Incoming Diablo 3 Game Change Hints
Posted 23 August 2012 by RushsterIn case you went into TLDR mode in Jay’s apology post, there are hints at what’s to come in future updates which look interesting. The important points no note include:
- Later in the development of Diablo II, the ‘players 8′ command — which let people set monster difficulty — was added to address this issue, and we’re considering something similar for the next major Diablo III patch to allow players to make up their own minds about how hard or how easy is right for them.
- The
Auction House can short circuit the natural pace of item drops, making the game feel less rewarding for some players. This is a problem we recognize. At this point we’re not sure of the exact way to fix it, but we’re discussing it constantly, and we believe it’s a problem we can overcome. - Playing Diablo III needs to be a rewarding experience. The new legendaries are a big step in the right direction, as are tweaks to item drop rates. But I’m not convinced that we’ve gone far enough. If you don’t have that great feeling of a good drop being right around the corner — and the burst of excitement when it finally arrives — then we haven’t done our jobs right. Out of our concern to make sure that Diablo III would have longevity, we were overly cautious about how we handled item drops and affixes. If 1.0.4 hasn’t fixed that, you can be sure we’ll continue to address it.
- The Paragon system is a step in the right direction, giving meta-progress for your time in the game, but it does little to address the variety of activities you can do while playing. I don’t think there’s a silver-bullet solution to this problem, but I do think we can make this aspect of the game better, and as such we’re planning more than just PvP for the next major patch.
Interesting that Jay mentions more than just PvP in the next “major patch” and the fact that the auction house is causing problems. Whether the next update will actually include new game content or game mechanic tweaks is unknown but we will no doubt hear more soon. What are your hopes for the next big patch?
Glad to see they recognize what’s wrong.
That’s half the battle.
Good post. Things are looking bright for the future of this game. Honestly for the first time I feel relieved that Diablo 3 will be able to meet my expectations soon.
Jay apologizes, and then speaks clearly on whats wrong with the game here. They know it can be better, and I’m glad they are willing to work on it.
1.04 had me pleasantly surprised, as I have already put over 15 hours into it! Another Patch or two, and we might have the game we all wanted
I cant belive I just up-voted YOUR comment…
Do you feel dirty now?
A little
lol
Indeed, I always kept the faith. My logic is that Diablo 2 v 1.0 wasn’t that great (comparatively to what it ended up), and it was unrealistic for me (and everyone else) to expect D3 to reach the same level of achievement D2 was at after like 15 years of fixes, patches, updates. Honestly after Xpac 1 D2 started to really find its own and then with the synergies patch and the extra Hell content that was added to extend the end game was all great stuff. So as you said I’m glad to see the game start heading in the right direction. And hopefully people get off their high horses about how terrible this game is, when in reality they set impossible expectations for the game… I guess heavy is the crown as they say.
I’m more impressed at the improvements made thus far, I was expecting the game to be in a playable state in about a year for my taste. I’ve actually logged a few levels and the changed damage on the annoying mobs have become enjoyable from before the patch.
Still hoping for a more static type feat system that allows you to permanent place points for more specialization.
As I always say, the only big let down I got from Blizzard is that they pushed so long trying to get something perfect right from the start, while I always knew they would need the whole community to help forge the game into a great Diablo. They should have released the game a year ago, by now we would be playing an even better game.
Maybe they could ACTUALLY fix the legendary items… I have found 4, two level 60, two in the 50s, all 4 equally useless and as disappointing to ID as legendaries prior to the patch. Friends also found a couple, a stormshield that was decent, despite having +200 str and +200 dex on it, and a hellrack that another friend couldnt give away… day of the patch. 962 dps and decent stats on it too for an xbow.
Just unacceptable in my books. Maybe the devs could come up with some of their own ideas instead of just trolling their player base for them.
I continue to find it laughable that everyone has these rosetinted glasses that windforces fell from the sky in any iteration of D2. Its a farce. I played the hell out of that game and never found a wf or a vex or zod.
Everyone says “oh D2 had better endgame”. Really? I remember playing hours at a time lapping game after game, Baal001, Baal002, etc. Rarely did the handful of static legendaries drop.
The game to me is pretty much where it needs to be. If anything, whats missing is a game lobby. It would be nice to join up with folks on a similar mission. Running crypts. Butcher. Whimsy. Whatever. If they add that, I’d be hardpressed to tell the difference between D2 and D3 except for the HD picture.
I think its simply the trend right now to simply pile on this guy, this game, and the company. The game is more than being corrected. PvP will add an even better dimension. The sky is not falling.
Stonerdoom, I tried upvoting your comment, but it’s stuck and only lets me click it once. I’ll keep trying anyway.
Well, to be fair, while Windforces didn’t fall out of the sky, Ravenfrosts/WitchwildStrings/Skullduers/Frostburns/Manalds/etc. all did.
Diablo 3 would greatly benefit from the joy of seeing at least the decent legendaries with unique, useful affixes being common.
A Windforce is awesome, but a budget, midrange DPS legendary bow with 30% knockback or would also be awesome.
Pretty much. I’d much prefer legendaries that are less powerful than the current ones, but drop more often in return. Sets are once again a good example of this because by bumping most of them up to ilvl 63, they just made them a hell of a lot more rare than previously.
I could hardly disagree more.
I’d gladly trade away the 7-8 legendaries I’ve found in my playing time, along every single legendary ever to come my way. Ever. For just 1 fun/useful legendary that I would actually use. Did I mention ever? Ever.
But in D2 equipment wasn’t tied to a specific level. You could easily “beat” the game with lackluster equipment found early on. You didn’t need artificial level induced equipment to become great.
I think that is the point many are trying to make. A level 40 item in diablo might very well be a godly ring, gloves, belt, boots. In D3 that level 40 item does not compete at all. I would rather have them make around level 55 the top quality of items so that everyone could start finding the items. To compensate increase drops rates in higher zones so that people in high Inferno get more drop rates, but don’t tie the 63 moniker (I would also like that items became a static such as a normal, elite, exceptional version, so that when upgrades/runes are added we could possibly upgrade items like d2)
Sounds like some D2 items scaled instead of having static numbers that increasingly becomes less significant?
Sorry, I replayed D2 just a year ago, but I can’t even remember there was such stuff; I simply swap lesser items and never notice.
But yeah, affixes based on percentages sounds very viable, without being OP at lower levels or moot later on.
Someone send another pigeon.
I want to acknowledge this post as it made me think my post was a little either/or in its position. So to clarify: I think the game is good. It can [and I hope it does] improve. There were similar things with D2/D2X. In fact, I am certain that the developers have built D3 so that it can be modified as they go [I mean they just "added" 99 more levels! WTF! Thats pretty amazing to me]. I don’t want to make it sound as if I am a Blizz fanboy and they can do no wrong. Far from it. I never played WoW and I hate pandas for what thats worth. So if I came off that way it was not my intention. I just feel that for many people its just the cool thing to do [rip the game, company, staff, etc]. I shouldn’t legitimize it by writing about it but I feel that some of Blizz’ responses to D3 are a result [at least in part] by this extreme fringe [either for or against the game]. The people who say the endgame sucks are the people who will be Paragon 99 by the weekend. Well no crap sherlock, no wonder you are bored. Having essentially 160 levels for each char locks up my life for the next couple of years. I’m set.
I also want to acknowledge my comment about the drops. Yes Frostburns and the like were abundant and I admit to finding plenty of them. However, those can probably be equated to some decent rares in D3. Also they were more static then the itemization in D3. Variety is the spice of life or the bane of my existence in D3. The D3 drop rates, item level stuff, affixes etc do need attention [even since 1.04] but I have faith and patience that they will improve. Further, my feelings aren’t hurt that I have the AH at my disposal in the meantime.
Peace my brothers.
Everyone says “oh D2 had better endgame”. Nope. D2 had no real EGC. But D3 could. Its year 2012, you know…
D2 was never about “endgame”. it was about leveling up a character and finding nice items as you did so..
Sure, WF was rare.
But if you told me that sets were removed from D3 I would believe you, as I haven’t actually seen a single one drop in 200+ hours of play.
I’ve found 1 legendary that was on a character between levels 1-59.
I’ve found 4 uniques total.
Were items like sigons great? Or all the low level D2 items that fell all the time? Not really… but it was nice finding this stuff while leveling characters because I could use it for a few levels and maybe find another unique/set to upgrade to… or I could find a rare/magic item. In this game it’s blue/yellow or nothing unless I hit up the AH.
Why even have all these low level items in the game if they never drop? It’s not fun having to go to the AH just to have some uniques/sets on my level 20 character.
If I wasnt so sure it was to promote the auction house as well it might not piss me off as much, and I might think it was a mistake on the developers part rather than intentional.
You seriously found 4 Legendaries in one day are complaining that they’re not all amazing?
Haven’t played enough 1.0.4 to ascertain what changes (if any) I want to see. But I hope this isn’t going to be a case of ‘next patch will fix it, promise’….
the plan is to make it more like diablo 2 and hopefully have some more bots return. Also, they haven’t yet discovered that they are the biggest problem and urgently need to be patched out.
Well, to be fair, he didn’t specifically mention the RMAH?
Just saying.
The player 8 command was to increase the difficulty AND drops. From what I understand, more people in D3 doesn’t have the monsters drop more/better loot.
Unless they change this then a player 8 command is useless.
More players in the game does result in monsters dropping more loot. It’s just hidden from the other players.
Very good point. That would actually be a smart idea then.
Completely anecdotal, but I played in a 4 person game last night and got 11 yellow drops from the final two act 1 bosses. With my mf level, in a 1 person game, I typically get about half that. (Breakdown: 5 from Jailer, 6 from Butcher). I’ll keep testing, but I did seem to notice more drops in general in the multiplayer game.
I wonder if they will reach conclusion that NV ruins a whole game. There is more problems with NV than pros. Most of mobs are boring to fight becuase there is no chance they will drop any rare. Like 80% of combat is not fun and rewarding. And bosses drop ****, come on…
NV should at least transfer through acts if I want to continue playing with the same group. I hope they will get rid of this someday and make levels more randomized. Playing same pattern every time kills adventure feeling which was a big part of D2.
While I disagree with you on NV (I really like it, personally), I totally agree that adding the ability to move between acts while in-game, and not losing NV stacks, would be nice.
I also liked NV at the beginning, but I can imagine D3 without it to be much more fun to explore and play. It just restricts gameplay.
With yellow drops from trash mobs now quadrupled, I think there’s a good chance of being able to play “self-found” and avoid the AH all together.
I took the plunge and disposed of all my “tainted” gear from the AH. Working _very_ hard in Act1 Inferno now, but it’s fun and I feel like there’s hope
Replyfail. Intended @Localgod.
Nice to see him voice their commitment to the game.
By “more than PvP,” I’m thinking maybe a new end-game mode? Given that blizzard went their own direction with paragon levels (wasn’t exactly what was being asked for), I would expect a somewhat unique variant on an endless dungeon or horde mode type of addition.
Lots of people won’t care about PvP, so it’s neat that they’re at least considering PvE content in a patch (as opposed to waiting for an xpac).
Who cares about the damn apology – this is what matters:
“Later in the development of Diablo II, the ‘players 8′ command — which let people set monster difficulty — was added to address this issue, and we’re considering something similar for the next major Diablo III patch to allow players to make up their own minds about how hard or how easy is right for them.”
OMG, I made the argument months ago the actual difficulty settings “/players X” styles would do SO much to solve Diablo’s problems! I’m so glad that they agree!!