Exploration ... the new experiance

[Knight_Wolf]

Probably fans of Baal runs won't like most of the suggestions here, so if you are one and want to bring in Baal runs into the discussion i suggest you go here http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=727187&page=9

This topic will be mostly for those who love to see Diablo 3 catering for explorers and rewarding adventuring around the world of Diablo 3 rather than spamming certain areas.

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First .. it is a fact D2 Dev team never cared about making exploring in D2 rewarding or interesting .. that's why people in D2 end game ended up either quitting or doing the infamous Baal runs endlessly (along side other famous runs) ... basically the game degenerated ... the design encouraged grinding since there was nothing else to be done around the world of Diablo once you explored it few times .. ans that was the biggest disappointment to any one who liked adventuring and exploration ... the question is .. how to avoid that in D3 and is it even possible without making D3 an MMO ... yes it .. let's see how.

Like JonoLith once said
Essentially, if players simply want to rush to the very last boss to farm him, then why even bother making the game leading up to it? Why not just create a single room with that boss in it for players to farm all day?


If the game becomes so worthless after few playthroughs .. why bother making it .. there is no point to that .. unless it is made worth playing over and over.

Exploration ... the new experience in D3 .. how to make Dynamic events in a static world:


1-Random Adventures
(Blizz already promised to take optional quests to a whole new level in D3, with quests/events being drawn from a large pool of quests/events that spawns them randomly outdoors or indoors it is a clear move to encourage players to explore the world of D3 and is indeed a very good idea)
Possible types of Adventures and their variations

Escort (Non-combatant NPC/Combatant NPC/Both/Caravan)
Search and Fetch (Singe Items/Specified location/non-specified location/Multiple Items/Cursed Items)
Kill or Destroy (Mini-boss/Object/Number of Monsters)
Protect (A place or an object/A group of people)
A combination of two or more of the above in one random adventure with a coherent theme.


Cursed items are items that mess up the player character in various ways (makes stats fluctuate randomly / Drains HP from player unless he kills monsters / Switches Skills around / Reduces Base HP and MP/ Slightly Slow Player / ... etc etc) ... all cursed weapon prevent use of Town Portals and are can only be removed from the player's inventory by the quest giver, usually turning into useful and good copies of their previously cursed incarnations and given to the player as a reward .. so the better the item the bigger the curse you will have to deal with first.


2-Random majestic treasure boxes
(Blizz already hinted at the possibility of rare treasure boxes spawning randomly around the game, it is a good idea to encourage exploration and searching, specially when you know that out of those rare treasure boxes one or two will be majestic treasure boxes with nice loot)


3-Random Spawn portals/gates
(They were already in D2, but were never used effectively and never spawned dangerous monsters, if spawning portals and gates were scattered randomly around the world or even pop up during random times near the player it will take the feeling of fighting hell minions to a whole new level .. fit with the lore that Sanctuary is no longer hidden from hell and will be all around impressive since they will heighten the feeling of danger and hopelessness .. specially if they spawn dangerous and numerous monsters before being destroyed by the player)


4-Balanced Drop rates
(If Baal had lower rates while other bosses or even hi level monsters in hell and nightmare had better drop rates we wouldn't have had the problem of Baal runs ... not to mention that static drop tables are very bad for the end game .. if an item should be rare it should be made vague to encourage exploration not tied to a specific boss with a ridiculous astronomical drop rate ... anyone should be able to get it from anywhere just with differernt chance of getting it from different monsters -good chance from bosses and low from normal monsters- still it doesn't mean that bosses won't be more prone to dropping hi quality items .. just more random non specific hi quality items .. and no quivers XD)


5-Elaborate Main Quests with various set pieces and good rewards
(Looking back at D2 we can see many of the quests were pretty simple and straightforward .. most of them are better suited as being side quests not main quests ... in D3 however thing seem to going in the right direction ... main quests need to be long, epic and multilayered .. the Leoric quest in Blizzcon demo - if i remember correctly - required the player to search dungeon floors for Leoric's chamber key and crown .. then head to his room to open it (quests of this quality we only faced at ACT2,3 in D2 and only once or twice) ... if all quests in D3 are this interesting then hopefully things will change every time we reattempt them .. specially if they reward good EXP and loot)


6-Random unique mobs and mini-bosses
(They could come in two varieties, static ones who spawn in dungeons once a new game is generated .. usually related to guarding majestic treasure boxes or linked to optional quests ... others could be dynamic mini-bosses that roam around certain areas in the open world ... once you go to the nearest town in an area with a dynamic mini-boss the towns folk will ask for your help .. you need to search for the boss, intercept it and kill it .. towns folk could refuse to sell you items until you get rid of it ... since it cuts the trade routes or something like that)


7-Random Dungeon Challenge
(25% of the random dungeons generated in a new game will have the Dungeon challenge tag ... a dungeon with this tag will activate an optional quest once a player enters it .. a mysterious voice will speak to the player telling him that if he completes a certain goal he/she will be rewarded generously .... the challenges are usually time limited but not all are ... and failing them simply denies the player the reward there is no penalty of any sort ... and they can't be restarted)
Some Dungeon challenge types

Kill (X) monsters in (X) time
Kill (X) of monster type (X) only
Destroy mini-boss (X) at the bottom of the dungeon in (X) time
Rescue (X) number of lost soldiers in (X) time




8-Crafting notes/Recipes
(just the notion that you had to experiment endlessly in D2 in order to find combination or had to fire up your browser and open a web site with the recipes detracted greatly from the experience ... funny thing is D2 already planned recipes to be in-game items .. good idea .. but was never implemented ... maybe that's why it felt awkward .. but in D3 it could be made valuable again ... Crafting blueprints or notes could be an in-game item you need to collect and give to blacksmiths in order to craft certain items -no there are no rare ingredients collection or anything, that's the blacksmith job- so that you can't craft the best items even if there were tons of internet sites with crafting guides .. you need to adventure to earn the notes and craft the best items) .. for more about crafting see my topic here http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=727334



9-Encyclopedia/Bestiary and Achievements
(Many modern RPGs has bestiaries if not full encyclopedias encompassing the game world built within the game to increase and deepen the feeling of immersion and depth .... some are simple and some are complex with detailed info, tons of text, 3D showcase models .. etc etc ... D3 could use a detailed an integrated lore encyclopaedia specially for new comers who don't know much about the world .. those who want to can spend from minutes to hours reading through the lore and info on Diablo world, events and creatures .. but first they have to unlock the entries for each one .. some by collecting them off fallen monsters .. some by killing a certain monster a number of times or killing a certain boss .. or upon completing certain quests or entering certain places ... not only that .. but the bestiary section cloud have useful info about monsters and such .. and the more you kill a monster type the more info becomes available about it .. and so on)


10-Rewarding Long term team play
(If a group of friends make a team and schedule long sessions of exploration and adventuring there should be great benefits from it .. up to this point there is the fact that they get perosnal drops .. so the total summation of their items gain is 4 times more than usual ... and also there is the Combo Kill system the gives Bonus EXP ... it will work even better if the Combo can be kept by anyone in the party .. not each player having a combo meter of his/her own .. so as long as the Party is on a killing streak they all gain extra EXP ... same with a single healing globe healing the whole party)

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All these things if implemented tweaked and balanced will make playing D3 a whole different experience .. and encourage people to replay the game many times and actually never get enough of it since every time the combination of many random elements will make it a new, fresh, and rewarding experience each and every time.


Ideas and thoughts ... why do you like Exploration, and how do you want to see it in D3 !!?

[Krugar]

This topic will be mostly for those who love to see Diablo 3 catering for explorers and rewarding adventuring around the world of Diablo 3 rather than spamming certain areas.

They aren't mutually exclusive. I hope you understand this. My presence here I believe proves that, since I like to spam certain areas for item finding. But I also like exploring. In fact I can't conceive myself other way, since every RPG, FTS, ARPG and Adventure game I ever played, I go every single place in the game and can't play otherwise. I love the feeling of exploration.

Like JonoLith once said

If the game becomes so worthless after few playthroughs .. why bother making it .. there is no point to that .. unless it is made worth playing over and over.

I believe it's the second time I see you quoting this. I'm sorry, but worthless is not in D2 vocabulary. Not for a mainstream title game that 8 years after release is still strong and gathers such a crowd of fans.

They bothered making D2, and they succeeded. They succeeded in a big way and they made one of the most popular and longterm titles in computer gaming history, even worthed of a patch 8 years later, in what constitutes the first title ever to deserve such an honor.

The logic of that quote is flawed to the bone. Yet, I do agree that the game can be made better. So let's move on...


1-Random Adventures


I am absolutely enthralled with this announcement. I loved it since day one.
My only request is that the base quests (the scripted quests that serve as the basis for the random generator) are many and varied.

I'm concerned that randomness on this case may lead to a false sense of diversity and that we find after a few months playing through these quests end up having the some level of "diversity" as unique monster spawning or random map generation on D2. That is, at first we feel it's very cool, but soon we realize everything eventualy just ens up being the same.

So, it would be important that the number of quest events would be considerable an I'm hoping for some of these quests to force the player to visit random locations during its course in a paper chase type of situation.

Cursed items

I confess I never liked this concept. They are nuisances that will slow down the game and force the player to concentrate first on removing themselves of the object/curse and only then proceed with the game.

In all games I played, cursed items end up being just grievers. Just fun killers and not strategic game plots. They just don't work.

2-Random majestic treasure boxes

Let's hope some of these will indeed be majestic and not a constant source of frustration like sparkling chests or superchests in D2.

3-Random Spawn portals/gates[/B]
(They were already in D2, but were never used effectively and never spawned dangerous monsters,

They were in fact weird. The spawn monster shrine was very rare and only spawned an unique or champion (the urns in act V were much more interesting). The Portal shrine on the other hand was just weird. Too random to be useful.

We know shrines aren't coming back. But the notion of random portals to areas a player can't access in any other way is very appealing to me. I'm imagining a series of special areas hidden from the players and that will never be a part of the normal game. These would be very rare areas, full of exploration potential and with good rewards at the end.

As for monster spawning "shrines". I too would like a revised approach; A much bigger challenge at the very least.

4-Balanced Drop rates

We don't agree here. And I'd prefer to discuss this on its own thread that is already in place.

5-Elaborate Main Quests with various set pieces and good rewards

Absolutely!
The Leoric quest is a good example. But I would love even more. I'd love true grand scale quests more to the end of the game that would force the player to revisit previous acts.


6-Random unique mobs and mini-bosses

Ermm... but this already exists in D2. I think they will have the exact same thing for D3. Maybe with more variety. Am I reading you wrong on this one?


7-Random Dungeon Challenge
(25% of the random dungeons generated in a new game will have the Dungeon challenge tag ... a dungeon with this tag will activate an optional quest once a player enters it .. a mysterious voice will speak to the player telling him that if he completes a certain goal he/she will be rewarded generously .... the challenges are usually time limited but not all are ... and failing them simply denies the player the reward there is no penalty of any sort ... and they can't be restarted)

I like this idea so much I wet my pants. It's very similar to something that was in place on one of my favorite MUDs of all times and that worked extremely well in that every player agreed it wa one of the most fun and interesting game aspects.

Just one disagreement. No timed quests. Nope.
Let players handle the game at their pace. Challenge them on their skill. Not their free time.


8-Crafting notes/Recipes[/B]

There will be huge changes to the game on this regard. I don't think its wise to consider this as a wish... since it's already come true. We just don't know yet is how exactly.

9-Encyclopedia/Bestiary and Achievements[/B]

Only if it's not integrated in the game, but presented as a separate application on the CD. I don't want the game to be crowded with non essential features. Diablo is not an hard game by any standards. A game encyclopedia will not be needed in order to understand the game, as you realized. So this feature can perfectly well exist outside of the game, either as "Arreat Summit" II website or a bonus application.


10-Rewarding Long term team play[/B]

No!!

Sorry, but no! Lets once and for all end with D3 the shameful attitude towards single players that was the hallmark of D2 support team. Those days have to go away. I payed the same price as any other online gamer for the game. I demand the exact same game. No less. End of Discussion!


But more... while well intentioned, this will benefit the small fringe of the online community responsible for such abhorrent things as item selling websites. Because that's exactly how they operate. They work as a team and farm the game to levels that are completely out of this world.

[JonoLith]

I'd just like to add in one thing that's of worth to say again and again. If they implement all of this to encourage exploration, and yet put in, at the end, a static boss encounter that's guarenteed the best loot and XP, all of this is destroyed instantly.

I know this isn't the thread for Boss Encounters, but it is worth repeating. You can have the most brilliant ideas in the universe, but a static boss with the best loot and xp will outright destroy them.

Trolls think otherwise it seems.

[Krugar]

Why will it destroy?

Will you choose do the boss run instead of exploring the game? Is that it? Because if that's it then you don't like exploring much, do you?

Or is that you wish to enforce exploration on everyone?

[Krugar]

Trolls think otherwise it seems.

How dare you?
Because I don't share your opinion, I'm now a troll?

Sheesh! I'm out.

[Knight_Wolf]

They bothered making D2, and they succeeded. They succeeded in a big way and they made one of the most popular and longterm titles in computer gaming history, even worthed of a patch 8 years later, in what constitutes the first title ever to deserve such an honor.

The logic of that quote is flawed to the bone. Yet, I do agree that the game can be made better. So let's move on...

Not really ... when the end game of Diablo 2 degenerates into a straight line from the beginning of the game to a room at the end of it it is degeneration and has no other meaning.

And D2 was bought by 8 million people (add or remove a million) that's a lot of people .. and sure not all of them played the same way and will indeed make the game active for years .. and admitting it has its charm that doesn't mean it didn't have severe balance issues and many exploits (duping, hacks, ... etc etc) and problems.

Personally i consider it the least polished Blizz game (fact since many features promised by the devs over and over were all thrown away before the release of the game .. kinda gives a feeling they rushed things in the end).

All that aside .. there is no denying the fact Baal runs (or boss runs) severely degenerate the game worth and value in the end game stage to very tight specific spammable spots or even a single room ... that's too simple and too exploitable.

Why do you want item hunting to be extremely related to spam and very easy .. it shouldn't be .. it's called hunting for a reason ... i personally wouldn't do Boss runs not because they are hard or challenging but because they are freaking boring and mind numbing and that's not what i play games for .. i play them to ENJOY a challenge .. and certainly not to do something extremely repetitive or to numb my mind.

Sigh .. enough side-tracking by me .. back to topic


I'm concerned that randomness on this case may lead to a false sense of diversity and that we find after a few months playing through these quests end up having the some level of "diversity" as unique monster spawning or random map generation on D2. That is, at first we feel it's very cool, but soon we realize everything eventually just ens up being the same.



The false diversity problem you are pointing at is really weird ... so what do you suggest .. removing the random adventures that we don't have any of them and thus no false diversity problem !!! .. i don't get your point ... Blizz will certainly make as many random adventures as they can and add more in expansions .. but it isn't just the quantity that matters .. it's the surprise of getting a certain adventure or event when you least expect it .. and also the fact that every new game they will be placed in different order and in different locations .. there will be almost endless combinations of them .. that's diverse if you look at the bigger picture.



I confess I never liked this concept. They are nuisances that will slow down the game and force the player to concentrate first on removing themselves of the object/curse and only then proceed with the game.

In all games I played, cursed items end up being just grievers. Just fun killers and not strategic game plots. They just don't work.

Not if done right .. they just need to be tested ... a curse forces you to kill monsters to stay alive, another reduces your base MP and HP temporarily .. these are challenges that offer you a very good reward in the end .. if you don't want a certain challenge you are free not to pick up that cursed item .. just walk by it (you get to know they are cursed form the quest giver .. but you never know the type of curse until you pick it up).



They were in fact weird. The spawn monster shrine was very rare and only spawned an unique or champion (the urns in act V were much more interesting). The Portal shrine on the other hand was just weird. Too random to be useful.


Not the shrines .. i meant thing that constantly spawned enemies like the stone coffins in ACT2 dungeons ... that's what i was talking about .. they need to expand that concept cause it fits very well with the tactical gameplay approach they want in D3 combat.


We know shrines aren't coming back. But the notion of random portals to areas a player can't access in any other way is very appealing to me. I'm imagining a series of special areas hidden from the players and that will never be a part of the normal game. These would be very rare areas, full of exploration potential and with good rewards at the end.

Actually that's not what i meant by portals .. but since you brought it up .. i guess "Chaos Tristram" tried to be like that ... it wasn't a bad idea for an end game level but few ever knew about its existence ... they should provide more content like that but make it more accessible.

As for Monster Portals .. i meant actually portals that send monsters to your location regardless of where you are .. they pop up near you and spawn a couple of monsters and disappear
As for monster spawning "shrines". I too would like a revised approach; A much bigger challenge at the very least.






Ermm... but this already exists in D2. I think they will have the exact same thing for D3. Maybe with more variety. Am I reading you wrong on this one?

Yeah .. you got it right .. i mean they should add more variety and make it more often and more random.


I like this idea so much I wet my pants. It's very similar to something that was in place on one of my favorite MUDs of all times and that worked extremely well in that every player agreed it wa one of the most fun and interesting game aspects.

Just one disagreement. No timed quests. Nope.
Let players handle the game at their pace. Challenge them on their skill. Not their free time.


It has nothing to do with free time .. the time limits given should never exceed 15 minutes .. it is made to be a very quick and rapid challenge.

Time trials are one of the best measures of player skills .... how else will you know which player is really worthy of the reward if one takes 3 hours to kill the monsters (like any other monsters) and another who is truly skilled took 14 mins to do it .. putting the time limit will encourage fast play and quick thinking and will really give the rewards to those who really deserve it ... fail and there is no penalty at all .. you still get EXP and normal items from the monsters as usual .. but now you know you aren't really as good as you thought you are.



There will be huge changes to the game on this regard. I don't think its wise to consider this as a wish... since it's already come true. We just don't know yet is how exactly.

Hope they inform us about how they intend to do crafting in Blizzcon-09


Only if it's not integrated in the game, but presented as a separate application on the CD. I don't want the game to be crowded with non essential features. Diablo is not an hard game by any standards. A game encyclopedia will not be needed in order to understand the game, as you realized. So this feature can perfectly well exist outside of the game, either as "Arreat Summit" II website or a bonus application.

Still i didn't see a good reason why not fully integrate it into the game .... many RPGs did it successfully and it does make the game world more immersive and interesting if viewed from inside the game itself (like in RPG/TPS Mass Effect or in JRPG Vagrant Story) ... not to mention collecting the entries will be lots of fun .. specially for new comers who will uncover bits and pieces about the Diablo world lore, major events, its cities and inhabitants of all kinds piece by piece (not info on how to understand the game) .. collecting the lore info like that will make viewing the encyclopedia enjoyable because your are viewing your handy work ... it will feel 180 degrees different than if you shoved all the info down people throats' all at once via an outside site or separate application .. many will just ignore it because it's too much of hassle to check tons of suddenly available info.

Besides .. Blizz already said the plan on adding achievements to all their future games including SC2 and Diablo3 .. what better source for collectible achievements other than an encyclopedia collection that you need to fetch piece by piece.



No!!

Sorry, but no! Lets once and for all end with D3 the shameful attitude towards single players that was the hallmark of D2 support team. Those days have to go away. I payed the same price as any other online gamer for the game. I demand the exact same game. No less. End of Discussion!


Actually you response here made me lol ... why are you saying this to me .. all the features i mentioned are already in D3 as we talk now .. and the devs stated they wanted to end the anti-team behavior that infested D2 servers and realms and make D3 a team-friendly game .. so they are perfectly on the right road.

Besides .. how is it not the exact game .. just cause there are features that encourage team play it doesn't mean it is a differernt game ... MANY if not ALL games have differing features between their single and multiplayer versions .. rarely does it ever happen that both modes are identical in any game ... somethings work in SP only .. somethings work in MP only .. that basic game design.



But more... while well intentioned, this will benefit the small fringe of the online community responsible for such abhorrent things as item selling websites. Because that's exactly how they operate. They work as a team and farm the game to levels that are completely out of this world.

Now that you mention it ... if exploration is the main way to get good items those guys will go bankrupt in few weeks .... they probably programmed their minds on spam and exploitable boss runs that repeat over and over so simple and profitable for them to do .... but suddenly having to explore the whole game to get good gear will shock them and their BOT mentality to the core. *evil laugh*



Trolls think otherwise it seems.
How dare you?
Because I don't share your opinion, I'm now a troll?

Sheesh! I'm out.

Guys take it easy .. no need to fight .. Krugar ... Jono seems to be upset about you replying in his topic constantly and disagreeing with him .. i don't know what should be done to convince him you really aren't a toll -and you aren't one indeed- so just calm down first *looks around* .. i don't see any tolls around here .. let's go back to topic.

[Krugar]

The false diversity problem you are pointing at is really weird ... so what do you suggest .. removing the random adventures that we don't have any of them and thus no false diversity problem !!! .. i don't get your point ...

No. I'm not criticizing the feature. I'm raising a concern and making a suggestion. Please read it again.

Nowhere I said random adventures should be removed. I just said the base quests that will serve as source for these random adventures should be many an varied, so that we don't end up with a false sense of diversity.

Time trials are one of the best measures of player skills ....

I don't agree with that. On some instances, maybe. But on most cases, and in games the likes of Diablo, it's down to a matter of equipment and not skill. D3 will be no different, and in fact even more so. From runes, to the much wider array of available items, a player killing speed will be determined mostly by what they find in the game, and less by how good they are with the mouse or how they build their character skill trees. Players won't even be able to put point in attributes anymore.

Actually you response here made me lol ... why are you saying this to me ..

I misread the whole thing. My apologies.
Such a long post and by the end I was already tired. Somehow I was reading about an increase in odds for rare/unique. And not an increase in loot, which is what you meant.

Now that you mention it ... if exploration is the main way to get good items those guys will go bankrupt in few weeks .... they probably programmed their minds on spam and exploitable boss runs that repeat over and over so simple and profitable for them to do ....


Eh! You are way of the mark. Anything that encourages team work is godsend to them. There's a whole subculture around the concept of making a living from playing games, mostly on Asian countries (the most prominent being South Korea and China). There's an excellent documentary about this world where players eat, sleep and play together games like WoW, Everquest, Diablo, etc to farm for equipment and put them up for sale. These are aptly called "Gold Farms", or simply "Farms".

I can't remember the name of the documentary. But meanwhile here's a taste of what I'm talking about http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1545919/20061115/index.jhtml

There's no stopping this, of course. But do not think these are players who would "close shop" because the game forced them to adventure. They have a mindset alright; for money.

Anyways, I was thinking increased odds for unique/rares... In this context, Diablo 3 would become a paradise for these players.

but suddenly having to explore the whole game to get good gear will shock them and their BOT mentality to the core. *evil laugh*


Do try and investigate a little bit further about Gold Farms. You won't laugh.

[windforce]

I disagree with the balanced drop rates idea. I like that certain items can only be found on hard bosses.

If the other ideas you have there were implemented, it would provide incentive for people people to spend less time doing a single boss run, but for those who want to there's nothing wrong with that.

[Knight_Wolf]

I disagree with the balanced drop rates idea. I like that certain items can only be found on hard bosses.

Those bosses aren't hard anymore after being beaten on few times .. they become cash cows/pinatas that people smack and milk for those specific items .. that system simply encourages farming, spam and bots.

It is way better if those hard bosses only had a better chance at dropping good random items more than other bosses and monsters .. which items .. nobody should ever be able to tell.


If the other ideas you have there were implemented, it would provide incentive for people people to spend less time doing a single boss run, but for those who want to there's nothing wrong with that.

No matter what we do boss runs will still be possible indeed ... but if we know that boss runs are part of the incentives for framing sites and bots to infest Diablo servers because of their simplicity and exploitable nature their benefits indeed need to be toned down a few notches(as i said there is no way to remove them).


No. I'm not criticizing the feature. I'm raising a concern and making a suggestion. Please read it again.

Nowhere I said random adventures should be removed. I just said the base quests that will serve as source for these random adventures should be many an varied, so that we don't end up with a false sense of diversity.

I do get your point, but you offered no specific solution to that false diversity problem other than the natural solution which is "make them many and varied" .. of course they will try to ... but either way .. i'd rather have a false sense of diversity than no diversity at all XD


I don't agree with that. On some instances, maybe. But on most cases, and in games the likes of Diablo, it's down to a matter of equipment and not skill. D3 will be no different, and in fact even more so. From runes, to the much wider array of available items, a player killing speed will be determined mostly by what they find in the game, and less by how good they are with the mouse or how they build their character skill trees. Players won't even be able to put point in attributes anymore.

That's actually one of the things that annoyed me about Diablo 2 and MMOs in general .. their severe lack of skill based gameplay .. but seeing D3 videos tells me there will be lots of chance for skilled players to shine even if hey have slightly weaker equipment because combat requires some good reflexes and tactics as portrayed by the Devs .. and MMOs thankfully (both Eastern/korean MMOs like Mabinogi Heroes and T.E.R.A and western MMOs like the Agency Sector-8 and Tabula Rasa) have started to make MMOs that encourage and focus on player skills rather than how many items they collected (or rather bought from an online site or whatever) .. items are important and should be a factor ... but it is very wrong to make the the most important aspect for so many general and gameplay specific reasons.

It is a sad sight to see a skilled player being defeated by someone just because that person has no life and keeps playing 24/7 colletcing items or that person's brother collected the best items for him or bought him some from an online farming site .. really sad sight for a gamer to see in a supposedly competitive game environment .. it destroys the whole meaning and purpose of such games.


Eh! You are way of the mark. Anything that encourages team work is godsend to them. There's a whole subculture around the concept of making a living from playing games, mostly on Asian countries (the most prominent being South Korea and China). There's an excellent documentary about this world where players eat, sleep and play together games like WoW, Everquest, Diablo, etc to farm for equipment and put them up for sale. These are aptly called "Gold Farms", or simply "Farms".


Yeah .. and that's why Boss runs are like heaven on earth for them .. they even don't need to do anything themselves .. just unleash a couple of bots and watch them runs Baal over an over to no end while they eat pizza and drink cola ... boss runs and static farming locations are a god send for them.

And the MMO examples are actually the same cause most MMOs do have specific farming locations and static bosses just like D2 ... at least they allow for adventuring for those who want it because there is always something new to see ... but in no way that has anything to do with farmers .. they don't give a damn about adventuring .. they want spammable static farming locations and raid dungeons to gain as much fortune as fast as possible ( which adventuring doesn't provide that fast at all .. it goes for slow and enjoyable)


Adventuring on the other hand (and removing static fixed drop lists) will devastate their plans .. they could spend weeks looking for a specific set of items and never find it .. that's not good for their business .. it is pretty straight forward really and has nothing to do with whether they do it as a team or not.

In short .. Boss runs .. static drop lists and farming locations do encourage:-
-Farmers to spread like an infestation on Dialbo servers because of the easy and very exploitable nature of boss runs.
-Bots.
-Spam ... they are exploitable by nature.

On the other hand ... adventuring will -unlike what it first seems- increase Diablo 3 life span since obtaining items will require more than just spamming a location or a boss 40 times ... and it won't be impossible to find the items you want since they can drop anytime and anywhere .. but you can't farm them .. you rather hunt for them ... and either way someone or some people will eventually find items that are demanded and offer them for those who are out there hunting for them ... and that will encourage trade as well .... so no spam and no exploits ... and good luck for farmers spending weeks to find an item they specifically were requested to find by a client.


There's no stopping this, of course. But do not think these are players who would "close shop" because the game forced them to adventure. They have a mindset alright; for money.

They will .. when they spend hours adventuring and working (i.e it is work for them) and in the end come up with a bunch of normal items or items other than the ones that are demanded from people because there are no monsters with static drop lists to spam mindlessly for specific items that have high demand like they did in D2 ... i want to see their faces then XD




Anyways, I was thinking increased odds for unique/rares... In this context, Diablo 3 would become a paradise for these players.

Lols .. they are increased but spread all over the game ... you can no longer spam a boss to get item (X) .. getting item (X) with adventuring will take much more time ... but during your adventuring you will indeed find other good items (which you can later trade for item X or maybe at some point you might get lucky and find item X yourself on one of your adventures).. take on several challenges and team up with friends if you want .. it is a whole different spam-free experience .. and it will teach players to adapt to the items they find and use them in creative ways .. instead of every one farming the SAME EXACT ITEMS and we end up with tons of people with the same exact gear.

[JonoLith]

Guys take it easy .. no need to fight .. Krugar ... Jono seems to be upset about you replying in his topic constantly and disagreeing with him

Just to be totally clear, this is inaccurate. I don't mind anyone disagreeing with me.

What I DO mind is A) Being mocked when I structure an argument to refute someone's posts. B) Having that person mock me without actually backing up anything they're saying with further argument and instead saying *sigh* or *eye roll* or something along those lines. C) Not engaging in actual debate but simply saying things like "You don't get it" and making no attempt to actually clarify their position.

All of these things make a Troll, and this is my experience with Kruger, who is, most definitely, a Troll.

It is almost worthless to talk about him though as I have already put him on ignore, and I only bring it up to clarify my position on the matter, like a person who is interested in civil discussion does. I don't say things like "pull a Jonolith" in a derogatory manner, I don't sigh at people, and I CERTAINLY don't totally disregard someone if they've taken one of my posts and intelligently deconstructed it in an effort to engage in meaningful debate by simply saying "Oh you've missed the point." In general, I am not an asshole to people just because they aren't standing in front of me.

Kruger is a troll, plain and simple. It has nothing to do with the fact that he disagrees, it is that he is a total douche while doing it, and even poorly at that. That is all.

[Thyiad]

It is for the Moderators to decide whose behaviour is unacceptable. And we will deal with them.

If you feel a post is unacceptable you may report it. Nothing more.

[Thyiad]

On a separate non-Moderator note: I play a MMO and I'll say this about 'boss runs' or 'farming' or whatever you want to call it. It will happen.

Got a mission with good drops? Great, don't complete it, reset it then go back and redo it. It's pretty disliked by some parts of the game but it happens. Some people want to do that and that's fine.

The only time it is an issue is when people do that and use is as a way to powerlevel new characters and new people (like Uber Trist runs) and they then have no idea how to play the game.

But no matter what you do, boss runs/farming will be there. Same as real money for game gold spammers. I don't like it but you won't stop it.

[Krugar]

Just to be totally clear, this is inaccurate. I don't mind anyone disagreeing with me.

What I DO mind is A) Being mocked when I structure an argument to refute someone's posts. B) Having that person mock me without actually backing up anything they're saying with further argument and instead saying *sigh* or *eye roll* or something along those lines. C) Not engaging in actual debate but simply saying things like "You don't get it" and making no attempt to actually clarify their position.

All of these things make a Troll, and this is my experience with Kruger, who is, most definitely, a Troll.

It is almost worthless to talk about him though as I have already put him on ignore, and I only bring it up to clarify my position on the matter, like a person who is interested in civil discussion does. I don't say things like "pull a Jonolith" in a derogatory manner, I don't sigh at people, and I CERTAINLY don't totally disregard someone if they've taken one of my posts and intelligently deconstructed it in an effort to engage in meaningful debate by simply saying "Oh you've missed the point." In general, I am not an asshole to people just because they aren't standing in front of me.

Kruger is a troll, plain and simple. It has nothing to do with the fact that he disagrees, it is that he is a total douche while doing it, and even poorly at that. That is all.

Since You decided to publicly offend me and because that seems to be tolerable behavior around these parts, I withdraw my initial instinct that was to simply ignore your post and instead do my public defense.

You have been told by me numerous times what my position is about this issue. For some reason you refused to read my posts properly and constructed in your mind wrong assumptions. Patiently I told you 3 times (3 times!) what my position on this matter was. And yet, you kept (you keep!) insisting I was saying things I never did. You -- and only you! -- that I know off is the only person who doesn't understand my arguments. No one else complained. And everyone else answering my posts was addressing what I was saying.

Now... after three times of this nonsense I lost my patience and decided I wouldn't be arguing with someone who doesn't make an effort to respect other people opinions by at least taking their time properly reading what they have to say before replying.

When addressing another member of this forum he misread one of my arguments, and I jocosely told him to not "pull a jonolith" on me. If this offended you, I apologize. I sincerely do. It was a joke. A meaningless joke that you could just ignore or, rightfully call my attention to. But...

In no way that gives you the right to openly offend me the way you did with the above quote. The moment you do that you lose any right you might have to complain about my manners. In fact, the above quote is unqualified and a sad display of your attitude when things just don't go your way. You handed me the right to be offended.

If you care for civilized speech as you say you do, you don't go around calling people trolls or douches. You concern yourself with the thread topic. Something I always did until just now.

My posts are everywhere for anyone to read. They speak for myself.
And You just spoke for yourself.

[Thyiad]

Krugar I will tell you the same as I told JonoLith. If you have a problem with a post then you may report it. Moderators will then decide how to act. And generally they will do privately.

You will not carry on a public argument on these boards. If *either* of you make any further posts in the nature of the your last posts, you will both recieve a three day ban.

[Knight_Wolf]

On a separate non-Moderator note: I play a MMO and I'll say this about 'boss runs' or 'farming' or whatever you want to call it. It will happen.

Got a mission with good drops? Great, don't complete it, reset it then go back and redo it. It's pretty disliked by some parts of the game but it happens. Some people want to do that and that's fine.

The only time it is an issue is when people do that and use is as a way to powerlevel new characters and new people (like Uber Trist runs) and they then have no idea how to play the game.

But no matter what you do, boss runs/farming will be there. Same as real money for game gold spammers. I don't like it but you won't stop it.

Nobody argued boss runs/farming can be 100% removed .. it is a fact no matter what's done it will still be in the game ... but since in D2 the core game design choices encouraged farming and boss running it is pretty clear those designs choices need to be revoked for D3 to tone down the farming and boss running and make it have less impact on the end game.

Removing static drop lists and giving bosses only a good chance to drop any good item will greatly diminish boss farming for specific items .. since you never know what the boss will drop and can never even speculate it ... and with normal or hi-level monsters prone to dropping rare items (but with a much less chance than bosses) you can stumple upon a rare item anywhere at anytime ... and that will encourage players to play the actual game since that raises their chances of finding better gear.

But it shouldn't stop at that .. the end game shouldn't only be about good gear .. it should also be about what to do with that gear ... there should be many activities to do one the character hits 70 or 80 .. a survival dungeon .. a PVP arena ... special hidden quests ... random mini-boss hunting .. collectibles ... etc etc etc ... that will make D3 a whole new experience.


Krugar I will tell you the same as I told JonoLith. If you have a problem with a post then you may report it. Moderators will then decide how to act. And generally they will do privately.

You will not carry on a public argument on these boards. If *either* of you make any further posts in the nature of the your last posts, you will both recieve a three day ban.

Fair enough, i'm really sad that it got to this point.

[Krugar]

But it shouldn't stop at that .. the end game shouldn't only be about good gear .. it should also be about what to do with that gear ... there should be many activities to do one the character hits 70 or 80 .. a survival dungeon .. a PVP arena ... special hidden quests ... random mini-boss hunting .. collectibles ... etc etc etc ... that will make D3 a whole new experience.

I fully support this thought. The endgame must be a lot more than MFing. Unfortunately, there's very little being said on this regard despite a good few posts on the official forums requesting a comment on it. There's no clear decision to provide some sort of continuous endgame. A point that would make Diablo 3 a much stronger game.

[Thyiad]

Boss running/farming is really a result of the "must have l337 itamz nao". Unfortunately I'm not convinced that will never be properly eliminated, short of eliminating the players. Which would be somewhat counter-productive. :D

I appreciate what you're saying, Knight_Wolf, regard the certainty of xx mob dropping yy item but I think even greater randomization won't cure the problem. Although perhaps by widening the drop rates it may mitigate it somewhat.

The thing with D2 is the sheer amount of data available about TC levels, ilevels, drop calcs etc etc. That's going to be lacking in D3. Especially if Blizzard don't release the information and it's down to player testing to crunch those numbers.

I would like to see more diversity - it would help solo players acquire items - but I do believe there would be more 'area' running rather than 'boss running'.

It will be interesting to see how it pans out when more details are released.

Fair enough, i'm really sad that it got to this point.

Me too, but when an instruction is given privately I don't expect to have to return to deal with the same issue. Debate is encouraged, personal attacks are not. :)

[GoldenBird]

Even if we have more exploring in the game, people are just going to set up bots to run through the game instead of up to one boss :/

And Jono was right, as long as they have 1 boss with better drops, people are going to run it and farm it. But the thing is, it's hard to just not reward the player once they beat it. I guess it could be fixed by making it a quest and the quest-giver giving you the reward or whatever.

One of my favorite ideas on making the playthrough worth it that someone else suggested was having an all-out extra difficulty mode that is really hard and requires over the top gear and such. The reward doesn't have to be big and overpowering, it can just be title, like beating hell in D2. This way trading for gear and perfecting your build would have more of a point to it. Once you finish D2, there isn't really a point to finishing off your char, atleast imo. You can make them uber all you want, but there won't really be anything to do with them. Even if you use them to build up riches, once you're rich, it's kinda pointless. But if you had an extra mode like that, it could give people more of a reason to go and perfect their characters. I know I'll probably hear heck from the casual gamers, but you can't cater to everyone :/

[Knight_Wolf]

Even if we have more exploring in the game, people are just going to set up bots to run through the game instead of up to one boss :/

But it will be a lot harder to do so ... besides bots can't trade or make meaningful choices if they face a complex quest or any of the choices they have to make during adventuring ... making a bot to run a specific boss is just way more easier and exploitable.

And Jono was right, as long as they have 1 boss with better drops, people are going to run it and farm it. But the thing is, it's hard to just not reward the player once they beat it. I guess it could be fixed by making it a quest and the quest-giver giving you the reward or whatever.

Of course you have to reward the player after beating the boss .. just don't give the boss a static drop list with sepcific items or make it an EXP pinata that players gang on and beat to death easily after playing the game for a while .... the boss quests needs to be much bigger than just beating the crap out of single boss and a couple of monsters .. it needs to be longer .. more epic and complex (look at the Siege weapon battle from the WWI demo .. it single handedly made all D2 boss battles look like crap ... if that was a mini-boss battle in D3 i can't imagine how actual boss battle later in the game will be like XD)

One of my favorite ideas on making the playthrough worth it that someone else suggested was having an all-out extra difficulty mode that is really hard and requires over the top gear and such. The reward doesn't have to be big and overpowering, it can just be title, like beating hell in D2. This way trading for gear and perfecting your build would have more of a point to it.

That's indeed one way to do it.

Once you finish D2, there isn't really a point to finishing off your char, atleast imo. You can make them uber all you want, but there won't really be anything to do with them. Even if you use them to build up riches, once you're rich, it's kinda pointless. But if you had an extra mode like that, it could give people more of a reason to go and perfect their characters. I know I'll probably hear heck from the casual gamers, but you can't cater to everyone :/

True ... D3 needs to give people something to do with their powered up characters .. which is something D2 greatly ignored.

[Smash]

...

Overall i agree with you and i think Blizzard too asthere will be random quest and others things.

Memory bring me Fallout 2 and how fantastic was to travel through world because you could encounter different random generate scenarios.

[Krugar]

The thing with D2 is the sheer amount of data available about TC levels, ilevels, drop calcs etc etc. That's going to be lacking in D3. Especially if Blizzard don't release the information and it's down to player testing to crunch those numbers.

But wasn't this pretty much what happened in D2?
As soon as the mpq files contents became accessible, all current information on drops and TC mechanics became the result of player analysis, testing and number crushing. We have a few members on these forums that "specialized" in analyzing and interpreting the data on these files.

...

I'm for a system that resembles D2 TCs in its ability to tie drops to certain monsters. Again this is an issue of how I like to play the game an so again I'm forced to disagree with the opinion the game should open as much as possible the range of monsters for item farming.

With two, three, maybe even just one, years of Diablo 3 on my back, I'm pretty sure I will be less tolerant to adventuring, questing and endless item searching across the whole game maps. There's some sort of threshold that, once passed, turns adventure into repetitive boredom too. No manner of randomization can change this. Especially when randomization on this case can only be a limited preset number of base scenarios being fed into a RNG.

When it comes the time the main objective for the player is achievement in the form of items owned, anything that unnecessarily slows him down from this process becomes a grievance and source for complaints.

I really think that item hunting should stay away from the concept of adventuring and exploration. This is not to say one shouldn't be rewarded by exploring the game, doing quests, or other sort of similar tasks. For one, I think that "first kills" should be much better rewarded than they were in the past, for instance. But I still have trouble understanding -- no one could explain to me yet -- why is that there is this notion that for exploration and adventuring to work, one must sacrifice the concept of mob and area item farming.

[Knight_Wolf]

But wasn't this pretty much what happened in D2?
As soon as the mpq files contents became accessible, all current information on drops and TC mechanics became the result of player analysis, testing and number crushing. We have a few members on these forums that "specialized" in analyzing and interpreting the data on these files.

There might be ways to make that data inaccessible to normal users or even those who are techy.. i'm not a tech nerd so i don't really know much about the subject .. still think something like that could be done.



I'm for a system that resembles D2 TCs in its ability to tie drops to certain monsters. Again this is an issue of how I like to play the game an so again I'm forced to disagree with the opinion the game should open as much as possible the range of monsters for item farming.

With two, three, maybe even just one, years of Diablo 3 on my back, I'm pretty sure I will be less tolerant to adventuring, questing and endless item searching across the whole game maps. There's some sort of threshold that, once passed, turns adventure into repetitive boredom too. No manner of randomization can change this. Especially when randomization on this case can only be a limited preset number of base scenarios being fed into a RNG.

If you can live with the boredom of a process that's extremely repetitive and tedious by it's very own nature then you will be fine with adventuring no matter how boring it gets.

And Boss runs don't even have that threshold you speak off ... they are repetitive and boring from the get to go.

And speaking of a preset number of scenarios .. i did mention before it really isn't just about the number of scenarios .. but their possible combinations ... and that's a pretty large number of possibilities (like a puzzle with 10 pieces that can be combined in a 1000 differernt ways) .. where a boss run is merely a single scenario that plays over and over (pretty much a single piece of a puzzle ) .. there is no comparison whatsoever.


When it comes the time the main objective for the player is achievement in the form of items owned, anything that unnecessarily slows him down from this process becomes a grievance and source for complaints.

So what !!! ... should we give players infinite life because dying slows them down .. or give everyone teleport like what Enigma did in D2 cause players don't want to waste time walking around the game ... they want to skip it to their item pinatas .... before a game caters mindlessly to its players it should be questioned why they do what they do .. like i said .. because the game was never designed with the idea of making adventuring worth it in the first place (worth it as in being interesting and varied ... besides the MFing) .. if it was like that things would have been very differernt.


I really think that item hunting should stay away from the concept of adventuring and exploration. This is not to say one shouldn't be rewarded by exploring the game, doing quests, or other sort of similar tasks. For one, I think that "first kills" should be much better rewarded than they were in the past, for instance. But I still have trouble understanding -- no one could explain to me yet -- why is that there is this notion that for exploration and adventuring to work, one must sacrifice the concept of mob and area item farming.

Why !!! ... Cause area farming and repetitive boss runs with static drop lists comes with a ton of exploits, cheapens the game, damages the economy and degenerates the end game .. that's why it needs to be nerfed heavily (as everyone knows it can't be 100% removed).


If it is nerfed and replaced with adventuring as the main method of MFing (with no trace of the static drop lists)

1-Farmers won't be able to FARM for specific items (which is their exact job .. to FARM for SPECIFIC high-end items with high demand)

2-Will solve the problem of everyone ending up with exactly the same freaking uber gear and cookie cutter builds ... everyone will get different gear and will learn how to creatively use it and modify his/her character's built to fit with it, then fine tune and maximize the character's potential with the items he/she currently has. (that's where limited respecs become a core part of the game not just some tacked on feature)

3-Which will in turn enhance trade greatly ... everyone will be getting random items and going to trade and see if someone else found the items they are looking for to trade with them (because of the removal of the static drop lists ... IMO one of the things that ruined D2 economy and inflated it)


4-With no ability to farm for a specific item you can expect the game life time to increase as nobody will be able to expect, calculate or farm for the specific items they want thus will take them a longer time to get it .... since they will have to hunt them down, go on adventures and special quests, hunt for random mini bosses in random dungeons, trade and do some meaningful effort .. something a BOT can't do.





I really never understood why should the game tell you this monster can drop item X or Z or Y ... that's making things easier for players, encourages exploitation, farming and cookie cutter builds (since everyone will have the same exact high-end items) ... and completely removes the feeling of randomness in the game .. if you can expect something and calculate it with a high degree of accuracy it doesn't feel that random anymore. (even if it is still random)

-------------------------------------------------------------------



Still after all that .. it can't be helped that Bosses must have a much higher chance of dropping better gear than your average Fallen .... still ... a good item can drop anywhere (with varying chances) since there are no static drop lists.

So while you can't farm bosses for specific exact items .. you can still farm them because they generally drop better gear more often ... but someone who likes adventuring and goes hunting demons, blood lords and <insert monster here> will still have a similar chance of getting good items since all monsters can drop good gear (even with a very low chance .. for their large numbers make things work even if they have a very low drop rates for rare items .. even as rare as items in D2 with insanely low droprates).

That's the only way to make Adventuring and Boss runs equally viable and on equal terms. (considering how exploitable boss runs are they really needed to be heavily nerfed to reach this point)

[Krugar]

It's somewhat ironic that you started this thread saying this isn't the place to discuss Baal runs. But you make a point of discuss Baal runs right on your first post and eventually this is where we are right now. It seems that you can't just disconnect exploration from Item Hunting. You are just after a different type of farming. But farming is precisely what you are so desperately trying to avoid.

So what !!! ... should we give players infinite life because dying slows them down .. or give everyone teleport like what Enigma did in D2 cause players don't want to waste time walking around the game ... they want to skip it to their item pinatas .... before a game caters mindlessly to its players it should be questioned why they do what they do .. like i said .. because the game was never designed with the idea of making adventuring worth it in the first place (worth it as in being interesting and varied ... besides the MFing) .. if it was like that things would have been very differernt.

No. Diablo 2 didn't have much of that. We agree there. But there's nothing to be said of D3 yet. It's quite possible, and it's been said so, D3 will present players with more dynamic quests and other adventuring mechanisms to give players more choices for exploration. Why is that you assume, when I speak of adventuring becoming also boring, I'm not defending adventuring should exist in the game?

Why !!! ... Cause area farming and repetitive boss runs with static drop lists comes with a ton of exploits, cheapens the game, damages the economy and degenerates the end game .. that's why it needs to be nerfed heavily (as everyone knows it can't be 100% removed).

This is totally unrelated to D3 and derives only from your D2 experience of a much older game. And the first of its kind, mind you.

There's literally hundredths of things that can be done to turn mob and area runs more complex affairs and less predictable and repetitive. I've addressed some of these before on the thread discussing baal runs. It's just doesn't necessarily need to be stuck to your concept of exploration and adventuring.

You don't need to sacrifice an entire gamestyle for the sake of exploration.

1-Farmers won't be able to FARM for specific items (which is their exact job .. to FARM for SPECIFIC high-end items with high demand)

Farmers will still be farming for specific items if you make monsters drop without the concept of TCs. They will be doing what was always done: Go after the monster with the better odds.

2-Will solve the problem of everyone ending up with exactly the same freaking uber gear and cookie cutter builds ... everyone will get different gear and will learn how to creatively use it and modify his/her character's built to fit with it, then fine tune and maximize the character's potential with the items he/she currently has.

This has nothing to do with item hunting. But with a weak character building system that was the hallmark of D2. There's a big effort in changing this so that the cookie-cutter builds, while they can never be removed, are made much more numerous.

4-With no ability to farm for a specific item you can expect the game life time to increase as nobody will be able to expect, calculate or farm for the specific items they want thus will take them a longer time to get it ....

You are jumping to the conclusion this will remove the ability to farm for specific items. I tried to demonstrate it won't. And you cannot create a game based on a Item Hunting concept that throws away number crushing from the players. It's not possible because they will invariably get there from experimentation alone. But also because in order for the game to remain interesting, players will want to explore the numbers behind the game. If the game somehow successfully foiled their plans, you would get your utopic game and soon enough you would feel bored of it. Look for RPGs, not ARPGs if you are into this type of gameplay.

I'm all hears to how you suggest to hide information from players. It's not by hiding data that you will be able to avoid them figuring out where is the best place to farm for a specific item. Data cannot be hidden, for one. You underestimate players ability to reverse engineer a game. D2 data was well hidden and was pretty much hard to interpret. Look what happened. Much better is for the game to not dwell in areas it will necessarily fail and instead concentrate on those areas it can succeed.

Still after all that .. it can't be helped that Bosses must have a much higher chance of dropping better gear than your average Fallen .... still ... a good item can drop anywhere (with varying chances) since there are no static drop lists.

I'm glad we finally agree! I mean, I've been debating this for the past weak on two threads, Knight! For pete's sake! And all of a sudden this pops out of the blue from your own hand.

So while you can't farm bosses for specific exact items .. you can still farm them because they generally drop better gear more often ... but someone who likes adventuring and goes hunting demons, blood lords and <insert monster here> will still have a similar chance of getting good items since all monsters can drop good gear (even with a very low chance .. for their large numbers make things work even if they have a very low drop rates for rare items .. even as rare as items in D2 with insanely low droprates).

That's the only way to make Adventuring and Boss runs equally viable and on equal terms. (considering how exploitable boss runs are they really needed to be heavily nerfed to reach this point)

Right on!
I'm just... in awe that all of a sudden I hear you arguing for the exact same system I have so desperately tried to defend for so long.

And what are you describing here? Nothing more, nothing less, than the system in place for D2 which actually worked! Worked in such a spectacular way, it made the game a continuous success for 8 long years.

It's quite irrelevant if one wants to remove item tie-ins from the drop system. It will accomplish nothing. Players will still know where to go and soon enough will know information about drop chances that will lead them to the best boss, monster or area.

What is instead important under this concept of item farming is that there's a wider variety of farmable targets (be them areas or monsters), that farmable monsters are heavily scripted so that battles aren't repetitive but offer several elements of randomness and force the player to fight differently everytime or almost everytime, that Pindle (pindle! Not Baal. Baal is actually quite a fun run) type of runs are once and for all eradicate from the game, and that exploration and adventuring is rewarded more than it was in D2, when killing a boss for the first time was a complete frustration for most cases.

With the addition of dynamic questing, paper-chase type of quests, random quests, better and more varied area and monster randomness, a wider choice of equipment and a better design character development system, one can have everything in the same package; An exploration game and a item hunting game.

[PahaLukki]

It's quite simple to make it so that the end game boss only drops proper end game boss loot for the first time it is killed by the character, then it degenerates to normal unique monster loot, so you'd always have to be helping someone who hasn't killed it yet in order to get any better chances.

But there are other ways to make it so that the game doesn't end up being an endless boss run. First of all, reduce the impact of items on a character's strength. This is the nicest way of encouraging adventuring for experience rather than just items. For if you are doing fine with what you have, why would you go participate in loot runs by bots?

I think items made less of a difference in Diablo 1 than 2, and it shows. In D1 the needed %-to-hit, to hit monsters of a certain level, drops as you level the warrior. You also need less AC for the same benefit as you level, and MOST of the character's melee damage comes from the strength of the character, and only the warrior was able to get 250 strength. Remember, in D1, no exceptionals existed, you started out with a weapon doing 2-6 damage, and the end game bastard sword was 6-15 damage, with the highest ed% in it often well below 200% (King's). There were no skills enhancing your weapon damage by hundreds of %, the strength bonus was strictly and addition to damage. So even weak weapons got the full benefit of the character's level and skill, instead of amplifying the glory of his weapon or the amplifying the suckiness of his weapon and making the character unplayable. This has happened to many a barbarian, not doing enough damage with what they have. If the weapon masteries would add a fixed amount of damage, D2 would be more balanced immediately, giving less of a value to high damage weapons because their greatness would no longer be amplified.

Thus levels made you noticeably stronger in D1. It has been said that even a short sword of haste is better than bastard sword of gore, because you only need a fast weapon to stunlock, while the damage comes from strength. Thus you chose weapons based on what type or kind of weapon you need: speed, blunt (the effect of blunt against undead was well noticeable, more so than in D2!), and in some rare cases you just needed damage. Overall the best weapon was king's sword of haste which is logical for the best weapon to be with the most added damage, to-hit and speed.

Third way to reduce boss running is to simply make it as it is in D1: killing Diablo ends the game, you don't get to pick anything up, you just watch him die and see the cinematics after. It's a whole 'nuther thing to kill Lazarus over an over again but I don't know about it's drops.

Probably the best way to reduce simple boss running is to look at D1 and ask why do players often play the early dungeon or catacombs instead of hell. Bookcases and shrines! There is something valuable worth adventuring for, even the warrior benefits from the books found and the shrines (while not all positive mind you, another bold gameplay decision from makers of D1) were able to give permanent additions to attributes. The quests in D3 fill this role nicely, but having overall better loot spread around the world also makes a difference. Books would be a good thing to bring back, but I doubt it.. I don't thinkbooks break the game because you were able to buy them from Adria. And buying takes us to..

The worth of gold. I just bought a Lord's Sword in Diablo 1 from wirt. Cost 40 000, and I had 60 000 so I grabbed it. Even Griswold sold it. That and Adria can randomly sell book of mana shield, book of fireball or any other book. The strongest spells in the game, and very respectable weapons as well (I saw Wirt sell a sword of haste, but not King's Sword of Haste so far, but it's not out of the question apparently; that would be the equal of Larzuk selling eh.. Baranar's Star or a rare of similar strength), all sold for just gold that can be accumulated through normal adventure. This was no longer so in D2, you had to gamble and that meant you didn't necessarily get anything. You might get lucky with Larzuk but more often than not the items sold in store were simply no match for all the uniques in the game and not really viable. With the advent of rares as well as more uniques overall and the existence of expectional and elite weapons, the game sort of expects you to necessarily have these and the power level of these items in totally different than normal magical, or basic weapons. I think the playability and usefulness of near base stat weapon and armor should be enhanced.

The last method I'll take also from D1. This has to do with player skill. In GW player skill comes from microing your AI friends or in multiplayer the use of your own skills and awareness of what is being thrown at you and how you counter it. I've played a lot of GW and know that it gets boring. Looking at skills recharge and being such a limited character is really pathetic, especially how melee is worked in that game (you can swing at casters but they won't interrupt casting unless you used an interrupt swing, which recharges for 10-15 seconds...). I don't want that kind of "skilled" playing in Diablo 3. Diablo is supposed to be about terrain, tactics, guarding.. a sort of divide and conquer game, at least in the original. You could make a huge difference by just employing tactics: doorways, virtual doorways by fighting near chests or barrels, retreating along the wall while stopping for a few attacks, swinging at certain tile to guard movement in that tile, stunlocking to prevent running monsters from leaving their tile, peek-a-boo tactics against following ranged monsters. Most of this was completely gone in D2. You can't even guard tiles anymore, as if any tiles existed, but the point is that by swinging at a door you are not guarding entry to that door unless your mouse specifically points to the monster you want to hit, and no longer are approaching monsters knocked back to their tile if you guard an adjacent tile to yourself and they try to walk to it and they also trigger a bonus %-to-hit while moving as well. This of course applies to the player as well, moving past a melee monster means they get an "attack of opportunity" as it is in D&D.

Other than that I think the current barbarian gameplay looks more like playing a caster class with all the thumps and explosive attacks...

[konnu]

I liked Fallout 3 exploration where if you'd randomly run around the desert, there would be random events.

I think blizzard said to include random events to dungeons but maybe they should make tons of them to the world too. I'm assuming the world will be like in WOW with very large areas.

I don't just mean quests, which i kinda grew to hate. but random events where world monsters would build an ambush against you or you'd surprise a resting monster camp with strong rare boss.

[Knight_Wolf]

I don't just mean quests, which i kinda grew to hate. but random events where world monsters would build an ambush against you or you'd surprise a resting monster camp with strong rare boss.


That's exactly what Blizzard described Adventures as ... they range from random side quests to random events with no quests .... just hope they get it right XD

[konnu]

I'd like to see 1 more encounter type. Some encounters would randomly tag you for pvp. Offcourse you'd know of it beforehand.

That would give the griefers some targets heeh. But the difference would be that players would have the option to choose if they wanna open themselves vulnerable.

[Knight_Wolf]

I'd like to see 1 more encounter type. Some encounters would randomly tag you for pvp. Offcourse you'd know of it beforehand.

That would give the griefers some targets heeh. But the difference would be that players would have the option to choose if they wanna open themselves vulnerable.

We don't quite know anything about how PvP will work in D3 since no details were revealed regarding it ... so it is hard to speculate about that aspect yet.

But either way ... in what way will that encounter tag you exactly ?

[Brandonn]

8-Crafting notes/Recipes
(just the notion that you had to experiment endlessly in D2 in order to find combination or had to fire up your browser and open a web site with the recipes detracted greatly from the experience ... funny thing is D2 already planned recipes to be in-game items .. good idea .. but was never implemented ... maybe that's why it felt awkward .. but in D3 it could be made valuable again ... Crafting blueprints or notes could be an in-game item you need to collect and give to blacksmiths in order to craft certain items -no there are no rare ingredients collection or anything, that's the blacksmith job- so that you can't craft the best items even if there were tons of internet sites with crafting guides .. you need to adventure to earn the notes and craft the best items) .. for more about crafting see my topic here http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=727334

I love crafting, but I never thought it could fit the D3 world. Having a smith make the item for you fits.

I also understand the issue with hunting ingredients. But, if all it takes is the design notes, then your just giving a crappy treasure. Not only is the treasure you just got (the design notes) not an item, you also have to go to town AND pay money for it.

So if you make it too basic, you destroy the point. For some, crafting is about farming the ingredients. But that isn't the only solution. If the smith could personalize the items you have them make for you, then the reward has more value, it's worth going back to town. Another solution is to have different types of design notes, some for the base weapon, and some for enhancements to said weapon. However this solution, if done too well, can take away from the items that drop.

Point being - I like this idea, but it has to be done right.

[Knight_Wolf]

I love crafting, but I never thought it could fit the D3 world. Having a smith make the item for you fits.

I also understand the issue with hunting ingredients. But, if all it takes is the design notes, then your just giving a crappy treasure. Not only is the treasure you just got (the design notes) not an item, you also have to go to town AND pay money for it.

So if you make it too basic, you destroy the point. For some, crafting is about farming the ingredients. But that isn't the only solution. If the smith could personalize the items you have them make for you, then the reward has more value, it's worth going back to town. Another solution is to have different types of design notes, some for the base weapon, and some for enhancements to said weapon. However this solution, if done too well, can take away from the items that drop.

Point being - I like this idea, but it has to be done right.


Sorry but RIGHT is very subjective, and the idea of recipes isn't my invention, it does exist that way in many games and it practically works, it could use little tweaks here and there for fitting with Diablo's nature .. but it can be done and will certainly work.

On a side note ... i probably didn't mention it here but i suggested we can use runes for weapon crafting (i.e adding permanent slightly randomized upgrades to weapons .. you can read it in the link in my OP post leading to the crafting topic).

And yes it has been done like that before like i said requiring both ingredients and recipes ... in this case you need recipes, ingredients (both the weapon and the runes in this case) and a little bit of money to make highly customizable items ... now when the results are expected to be substantial it will be more than worth it to go to town and visit the smithy shop.

[stillman]

I only read the OP at this point; I'll come back later and read the rest after work. But here are a couple of thoughts I had on this issue, sorry if they've been brought up already:

1. Give each area in the game a slightly better chance to drop certain item types. For example, in Act 2 sewers (using d2 example) where we see lots of archers, we have a greater chance of long bows droping. Thus, if you want koku unique bow or a 4os long bow or w/e, then this is the palce to farm. If you want a certain axe, you go to the area where the bad guys have axes. Some item types may be a mystery for players to figgure out. For example, some places may be good for farming both skull caps AND light gauntlets, but it is up to the players to discover these slightly biased drop rates for those item combos. The cow level in d2 should drop more pole arms if you ask me! Thus, each area in the game is valuable and has potential to be explored and farmed.

2. In each area, there is a unique item planted on a random enemy. But you have to clean out the area to find it. Now, you might get lucky and the first mob of foes you kill ends up dropping the 'area unique'. BUT, how does the player know that was the area unique?? He doesn't. It could have been a unique generated based on mf. He simply has to kill every last monster to ensure he got it. Of course, no one is forcing you to kill every last monster...you can use mf gear if you want more uniques to drop. But if you want to garauntee a unique drop for the time you spend playing, then you clean out a whole area.

Now, you know all those gem types you need for crafting? Hhat if there was a garaunteed specific gem drop in each area? So Cold Plains has a planted chipped emerald on a random monster every time you make a new game, and River of Flame has a flawless emerald in there somewhere.

3. The Den of Evil based idea: Using the above idea, this one kind of forces you to clean out whole areas. You get a significant exp bonus for killing almost every monster in the area, and an even greater exp bonus for cleaning out an entire act. Now, you don't have to kill every last annoying guy who runs away by checking every corner. You only need to clean out 90% of the monsters. A tone will go off indicating that you've gotten the bonus for wiping out mostly everything. The exp gain is comparable to what you'd get for killing end game bosses. Thus, if you find killing Diablo 1000 times over boring, there is this alternative way to rack up end game experience. Obviously, the exp bonus for cleaning out act 1 is not going to be as much as cleaning out act 4. It's up to Blizzard to balance it out so killing end game bosses and cleaning out areas are about equal in time consumption and exp gain.

Edit: I particularly like 7 and 8 from the OP. For the crafting recipe, one problem is that once the player learns them all or looks them up on websites, he no longer needs to explore areas. What if the recipes were random and different for each character? So for player A uping a unique weapon requires fal and a chipped emerald (and he must learn this by exploring an area), wheras for player B the same recipe is 2 ko and a flawed ruby.

[General Anubis]

I have to say I like the ideas presented by the OP here, but I agree with Krugar in some ways, as I don't want the game to become unnecessarily frustrating when trying to find something half decent, since I tend to have some of the worst luck when it comes to finding good stuff :|.

stillman: I really like your modifications to the ideas, all 3 of them actually, but I think in this bit:

I particularly like 7 and 8 from the OP. For the crafting recipe, one problem is that once the player learns them all or looks them up on websites, he no longer needs to explore areas. What if the recipes were random and different for each character? So for player A uping a unique weapon requires fal and a chipped emerald (and he must learn this by exploring an area), wheras for player B the same recipe is 2 ko and a flawed ruby.

you may have missed the original meaning of the OP, as I don't think he meant you would go find pages that taught you the recipe, but rather that you would find some mock-up blue prints that show how to create something, that you would then bring to the blacksmith in town so he would be able to create it for you. This way you wouldn't really have a recipe to learn, but would have to go out and find the recipe you wanted to create each time (however, as I mentioned before, this may introduce unnecessary frustration to the crafting system).
Besides, the method you suggested would be a little bit unbalanced amongst the players I believe ;).

[stillman]

Yeah, that's true. I read too quickly. I was trying to fix a trend in the OP's solutions. With his blueprint crafting idea, the problem is once people get it done for their character, they have no reason to go back to those areas. They got the blueprints they need, now they can go do Baal runs and never go back to those areas again. The solutions, some of them, are only temporary.

For instance, with 1-Random Adventures, as already mentioned, randomness can only go so far and then everything becomes stuff we've seen before. We have to consider 5 years after the game is out when we've learned all the random things that can spawn. I guess the random adventures would have to really give your character some little bits of extra killing power to match the killing power you get from farming bosses. Otherwise, people will go right to the bosses and ignore the areas.

Overall, this thread is what Blizzard needs though because of the problems already mentioned in d2. And d2 just doesn't seem fair to those of us who prefer playing the game naturally, exploring areas, and what about those of us who DON'T like farming bosses? There should be stuff in the areas for those players. Of course, in d2 you are kind of shooting yourself in the foot by choosing area exploration over bosses and that doesn't seem right to me.

And, it looks unprofessional for Blizzard to make these massive areas which much of the player base skips and ignores.

With this one, 2-Random majestic treasure boxes, farming areas would be worthwhile. Remember in the gameplay video when the barb opened the chest and how they said "Now, treasure chests in d3 won't drop full sets of armor..." Umm...why not? If they did, people would clean out areas looking for those chests. In d1 we had the Armories of Hell which had multiple plate armors, all magical, and it was a real blast going in there.

[Valmy]

Another nice topic.

I agree with both sides, there are good and bad ideas here, too IMO.

I like playing slowly, killing every monster, and untwinked too. Then I agree in some ideas. I can't agree entirely, because I also like the fun part of runs, it's like being a compulsive gambler and it's very fun too for many people.

I like both: mf runes and killing same bosses for items, and playing a new character killing every monster and exploring and cleaning big areas. Both situations are fun enough for me to make me play Diablo2 in hardcore mode for many years.

The only thing I do here is drop the exp gave by some bosses or monsters, or runs. I don't like exp-runs or rushes. Mi idea for a better game is: you can kill the same monster 99 thousand times if you wish for drop and improve your equip and economy, but not for exp exploits. Also, I prefer cleaning areas for exp, and no more baalruns or cows please. This is no good for the game in the long way, IMO. I think Blizzard must balance the exp rates of every monster, and give extras for completing quests to drive us to explore the entire world forever and forevermore.




Now, my opinions in your post:







1-Random Adventures

I like the idea, but I need to wait more time to see how it works exactly in D3.
My bet here is a changing world, adding mini-events or adventures periodically, or at least modifying with patches the old adventures to maintain the intrigue over years.





Cursed items

Interesting, but sorry very much, I don't like this idea in Diablo3. It's just a personal point of view.






2-Random majestic treasure boxes

I don't see how this could prevent from exprun-exploits. For example, in D2 if they are random, people could do baalruns and get treasures too. Do you see my point? I can't explain it better, I hope it is clear enough.








3-Random Spawn portals/gates[/B]

Cool, but same as #2






4-Balanced Drop rates
As I said in my intro, I prefer balanced EXP rates. The powerful drops for some monsters I think they are a good thing and the core of the gambling in Diablo3. I love it.

Perhaps the solution here is making difficult to reach these monsters, without teleporting-exploit or something like that.

Also "85-areas" were a good thing in D2. I hope they come in D3 but with a better design (exp or drop quests).






5-Elaborate Main Quests with various set pieces and good rewards
An awesome idea, IMO. Also, preventing exploits and making the rewards not too overpowered is a must.








6-Random unique mobs and mini-bosses
I also hope an improve in the random type monsters in some areas. I hope there will be fixed monsters in some places, but more variety of random monsters in each zone.







7-Random Dungeon Challenge
I dont' like the time counter (just my own reasons, I don't like Diablo being a game with counters). Otherwise I agree with the idea.







8-Crafting notes/Recipes
Interesting, but I need to know how crafting will work in Diablo3, if the system comes back.




9-Encyclopedia/Bestiary and Achievements
I love this idea.





10-Rewarding Long term team play[/B]
I prefer playing alone at times, but not a bad idea. They must prevent this from exploits too, like rushes in D2.
Your idea could work, but it needs some mature.







And it's all, nice topic for every explorer :mrgreen:
But please don't forget there were many many gamblers in Diablo2, and killing the same monster repeatedly for nice items is also a fun part for them. I think the only problems here are bots and hacks.

[GuardianHadriel]

I´m not the type of d2 player that goes baalrun bananas on each logon, i jsut pick a place to venture and i kill the creeps hangin around, if i feel like re-experiencing mount arreat i´ll run all the way from shenk to The ancients.
Diablo is a world meant to really be explored and not a world of experience pots that needs to be slain...you slay to have fun, not necessarily to level up.
But then agian, i´ve done a lot of runs in my days too. Because as most ppl know it can be fun.

[Nextt]

As your thing you say about wanting them to elaborate quests, are you saying essentially you want to be able to go lvl 1-90(90 being max level) with quests? and if so, are you ****ing stupid? I mean it's ok to maybe have random repeatable quests that always have you kill a "boss type mob" that way your chances for maybe a nice drop is there and it is a break from constant baal run type thing.
But in the end you should NOT be able to go 1-90 from quests, the focus should not be about hitting the max level instantly and thats what was nice about d2, You pretty much wanted to level 1-85 hardcore maybe even 90, but after that you could take it easy, go MF, go pvp, go join random games and hostile them and kill them(yes this is fun to do IF they ARNT like a bunch of lvl 40-60 or w/e when ur 85, not talking about tppk tho thats dumb)

You knew at lvl 88(or 90) that was where there was 1 item that was the highest level req and it was the valor(i believe its been a while). So you could go PvP at lvl 88 agasint lvl 99's knowing that they can't have some godly items that you can't get until lvl 98. HOWEVER they had more stats / skill point usage than you. so they still had a advantage no matter how its looked at. But the more skillful player will win in this situation, not the lvl 98 just because he is 10 levels higher.(now of course this is amusing you can either A. Teleport, or B. your a necro / bowzon who can try to hide behind **** and shoot from afar. Because obviously javazon's the lvl 98 will win in a battle of the hoes, and same for any class who simply is a sit there and attack class. So enigma definitely added in a more skill factor. but CTA is *** :0

Please read the forum rules regarding conduct. If you wish to remain posting on this board, you will need to be more polite. ~Thyiad

[Knight_Wolf]

As your thing you say about wanting them to elaborate quests, are you saying essentially you want to be able to go lvl 1-90(90 being max level) with quests? and if so, are you ****ing stupid?

So much for reading comprehension ... you start assuming things i didn't say and then go on with stupid childish insults ... reported.

But in the end you should NOT be able to go 1-90 from quests, the focus should not be about hitting the max level instantly.

GAHHHHH ... when did i ever mention something about hitting from 1 to 90 by using quests only or INSTANTLY ... where the heck did you get that idea from !!!!?

Besides .. who the heck said that Baal runs are any better than quests .. if anything .. boss runs in D2 are the some of the most stupid and exploitable parts of the game design and they fail on so many levels ... it's ok to be able to farm at some point .. but making it that exploitable and easy is plain awful design.

So enigma definitely added in a more skill factor. but CTA is *** :0

Enigma is a blight regardless of it's rarity or whatever .. that's all there is to it.