Is Diablo III an ARPG or just an AG?
Posted 29 June 2012 by FluxAn article on Gamespy argues a point we kicked around extensively during Diablo III’s development; if there isn’t any real character customization or permanence, can the game rightly be called an RPG?
Diablo 3, however, does none of this. As we play, we do earn experience points and level up to unlock new abilities, but we’re given no choice in the matter — reaching a new level simply opens up a new equippable option when we reach a predetermined point in the level progression, much like earning a new gun in a shooter. The result is that my level 55 Monk is identical to every other level 55 Monk on the planet. Sure, I can select which powers I want equipped, but that’s no different from a shooter that lets you pick what guns to put in your hands from an inventory. If your character can do everything my character can do, then they are by definition the same character. This Monk doesn’t belong to me.
That leaves only gear to distinguish a Diablo 3 character — gear that is either randomly doled out by drops or purchased on the Auction House, and everything that makes my character unique can be transferred to yours in a trade window. So the only real choice is which gear to keep and equip and which to sell or throw into the wood chipper for crafting materials. I’d argue that gear customization does not an RPG make; there needs to be more than that vestigial tail — and the sheer habit of referring to all things Diablo as action RPGs — to justify calling it such.
Remember variants?
So what do you guys think? We had endless debates about character customization via auto-assigned stat points, the removal of skill points, and the removal of rune levels during D3′s development, and opinions were all over the place. Now that you’ve played the game for 6 weeks and have some data to add to your conjecture, would you make changes?
Have the current game systems ruined the viability of variants? Do you miss having a reason to reroll characters? Would you like some more sense of character individuality and ownership? Or do you agree with D3′s current systems, prefer full skill freespecs, and like not having to worry about assigning your own stat points?
Hit comments to add your thoughts, or click through to see my quick suggestions on the issue. Thanks to Kris for the news tip.
I’m going to say yes on all points. I’m not ruby-lensed in my glasses enough to say D2′s system was perfect in every way, but I would not mind having some sort of skill and stat specialization in D3.
On skills it can be argued since the current D3 skill system works very well in terms of scaling up every skill and rune effect to remain viable into the end game. (Not that every skill/rune is viable, but plenty of the lowest level ones you get are.) That said, I think it would add depth to the game to have some way to improve my favorite skills, or to be rewarded for choosing a skill and sticking to it. And no, NV stacks do not really fill that void.
I have similar-mixed feelings about stat points. What if Bliz retained the auto-stats system, but also gave us 1 or 2 points per level to manually assign? (And some limited respec options long term.) Characters would still be mostly as the devs want them to be for balancing purposes, but players would feel a bit more control over their fates and could customize somewhat. (The fact that 1 or 2 socketed gems would almost equal the entire stat effect of this customization is a valid argument against bothering with it.)
Know what else isn’t REALLY an action RPG? The castlevanias following the castlevoid change. I still think they are, though: because LEVEL UP. that’s really the criteria. If your character gets more powerful and gains measurable experience and has stats, it’s an RPG. Depending on how it plays defines what kind and how in-depth, but it still is, and so is D3.
But I would like more custamizability, while the devs still care. It bothers me that gems have such static uses. Give us something unique for gems to do in rings, belts, pants. Or give us something unique to socket into them instead of gems.
Give us skill runes! Add them into the current system: Each skill has it’s 6 runes, give us six more variants, or a rune per each skill rune that further modifies that skill: Like banner variants! Make nether tentacles lose it’s leach, but multi hit again. Make ww move slower, but tic twice as fast. Etc.
That is the most retarded thing I’ve read today.
By that definition, games like StarCraft, the Sims, Call of Duty, Crysis, or Oblivion would be RPGs!
Diablo isn’t a RPG because you don’t play a role in the plot: your character does, and you have no choice whatsoever in the matter.
Diablo is and has always been a roguelike. Or a dungeon crawler. Or an action game. Not an RPG though.
By this; none of the Final Fantasy games are RPGs, either. You are given no choice at all. You are just following breadcrumbs.
In fact, if this is the criteria; an RPG has never been created. All of your choices in RPG’s are illusions. They don’t really affect anything at all.
Fallout? Arcanum? Elder Scrolls?
RPGs do exit. They are just not related to leveling at all.
Oblivion IS an RPG…
Lol if you didn’t know your character does not get more powerful when you level up. Take off your gear and you will have 1.0 damage.
This is kind of a silly argument. RPG’s didn’t always embrace the “choice” in games that is stat or skill point distribution. In fact many classic RPGs have nothing of the sort. Look at games like Final Fantasy (all of them), Breath of Fire, Dragon Warrior, Ultima (most of the series anyway).
Being able to distribute stat points and skill points was one of the innovations that Diablo brought to the genre. And skill trees weren’t even in games until Diablo 2. So to pretend like the absence of either makes a game “not” an RPG is patently ridiculous.
The hallmark of RPG’s is character development and progression. And Diablo 3 has that in spades both via leveling up to make your character more powerful, and equipping your character to improve (customize) their stats.
I agree. Character customization doesn’t necessarily equate to RPG. Diablo 3 is an RPG game because you “pick your role(class) to play in an action game. The author of the article has too much MMO on his mind.
The Final Fantasy series, Kingdom Hearts, Dragon Quest etc. are very good examples of this. Your Cloud hero can do all the things that the other player’s Cloud could do and that it can be said that there wasn’t any difference between them at all. But do you dare and call FF7 not an RPG? Absolutely not. As long as you have freedom to pick your class, your role your abilities and choices how to progress, it is an RPG game.
Counter Strike is an RPG because you can pick your class.
There are no “classes” in Counterstrike. You just buy your gear.
It’s not that Diablo 3 doesn’t have skill points. It’s that it has no features of an RPG at all. There is no commitment to any choice you make. You do not define how you uniquely interact with the world at all, at least not in terms the game cares about, and without that, it’s hard to argue you’re defining a role for yourself in that game’s world.
Commitment to choices being made isn’t necessary for an RPG. The games I mentioned, all classic RPGs, had no committed choices to be made (except for maybe FF1 where you could only get 3 spells per mage level). The hallmark of RPG’s is character power progression and (generally) class differentiation. In this game, characters DO get things as they level and they DO also play differently (A WD plays radically differently from a Monk).
I’m not saying whether it’s a good or a bad thing that you can’t distribute stats or skill points. But to say it’s not an RPG is pure hyperbole.
The first major game with distributable stats in character development was, I believe, Diablo. But even Diablo wasn’t that in depth as with elixirs everyone could simply max all their stats, which somewhat trivialized the stat distribution as a differentiation tool. The next was Fallout, I believe, which was the first that had characters both pick traits and distribute stats. To pretend like every game that came before these weren’t RPGs of one stripe or another is patently ridiculous.
Was Dungeon Master and RPG? Ultima? Chrono Trigger? Dragon Warrior? None of these games have “decisions” to be made (other than character selection) or stats to be assigned in general. But back when I bought them they were marketed as RPGs and that’s what I thought I was playing. Was I wrong the whole time?
There is commitment. You have to commit to 6 skills and choose a play-style that fits within this. You could decide to switch skills every 5 minutes, but it would be impractical to do so. And if you compare the journey of two players throughout the game, they would no doubt be very different from each other in skill choices, gear choices and character control (this one more so in D3 than D2).
But in my opinion to look at this from the lens of commitment is sorely missing the point of role-playing games, which is to take on a role. Nobody ever said that this role had to be static, or a life-time commitment. I would even argue that this is a fault of past RPGs rather than a trait, how many people do you know who have spent their entire life doing one single specific thing? Either way, it should be clear that this doesn’t change the main premise of the genre, whether the role is static or dynamic has no bearing on one’s ability to play it and therefore partake in a role-playing aspect of the game.
But Final Fantasy aren’t RPGs. They are only labeled that way because at it’s origin the jRPG genre was inspired by western RPGs like Ultima and Wizardry. In the early 90s with the release of Final Fantasy IV the genre stripped most of it’s RPG elements and went into a different directionsince then but people kept calling them jRPGs or console-style RPGs for convinience.
there’s tons of console games (Final Fantasy series, Dragon Quest series, etc) that doesn’t give you the option of choosing stats when you level up, but yet they are still classified as RPG. Don’t see why D3 should be classified any differently. And really, why does it even matter?
edit: RPG = role playing game. I see nowhere in those 3 words that say anything about needing to customize anything to qualify for that.
The R = role, yes? My Demon Hunter has a sister in the Extended Universe, Halissa. This is both in the short story by Micky Neilson, and the in-game quest flavor text as I progress through the Acts. These characters hail from different parts of Sanctuary. Am I missing something here? How is that not an RPG?
D3 may not follow some firmly established conventions in RPGs, but it’s still in the genre of ROLE-playing games.
And YES we need more customization.
An RPG does not equal stat points. I can think of many many games I have played that did not allow you to modify your character all that much but were still classified as an RPG. Unless someone wants to come up with some name for a made up pseudo genre then arpg is what d3 is and where it stands.
Genre conventions in video games don’t really mean anything. They’re categories of commonality that only really describe expectations without any set, logical criteria.
So I’d have to agree.
Very hypocritical article actually, the answer is simple:
It’s an RPG from the player’s perspective. Saying that you get the same character as everyone else makes absolutely no sense.
The same system was used in Final Fantasy VII. (stats automatic, you slot spells and items) Is that an action game as well? No; having automatically distributed stat points has nothing to do with a game being an RPG.
*edit* I see lots of people are mentioning FF. I guess it’s pretty obvious..
Well FF7 has Sources. Unless you spend hundreds of hours farming enough Sources to max every stat on every character, you do get to make some permanent choices for your characters’ development.
And now that you mention it, I find it interesting everyone’s talking about all the Final Fantasies except 6, which has the most centrally placed and obvious RPG element in any Final Fantasy game: A highly challenging and strictly limited way to direct the stat growth of your characters as they level up. Something D3 can’t claim even in its wildest dreams.
RPG is a largely overused term. People refer to Zelda as an rpg for example. I think it’s fine to call the Diablo games ARPGs, but it’s far more accurate to call it a hack and slash. Either way, it doesn’t really matter how it’s labeled, it’s a pretty fun action game and very similar to its predecessors.
So what makes its an RPG is the fact that you “progress” through “levels?”
So Halo Reach would be an RPG, heck CoD MW 2-3 would be an RPG.. as you “level” you do get more stuff to unlock. And you are actively taking the role of the Spartan, or the Solider.
That is the guy’s point. Which everyone above me has missed. What defines a RPG? “levels?” “progress?”
To me: d3 is not an RPG. I’m sorry its not.
I’ve seen that argument made before, as FPS and other games add some RPG elements. How much of such features must be in a game before it crosses some RPG line? Seems to be a question that everyone will answer somewhat differently.
I’m much more interested in the, “what sort of added customization would make D3 a better game” question, but no one seems to be diving into that one in comments just yet.
Also the dropped talisman system.
All d3 needs is a few ways other than gear to customize stats.
You should have picked a less inflammatory title then!
Honestly, D3 did drop the ball in many ways. That’s why I’m not playing it at this point. The character customization *expletive* sucks. But it doesn’t really have anything to do with stat points or skill points. The problem is the item system sucks in general.
Jay Wilson, said they removed distributed stats because they weren’t interesting. They were extremely formulaic: Max vit, str for items, etc. etc. and that wasn’t customization. The problem was that when he introduced the new item system, it’s the EXACT same formulaic nature of the old stat system. On any piece of gear there are 3 stats that matter, with one “special” stat. All Resist, Primary Attribute, Vit (debatable). This is optimal for LITERALLY every build of every character. The only “interesting” part of stats comes AFTER those 3 have been met.
That’s the fundamental problem with D3 customization. The only interesting choices in gearing left are whether to put Crit, Crit damage or IAS in a slot that can have it. And choosing between 3 stats is simply not that interesting.
I would argue the actual failure of D3 wasn’t the removal of stats. It was changing the resistance / damage system to the current type where you have to stack all resist in every slot, rather than having it covered with a few items and charms in D2, and also making the primary stat such a powerhouse in both offense and defense that anyone would be dumb to not stack it.
IMO they could have done a lot better. If I were hired to redesign the system I would do this: No more primary stats on gear. Players no get ~5x as many stats per level (auto distributed). All gear now comes with max sockets in each equip slot, and the number of sockets for helm / chest / legs is increased. This would shift the type of stats a player has to a dynamic customization via gems. It would remove the problem of an item HAVING to have a specific stat to be useful. And it would give the player more control over how the character was built and further emphasize / increase the value of gems.
But that’s just a thought.
The fact is, customization IS lacking. But not the type of customization a lot of people think is lacking. Char variants still exist. It’s 100% possible to play a melee weapon DH (I’ve done it quite a bit, but mostly in A2). The problem is that the customization was shifted to items, but items do not provide any meaningful customization because the choices for what we can viably use at endgame is so inflexible.
Diablo 3 really failed at two, and two areas only. Inferno difficulty and item variety. Both they hope to fix. I hope that would bring back an awesome game. Fingers crossed.
You’d called?
For sake of keeping it “easy” to implement, I’ll take the current elements as given (e.g. the current runesystem) and just add on top of them.
Skills: Bringing back the runecoloritems that were iterated out and use them as charge-ups to the current runed skills, with every runed skill beeing able to obtain up to 6 “charges”. This would result in baselvl 1 for “uncharged” skills up to level 7 for “fully charged” runes. (Maximum charges a character may use should imho be one per characterlevel earned, thus 59 at the moment.)
The color (indigo/alabaster/…) defines which aspect of a runed skill will be strengthened, which could (, or rather should) differ from runed skill to runed skill. (For example: An obsidian charge-up could give armor to leeching beast zombie dogs, while strengthening final gifted ones with an innert life per second or rabid dogs with higher poison damage.)
In addition to that every runecharge, independent of it’s color, should give a level to a coreaspect of the skill. (For zombiedogs i would suggest +life%) Each “core”level given is then shared across all runed skills of the same skill, perhaps with diminishing returns, sorted by position of the runed skills. (Going again with the zombiedogs example: If a user of burning dogs who would have charged up burning dogs by 5 levels also would have charged up leeching beasts and life link by 2 levels each, final gift by 4 levels and rabid dogs by 3, he could gain 5 corelevels from the used rune, 2 levels – (2+2)/2 – from life link and leeching beasts and another one – 4/4 – from final gift and none – 3/8 – from rabid dogs, resulting in a charged corelevel of 10 – baselevel 1 + 9 corelevelcharges. If he would swap to final gift as his active skill, this would change to a corelevel of 8 – baselvl 1 + (4+ (3+2)/2 + 5/4 + 2/8 = 7 corecharges. All rounded down…)
Monsters: Give the elite/rare-bosspacks runed abilities (as we got runed skills) with the same chargeup system as described above (, thus organizable into builds.) This would get us of every arcane/vortex/desecrator/fast (to just pick one combination) beeing the same minigame in just a different disguise. Furthermore: If a bossgroup is in a level, let the unruned versions of the used abilities spread to normal monsters of the same type (with the exception of such things as “invulnerable minions”) to let us players have a mental preperation for what is to come and to lessen the gap between normal monsters and bossgroups a bit. (Contrary to the “skillcharges”, the actual effect of an abilitycharge may even spread completely to it’s “unruned” version here, thus even hinting at the concrete abilitybuild of the rare-/elitepack.) Would make for tougher areas all around, with – as mentioned – not such a wide gap between the white monsters and the bosspacks.
Endgame: The possibility to respec charges could then be offered as a questreward in exchange for the loss of beeing able to gain experience anymore. This should be limited to hoard 5-15 respecs at a time so that you would have to plan a bit if you wanted to completely respec your skills. That would make quests at least a bit more interesting to finish.
I hope you’ve understood all that, because bringing that concept/idea out of mind turned out to be a bit hard today… I’ve already gave it a try on the official forums (same nick) together with a bulk of other stuff. (Was a first getgo on the idea and is a bit to sort through, but perhaps it’ll do a better job explaining than I did here today: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5638004302?page=1#0 )
Alexis of Silverfang
edit: All in my humble opinion of cause
It isn’t any more of an RPG than “robotron”, which is its real design ancestor more than Rogue.
It is, however, an mmo-lite, and a pretty thin and grindy one at that.
I’ve always refused to call Diablo series (and it’s clones) an ARPG. They were always Hack and Slash games.
12 years ago Icewind Dale was called ARPG. Now every game that has stats and gear is called ARPG.