.  Mostly because they're done by proper British people who are actually all AWESOME, but that's no excuse. 

 

[Soulflame]

I'll always see him as Lo Pan.

[Maledict]

Yeah, have any of you watched ANY Kung-Fu Panda or even Big Bang ?

That's what the guy does.  Chill.

I don't get upset at the UK voices in there.  Mostly because they're done by proper British people who are actually all AWESOME, but that's no excuse. 

 

Every line uttered by the templar is like a spike in my ears.

I'm sure for non-Uk people its fine, but hearing a broad Yorkshire accent constantly is infuriating. It's really, really horrible.

(and I lived in Leeds for 8 years!)

[Ingmar]

I eventually came to the conclusion that he wasn't, but it wasn't evident at first which direction they were going to go with him.

[lesion]

Every line uttered by the templar is like a spike in my ears.

I'm sure for non-Uk people its fine, but hearing a broad Yorkshire accent constantly is infuriating. It's really, really horrible.

Nah, he's that terrible. Even my deaf friend hates him!

[Sjofn]

I find his accent hilarious.

[Xanthippe]

I'm from California, we don't have accents(!).

All accents sound exotic to me, even bad ones. (Except Mexican accents. )

[Ironwood]

Every line uttered by the templar is like a spike in my ears.

I'm sure for non-Uk people its fine, but hearing a broad Yorkshire accent constantly is infuriating. It's really, really horrible.

Nah, he's that terrible. Even my deaf friend hates him!

You're both nuts.  After pretty much every single fucking fantasy game EVER goes straight to Glasgow (do not pass go, do not collect $200) with the worst American dragged out a bin to put on Springburn Dwarvish, I'm finding an actual proper accent to be a refreshing change.

[Ragnoros]

Patch 1.0.3 Design Preview
by Wyatt Cheng Jun 6, 2012 7:00 AM PDT 1658

Last month we gave you a glimpse into how we were taking in initial feedback on the game, and ideas for some potential system changes we could make. Today we wanted to follow up and provide concrete info on some of the changes we’ve been working on, and give everyone a heads up before the 1.0.3 patch hits later this month.

Bridging the Item Gap
The ilvl (item level) of an item determines the statistical budget for its power. The way the game is currently set up, Act I drops ilvl 61 gear and below, Act II drops ilvl 62 gear and below, and Act III and IV drop ilvl 63 and below. Unfortunately this has caused two main issues. The first is players who find an Act too difficult feel compelled to use the auction house in order to progress. The second is that certain classes, skills, and play styles are less gear dependent than others, so although great items are making their way into the game economy, people feel pigeonholed into a handful of viable strategies. For a lot of people they would rather do something frustrating or boring in Hell Act IV (such as having Tyrael fight for them or breaking vases) for a chance at a "top-tier" upgrade, rather than fight hordes of monsters in Inferno Act I. We’re shifting to a philosophy where the best items in the game can drop from many different places, so a wider variety of play styles are viable.  If you would rather chain-pull elite packs in Act I rather than 3 minute cat-and-mouse in Act IV, we'd like you to be able to do that and know you can still find the best items in the game.
Nothing would explain it as well as just sharing the intended drop rates coming in the next patch, so here they are. Note that the drop rates vary slightly by item type; the table below represents an approximate aggregated rate of all item types:
New drop rates for 1.0.3
Item

ilvl	Hell Act III and IV	Inferno Act I	Inferno Act II	Inferno Act III/IV
iLvl 61	9%	18%	19%	24%
iLvl 62	2%	8%	12%	16%
iLvl 63	0%	2%	4%	8%

As you can see, players who would rather murder monsters 4x as fast in Inferno Act I can do so knowing they have a chance at amazing items, and players who want a challenge can kill in Acts III and IV in Inferno and be rewarded with a higher drop rate.

You Keep Using That Word
As previously mentioned, we’re going to be reviewing Legendary items in a future patch. Legendaries won’t change in 1.0.3, but it’s still something we’re actively working on. When we’re done, high level Legendaries should be flat out better than blue items, they’ll carry a good amount of power with them, and they should also be distinctive or memorable in the benefits they provide. We’ll be able to share more information on the specific changes we’re making after 1.0.3 launches.

The Nephalem Difference
It’s no secret that our goal for the end-game item hunt is players hunting monsters packs, building to five stacks of Nephalem Valor, and then killing a boss. While we’re seeing a lot of that occurring, what we’re missing is people feeling like it’s worthwhile to continue onward after killing a boss. To help hit that goal we’re lowering the number of guaranteed Rare items on bosses when you have your full five stacks of Nephalem Valor from two guaranteed Rares to one guaranteed Rare (you still have a very good chance at multiple rares, it's just no longer guaranteed). In exchange, all champion and rare packs will now drop a bonus guaranteed Rare item when you have your full five stacks of Nephalem Valor. The change benefits players with more overall drops, and a reason to push to continue progressing.

You Into the Group Thing?
We’re removing the bonus monster damage per additional player in a coop game. Our design goal is for players who prefer to play solo to be able to play solo, and players who prefer to play in groups to be able to play in a group. We feel the bonus monster damage per additional player is one of the biggest inhibitors to wanting to play with your friends. In a perfect world, single player and co-op would be absolutely equal, but that’s not attainable when you consider item properties such as “Life on Kill” or skills such as Archon which simply scale better when you are solo. Since the variety and breadth of game mechanics essentially dictate that solo vs. group play will never be 100% equal, our goal is to make them as close as possible but err on the side of coop in cases where we need to make adjustments. The inherent logistical requirements when forming up with other players and attempting to work together effectively warrants some added benefits.

Oh Yeah!

Inferno balance right now has a difficulty gap in which Act I feels about right, but Act II feels like trying to bust through a brick wall. In patch 1.0.3 we’re going to be lowering that wall by adjusting the damage and health of monsters in Inferno Act II, III and IV. We feel like Act I Inferno is in a pretty good place. Our design goal with Acts II, III and IV is to keep them challenging, but smooth the difficulty ramp out a bit. If a monk or barbarian is geared well enough that they can use a heavily offensive build and murder everything in Act I, they should be able to swap to a more defensive build and do okay in Act II. As they gear up they can begin adjusting back to becoming offensive in Act II, at which point they can jump into Act III with a focus on defense, and so on. Difficulty certainly ties into itemization, encounter and enemy tuning, and class balance, and all of these things together are going to paint a more reasonable difficulty curve as you hit Inferno in 1.0.3.

Paying for Your Mistakes
Current repair costs at level 60 are barely noticeable, and because of that we see a lot of people wonder if “graveyard zerging” tough enemies or “chain rezzing allies on a boss” is intended gameplay – it definitely is not. To help solve the issue we evaluated a number of new death mechanics, such as just allowing the resurrection timer to increase even higher, disallowing resurrection during boss fights, or putting a debuff on you when you resurrect (such as reduced combat effectiveness). Ultimately we felt that increasing repair costs was the best solution that preserves the fast paced style of the game. Repair costs on level 60 items are going to go up a lot. Our goal is the next time a player is graveyard zerging a boss, it should occur to them that “this is probably not an efficient way to go about things”. We’re currently evaluating repair costs between 4x and 6x their current values. In the face of increasing costs, we recommend listening to the Hardcore players out there as they probably have some helpful advice on how to minimize repair costs. Following this change zerging a boss will still be possible, but our intent is that it won’t be optimal, and players who are seeking to be as efficient as possible will adjust their item hunting routes accordingly.

Whoa, Whoa, Nice Shootin’ Tex
We’re fixing a number of bugs with Attack Speed, mainly related to the stat not working on some items, but we’ve also decided we need to reduce the effectiveness of Increased Attack Speed overall. Many players have commented that Increased Attack Speed is such a dominant stat they feel it’s required. While we don’t have an issue with there being important stats, Increased Attack Speed in particular has secondary effects on mobility in combat, resource generation and resource consumption. We want there to be options and considerations for how you gear up, and one uber trump-everything stat can really work against choice and options. There are two different solutions we’re considering to reduce the effectiveness of Increased Attack Speed. The first is to simply reduce the value on all the items to their desired values. In general our desire is to never change items as that makes them feel less concrete, but the upside is you would still be able to look at an item and know exactly what you are getting. The other approach is to change the formula used for attack speed aggregation so that stacking attack speed from multiple slots suffers from diminishing returns. The downside of that approach is that it introduces yet another hidden modifier on an item property (and many people dislike hidden modifiers), and complicates the already difficult decision of item gearing. We’re currently leaning toward the first solution, to simply reduce the value on items, but we’d be interested to read people’s thoughts on the problem.

Just Three Two Easy Payments
We previously hinted that Blacksmith and Jeweler costs are coming down, and overall it will be far more reasonable to train them up and craft items. The most dramatic reduction is on the combine costs for tier 2-8 gems.

Gem Quality
Previous Cost
New Cost
Flawed
3 Chipped + 500 gold
2 Chipped + 10 gold
Normal
3 Flawed + 750 gold
2 Flawed + 25 gold
Flawless
3 Normal + 1250 gold
2 Normal + 40 gold
Perfect
3 Flawless + 2000 gold + 1 Page
2 Flawless + 55 gold + 1 Page
Radiant
3 Perfect + 3500 gold + 2 Pages
2 Perfect + 70 gold + 2 Pages
Square
3 Radiant + 7500 gold + 1 Tome
2 Radiant + 85 gold + 1 Tome
Flawless Square
3 Square + 20,000 gold + 2 Tomes
2 square + 100 gold + 2 Tomes

The gem combine costs for Perfect Square and above will remain unchanged.

Nerf Them, Buff Me
Class tuning is not a major focus for 1.0.3. There will be a small number of skills changes, but for the most part we want people to continue experimenting and enjoy their skills for a while. Our goal was and continues to be build diversity, and though we see quite a bit of build diversity, we think we can do much better. Class tuning will be an ongoing process, and we’re targeting the 1.1 patch for most class tweaks, with a focus on punching build diversity up a few more notches.

But What About…
While these are a few of the larger systems adjustments we’re making, the 1.0.3 patch will include many fixes, quality of life enhancements, Auction House improvements, and other changes. We hope you look forward to the patch as much as we do getting it out there, and again we appreciate your continued feedback. See you in-game!


Wyatt Cheng is a Senior Technical Game Designer for Diablo III. He kindly requests that if you see him in Development Hell you spare his life and move on.

[Thrawn]

Just about everything in those notes looks like a great change to me that says Blizzard is paying attention.

But I'm sure someone will come and point out why it's all bad and it's a terrible game. 

[Maledict]

I think these are good notes that will hopefully re-ignite my interest in the game until 1.1 hits. Very interested to see the class changes in the longer run as well.

Still don't get how 6 years of development and no-one thought "Hmm, the legendaries are a bit shit and dull aren't they?". Still feels like something wasn't right with this game which is a first for Blizzard.

[01101010]

I feel bad for those of us that dumped gold into jewelcrafting. I am banking a ton of it and have never made a square anything, but did quite a few radiants. :(

[Rokal]

I feel bad for those of us that dumped gold into jewelcrafting. I am banking a ton of it and have never made a square anything, but did quite a few radiants. :(

Yeah they weren't kidding when they said they were lowering costs...

I've probably spent ~600k leveling JC, blacksmith, and combining gems. I stopped short of Rank 8 on my blacksmith once they announced price reductions were coming, but I still feel like I got ripped off by trying to play the game in what was clearly a beta state.

[Merusk]

The combine costs were simply ridiculous with the AH right there.  This is what happens when you beta test only 1/4 of the features of your multiplayer game.  Shit breaks in a  "oh, fuck we didn't realize that" way.  (Although this is one they SHOULD HAVE realized.)   

There was absolutely no reason - none - to combine a gem below the Tier 8-10 levels in non-HC mode.   Vendor that shit then buy off the AH for a fraction of the level-up cost of your JC.  With the ability to remove all gems from equipment all gem investment is a one time deal per character.   So the Tier 10 gems would have had to be what, a few hundred-thousand per gem to ever bother leveling him up.  That wasn't going to happen, either.

[Shatter]

Great changes, that will keep me playing as Im at the Act II roadblock and having to AH farm to move forward.