The Difficulty

[Akse]

Anyone remember those times before LOD? When people were kinda forced to do solo exp to get high and fast on the ladder? Or if you wanted to party you were doomed if it was larger than 3-4 players. Do you remember when there was pretty much no monsters left in act4 when the game ended(after diablo died)? There were people 75-80lvl doing Outer Steppes -> Plains of Despair and 78->83 doing Damned and those 2, 84+ did river or CS. And above those, many barbs did Flayer Jungle 70->75. This was basically how the games were. There wasn't just 1 area run with 8 players in party. There were about 6 areas being ran solo or 2-3 player parties.

This was something I really enjoyed. Step to river of flame with your low level 75 barb and the 85 barb will hostile you because you are taking his exp. Well it was no big deal to do Steppes and plains at 75->80 because at those levels it really gave just as good exp as river and the monsters were easier. Also the fact that pretty much no one these days go without BO has decreased the amounth of dead ladder players by huge amounth.

Now D3 will be quite much of Co-op but I still hope that the parties aren't going to be very huge and solo play would get some nice boost since you should get better exp for doing it alone. And I also hope that there will be many areas in the end game that you can do, not just the one ultimate.

I used some webarchive to get some old ladder screenshots and put them all to one webpage so you can check out how the race on the ladders were before LOD. And damn check out all those dead people :) Things were hard back then. (altho lags and such were a plague in the early days)
http://ameba.lpt.fi/~lietaki/ladder/

[Sein Schatten]

Hehe, nice selection of screens. :)

"And I also hope that there will be many areas in the end game that you can do, not just the one ultimate."

Totally agree.

[killerbear]

AHHH THATS TOO MUCH TO READ and i agree to

[MoUsE_WiZ]

Now D3 will be quite much of Co-op but I still hope that the parties aren't going to be very huge and solo play would get some nice boost
I could be wrong in my interpretation&assumptions but it looks like drops work something like this:

x = a player's chance to see an item
y = some modifier made up by blizzard dependent on the size of a party
p = the party's size
s = the increased rate a party kills compared to a single player

solo play the number of items dropped in the game will be x
party play the number of items dropped in the game will be px/y
party play the number of items a player sees will be s(px/y)

So it *WILL* be balanced that a party will recieve more drops than a single player. This means multiboxing will likely be a very profitable way of playing. It also means that untwinked group type setups should be happy as they share all the drops generally.

However, as for the general populous, solo vs party will be determined by how well Blizzard balances s&y... they're going to TRY to make s>y so that individual players see more drops than solo players, however as players get better gear and better builds, s will likely drop as the kill time will likely become less relevant and things like game creation/travel/spawn time will bottleneck how fast a party can go compared to someone soloing.

I suspect they'll set up exp in a similar manner, though they haven't stated.

Hope I made sense.

[Akse]

Yeah what I understood was something like this:
solo 4-5 drops
party of 2 4+4 drops
party of 3 3+3+3 drops
party of 4 2+2+2+2 drops

so yeah if you party with other people you will get a bit less yourself.. if you solo you will get a lot by yourself. But if you have party of 4 of your clients then you get a lot for yourself. I just hope they figure something out to prevent this.

And anyways I just hope the drops will spread out more(not only bosses) and the random quests would provide some nice random loots as a reward.

[MoUsE_WiZ]

so yeah if you party with other people you will get a bit less yourself..
Well that's where the balance bit comes in.
They want you to get more items in a party, not less. So say your numbers were right, they might be expecting a group of 3 to kill twice as fast as a solo player could, so although you get less per monster, you get more for time spent.

And anyways I just hope the drops will spread out more(not only bosses) and the random quests would provide some nice random loots as a reward.
I suspect they will.
If most of the drops come from bosses, it makes it much more difficult to balance the decrease in drops for more players vs the increased kill speed of more players, as mentioned if it's just a boss being run, the party would bottleneck on things like getting to the boss/remaking game, and wouldn't end up killing significantly faster than a single player.

That, and they've stated they want to get away from the concept of boss runs in general. And they *REALLY* don't want players running just one area, they really seem to hate what it was like in .09 where the ONLY thing anyone did was cows. In D2's current state it's actually plausible to have a game similar to classic going, one guy in pits, one guy running superuniques, one guy in AT, one guy in baal, one guy in CS, etc... it's just that that only works for MF, not for levels, and with so many people botting, and so many people not wanting to be in the same games as each other, it doesn't really leave a lot of room for people getting 8 player mf games going.

[Spero]

Well that's where the balance bit comes in.
They want you to get more items in a party, not less. So say your numbers were right, they might be expecting a group of 3 to kill twice as fast as a solo player could, so although you get less per monster, you get more for time spent.


I suspect they will.
If most of the drops come from bosses, it makes it much more difficult to balance the decrease in drops for more players vs the increased kill speed of more players, as mentioned if it's just a boss being run, the party would bottleneck on things like getting to the boss/remaking game, and wouldn't end up killing significantly faster than a single player.

That, and they've stated they want to get away from the concept of boss runs in general. And they *REALLY* don't want players running just one area, they really seem to hate what it was like in .09 where the ONLY thing anyone did was cows. In D2's current state it's actually plausible to have a game similar to classic going, one guy in pits, one guy running superuniques, one guy in AT, one guy in baal, one guy in CS, etc... it's just that that only works for MF, not for levels, and with so many people botting, and so many people not wanting to be in the same games as each other, it doesn't really leave a lot of room for people getting 8 player mf games going.

That makes me sad, because my favorite thing was 09 cows and solo boss runs for mf. If they make the game so different, I probably won't buy it. It's too much of a PITA to always try to find a party. Then I can't play for 10-20 minutes at 5 am on a Saturday morning if I feel like it, for instance (or it's pointless because the drop rates suck). Crummy!

Also if they don't have a feature where you can quickly skip to the end game, like rushing and the cow level, it won't be fun to play after once or twice through. Too boring!

All I can hope for is they know better than to get rid of the more/most popular types of game play from D2.

[MoUsE_WiZ]

That makes me sad, because my favorite thing was 09 cows and solo boss runs for mf. If they make the game so different, I probably won't buy it. It's too much of a PITA to always try to find a party. Then I can't play for 10-20 minutes at 5 am on a Saturday morning if I feel like it, for instance (or it's pointless because the drop rates suck). Crummy!

Also if they don't have a feature where you can quickly skip to the end game, like rushing and the cow level, it won't be fun to play after once or twice through. Too boring!

All I can hope for is they know better than to get rid of the more/most popular types of game play from D2.

I honestly can't tell if that's sarcasm or not. I can think of people who would make that post and intend it either way.

[Akse]

The game in the first place should be something more than just finding items.

[Dahkar]

The game in the first place should be something more than just finding items.

Agreed, it should be about killing players.

[MoUsE_WiZ]

The game in the first place should be something more than just finding items.

It is. It's about killing monsters. To find items. To kill monsters.

[Spero]

I honestly can't tell if that's sarcasm or not. I can think of people who would make that post and intend it either way.

I thought my opinions were pretty clear in that post. I know that many people here on these forums are purists about the game. I am not. At least in D2, I enjoyed the game, but I also liked skipping to the end game once I'd played through a few times. And MF was the best part of the game!

I sincerely hope that Blizz doesn't put us into a little box where everyone has to play the game in a linear fashion every time. I think that 1.09 said a lot about what the majority of players like. If Blizz wants longevity and popularity - that sort of feature should be included.

Some times I feel as though I should just not post here, because I'm a very small minority on these forums. Maybe I'll quit at some point, but preaching tolerance and inclusion of different views is fun for me.

[Peli]

It is. It's about killing monsters. To find items. To kill monsters.
I wouldn't mind D3 becoming about beating the game again. From the way they're talking now, the game will be either extremely easy or extremely hard, at least in hardcore mode; they are talking about how people could escape encounters too easily and return to town too easily, so it seems from the developers POV they want us to engage monsters then fight to the death. In d2 hardcore discretion was always the better part of valor; with no means of quick escape hardcore will be short and bitter or extremely easy. Who knows?

[MoUsE_WiZ]

I wouldn't mind D3 becoming about beating the game again.
Huh? I'm with you up until you use the word "again".
I mean even if you are playing with the eventual task in mind of beating the game (eg first time I played D1, before my first guardian), the game is still about killing monsters to find items to kill monsters to find items... beating the game just happens to be tacked onto the chain at some point instead of letting it go infinitely.

I thought my opinions were pretty clear in that post.
They were, just too clear, if you know what I mean. For instance, referring to rushing as a feature is a fairly strong sort of statement. Kind of akin to calling TPPK a feature, except Blizzard has spent more time and resources trying to prevent rushing than fix TPPK ~_~

Blizzard knows that people like finding items, they're not going to change the concept of MFing. They also know that people will do the things that result in the most items per time, they even stated as such in a recent interview. If they attempt to take emphasis off of boss runs (which they said they plan on), it's just going to be to encourage people to play in more areas of the game, not to completely nullify them.


I sincerely hope that Blizz doesn't put us into a little box where everyone has to play the game in a linear fashion every time.
They also stated that they don't plan on changing the overall length of the game.
Here's the thing... it took me ~10 hours at the start of this season to be 75 and Guardian. That's playing with a completely untwinked group of people who've all started at level 1.

Blizzard is very likely to make rushing more difficult (aka a bit longer) than it currently is, but with a game of this size, there's only so much they can do. Maybe take away the ability to grush, likely no more obscene chant or uber type exp, but don't worry, you'll still be able to get yourself a high level character who's through the game in one evening without having to actually play the character.

[Peli]

Huh? I'm with you up until you use the word "again".
I mean even if you are playing with the eventual task in mind of beating the game (eg first time I played D1, before my first guardian), the game is still about killing monsters to find items to kill monsters to find items... beating the game just happens to be tacked onto the chain at some point instead of letting it go infinitely.

Thats how I played the first time, and most subsequent times. Once Ive beaten the game with a character I kinda lose interest. That's why hardcore is more appealing to me; it makes beating the game marginally more difficult, at least when I play single player or LAN w/friends and /players 8 and go thru the game untwinked, that is the most enjoyable D2 experience, other than perhaps the first stages of building up a stable of items and characters. Once I start to get a sizable empire going then I just kinda think, "why" and start playing untwinked again. I'm sure most players are the same; the only variable is the length of time it takes them to ask themselves, "why?" Why do I need to do 700 pit runs to get an item that will help me do more pit runs or rush my lower level characters faster, or wtfpwn baal runs.

Ideally for me, the game will continue to offer more and bigger challenges and more and more difficult areas to explore. If the game isn't beatable until you collect some ridiculous gear and you have to MF your way up from act to act before attempting the next act, even better. If 90%+ or the people who buy the game aren't capable of beating it on the hardest setting, even better (let alone hardcore!). It's probably just a pipe dream but, having other things to do other than play d3 most of the time, I would like the time I spend playing to be enjoyable in and of itself, but with a goal to work towards, other than "finding tyraels might" or whatever.

[Spero]

Here's the thing... it took me ~10 hours at the start of this season to be 75 and Guardian. That's playing with a completely untwinked group of people who've all started at level 1.

That's great! Good for you. :thumbsup: Sounds like you have a very good, reliable group of friends and you are able to play together on a regular schedule. I expect you all also know the game and your characters inside and out. Sounds like fun.

I quit the game not too long after 1.10 and ladders came out. I disliked both of those changes. It was going to be way too much time/work to rebuild all new characters that would work in 1.10. My old characters that were fun to play in 1.09 sucked even with the great equipment I had spent a lot of time accumulating. My level 99 lf zon was only good for shopping for items! Meph runs also took too long, so that was my main source of fun that was gone. At that point I had played through the game so many times that I really enjoyed the end game (rushing and mfing) more than anything else. Starting over was much less fun for me. It seemed too much like mindless work.

Before I quit, I typically would end up with a few hours here and there when I played. Not consistent times or anything, though. Diablo was the thing I did when nothing else was happening; I didn't schedule times for Diablo. It would probably take me a few months to get to 75 with a character playing solo through the game in big public leveling (Baal run, etc.) games. I always have to overbuild characters due to my crappy computer. My characters have to withstand a few seconds of blank screen and then the time to alt-F4 out if my computer still didn't display anything after the first few seconds.

Anyway, just a different perspective..

[MoUsE_WiZ]

That's great! Good for you. :thumbsup: Sounds like you have a very good, reliable group of friends and you are able to play together on a regular schedule. I expect you all also know the game and your characters inside and out. Sounds like fun.

I think, perhaps, I did not make myself clear enough.
All of this is true, except for the regular schedule part... one day a year isn't exactly regular..

However I'm not quite silly enough to think that everyone can set aside 10+ hours, even if it is just 1 day a year, to do that. And even if I did think everyone could do it, finding a group of people to do it with is even tougher.

The point is, in a game the size of Diablo, if it can be beaten in 10 hours by people who are starting completely from scratch, then it's going to take *much* less time for players who are already high level and geared to get somebody else to that same point. It doesn't matter how much Blizzard tries to remove rushing, in a game this size, without just outright eliminating the ability of low levels to play with high levels, a rush will *NEVER* take long. It's just not possible.

Ideally for me, the game will continue to offer more and bigger challenges and more and more difficult areas to explore. If the game isn't beatable until you collect some ridiculous gear and you have to MF your way up from act to act before attempting the next act, even better. If 90%+ or the people who buy the game aren't capable of beating it on the hardest setting, even better (let alone hardcore!).
That sounds an awful lot like the PvE portion of WoW, except perhaps a small group/single player version of it. Thing is... even in WoW, where something like 95% of the population will never see the more difficult raids... it's STILL about killing monsters to find items to kill monsters, just with the eventual goal of killing the most difficult monster in mind. Then whining when you have to start the entire cycle over again when a new monster is released.

[Peli]

Ya, Prob is that high end PVE wow isn't challenging. At all. It's more like a job than a game... and if it weren't for chilling on vent while you play, it would be a very very boring job. Also high end raiding is pretty much a treadmill, as soon as the content is mastered they make new content, rendering the old stuff obsolete. My vision involves more progress towards a difficult but final goal. Like I said probably a pipe dream.

[Akse]

I think that 1.09 said a lot about what the majority of players like.
Almost all the people I knew in D2 quit the game before 1.10 even came. For most hardcore players getting your character up in the ladder was the thing you did before LOD came around.. Now LOD made ladder competition obsolete since everyone had 99's. Almost all the old players from pre-lod got disappointed to the new system where you wasn't building a character by levels anymore but just gear. Levels wasn't important to get since it was so easy for 90+

before lod there wasnt mf runs, leeching, rushing(well sometimes people did 30 lvl chars to imbue and got them to hell to get all 3) and no one was unhappy. After lod many was bored. They were even bored to find the items from running same bosses and started using bots.

[classix]

lefap pwned hardcore men )))

got sisu?? got fap !

[classix]

Anyone remember those times before LOD? When people were kinda forced to do solo exp to get high and fast on the ladder? Or if you wanted to party you were doomed if it was larger than 3-4 players. Do you remember when there was pretty much no monsters left in act4 when the game ended(after diablo died)? There were people 75-80lvl doing Outer Steppes -> Plains of Despair and 78->83 doing Damned and those 2, 84+ did river or CS. And above those, many barbs did Flayer Jungle 70->75. This was basically how the games were. There wasn't just 1 area run with 8 players in party. There were about 6 areas being ran solo or 2-3 player parties.

This was something I really enjoyed. Step to river of flame with your low level 75 barb and the 85 barb will hostile you because you are taking his exp. Well it was no big deal to do Steppes and plains at 75->80 because at those levels it really gave just as good exp as river and the monsters were easier. Also the fact that pretty much no one these days go without BO has decreased the amounth of dead ladder players by huge amounth.

Now D3 will be quite much of Co-op but I still hope that the parties aren't going to be very huge and solo play would get some nice boost since you should get better exp for doing it alone. And I also hope that there will be many areas in the end game that you can do, not just the one ultimate.

I used some webarchive to get some old ladder screenshots and put them all to one webpage so you can check out how the race on the ladders were before LOD. And damn check out all those dead people :) Things were hard back then. (altho lags and such were a plague in the early days)
http://ameba.lpt.fi/~lietaki/ladder/

i sent this link to many many old hc players, even made me shed a tear, god the game was supreme in those patches, lod rly ****ed things up, im glad i quit before 1.10, its a shadow of the game it used to be for sure.

so THANK YOU AKSE :)))

i hit the ladder after ogre/takrinaII's run after the gerbarb / germania projects were over (still have the 'grtz first ever 99' email from bill roper sumwer haha :) )

i did make part-come back recently only to give up since it was just a 1 race pony (hammerdins) than spec/build. ofc "amapala sex1,2,3,4,5,6" games must of been hard on palas since they were simply buffbots to an extent, so to be finally on top, and make babas redundant in cs was a real slap in the face.

i hope d3 can sustain sensical patches, than ****ing it up from the word go.

[That_Other_Guy]

If they don't want MF runs, they're going to have to fundamentally change the way items drop and/or drastically alter the power differentials between items. If item X is the best item for my character, and the best chance to drop is from monster/boss Y, people will continuously fight Y to look for X, if at all possible.

Personally I wouldn't mind it if the top items had a non-ridiculously infinitesimal chance to drop, but that could have deleterious effects on the game economy. (Speaking of the economy, wouldn't an automatic trade forum built into bnet2 be awesome?)

Sorry for rambling, but this has been a thought-provoking thread.

[stillman]

I don't think Blizzard will screw up a third Diablo game by making things (or allowing things to) get too easy. The game must not become a joke like d2 and d1 were with all the cheats. Even if you hypothetically remove ALL the cheats from d2, it is still way too easy. The floor is painted with mana potions, plus items like spirit and insight aren't exactly hard to make.

I sure did like the old days where if you are suspected of leeching and not pulling your weight, someone will pk you. In d3, there's no pking as it was before so I'm not sure how Blizzard will handle leeching. They did say they are working hard on ways to prevent people from causing problems to other players, so maybe exp could be handled in a whole new way.

Players will be "in a party" as soon as they join a someone's game, so how will they stop leeching I wonder? Maybe you get exp based on the fraction of life you take from a monster's life bar instead of just when the mosnter dies.

[MoUsE_WiZ]

Players will be "in a party" as soon as they join a someone's game, so how will they stop leeching I wonder?
They mentioned that you could still choose to leave the party though.

They also hinted that they were at least considering a vote-kick sort of system, though it'd surprise me to see something like that make it live.