Increasing depth not complexity

[cjmoran]

I know Jay Wilson said this is one of his goals..

What about increasing the variability in combat? Say slow time casts for 3-5 sec instead of 4 sec

warcry (or whatever the +dmg shout for the barb is) increases base dmg from 40-60 to 20-100 or gives a higher chance to miss altogether or it leaves yourself open to more crits, etc.

monk auras last from 10-20 sec. and one may +dmg but also lower defense slightly

I think these things would increase depth exponentially, and they really follow the idea that magic/whatever they call it, is hard to control

I just like the idea of having not all the skills so predictable and having tradeoffs involved so you have to ask yourself, "well I gain this awesome power but I also make myself slightly weaker in this way"

I know you do that in a way when choosing skills but this would make things more situational and tactical in combat without having to press more buttons.

Anyways came here to see what the experts think...

[AxeX]

What your talking about is Randomness, which while is a main aspect of Diablo, is not the defining aspect of everything. Skills fall under this. They'll never be able to balance PvP let alone PvE, which is why they too aren't random.

[Thecla]

I like the aim of increasing depth but not complexity (for example, I personally like the idea of designing the game around a relatively small number of easily accessible active skills that have to be used intelligently, instead of spamming one skill or trying to figure out how to set up your keys so you can access any one of twenty skills). But I think adding random delays and time-variations in skills, or mixing good and bad modifiers on items, won't make the game deeper --- it'll just make it harder to control and more irritiating to play. For instance, do you want to die because of some especially unlucky random minimization of some critical skill? And people will end up replacing good/bad items with better good/good items (or bad/bad ones if cursed items should exist in D3and they prefer them ).

[Redgar]

I always like more randomness in the game because I think it keeps it interesting and definately it is funner to play through again. But i don't think they will implement this idea. They have already siad they want us to feel powerful and I don't think gaining power by weakening yourself really has a big powerful feel to it. But its also really interesting.

[sicilian]

I think what you're describing is actually the opposite. It's adding complexity without adding depth in a way. If skills had negative consequences (or random non-ideal results), the game would either need to be balanced around that lack of control (which would require weaker and/or simpler monster design), or it would be filled with random deaths.

Depth (IMHO of course) comes from having seemingly simple gameplay mechanics that result in a wide variety of viable strategies and playstyles. What you're describing is having more complicated gameplay mechanics that create challenge by making it easier to break your character. That would not be my personal preference.

[cjmoran]

I don't think it would be easier to break your character, you'd just have to consider trade-offs more and with respeccin shouldnt be a big deal

And I think a small lack of control increases replayability and also could reward player skill caus sometimes you'll have to react to the unexpected not just memorize patterns

I guess I'm thinking about years from now when I'd have all the skills, etc memorized, all the bosses killed a hundred times, i'd still like to be surprised sometimes, give playing more of an edge

of course it would drive you nuts in hardcore,
maybe they could add them in gems, like +10% to crit but -2% to hit, or +20% to the range of your damage so you can hit a lot harder at the risk of hitting lower

I'm just thinking about replayability to the max since it'll pry be 10+ yrs to diablo IV
anyways thanks for the comments

[yovargas]

General rule of game play design to increase depth - make sure there is no one skill that is always great in all situations. If you can pull that off, you should be set. (D2 failed SO hard at this.)

[ancient]

I don't think it would be easier to break your character, you'd just have to consider trade-offs more and with respeccin shouldnt be a big deal

And I think a small lack of control increases replayability and also could reward player skill caus sometimes you'll have to react to the unexpected not just memorize patterns

I guess I'm thinking about years from now when I'd have all the skills, etc memorized, all the bosses killed a hundred times, i'd still like to be surprised sometimes, give playing more of an edge

of course it would drive you nuts in hardcore,
maybe they could add them in gems, like +10% to crit but -2% to hit, or +20% to the range of your damage so you can hit a lot harder at the risk of hitting lower

I'm just thinking about replayability to the max since it'll pry be 10+ yrs to diablo IV
anyways thanks for the comments

Although it may not make it easier to break your character per se, the lack of control would make the game quite irritating to play without really adding any depth.

In terms of replayability, I don't think that I would replay the game much if it had such irritating randomness.

Finally, the sheer number of skills means that you will be re-speccing and re-rolling your characters for many years to come, not to mention the experimentation with different gear.