How would you rather see content added to the game?

[Aeluron Lightsong]

As I said, D3 needs some customization of character and maybe a slight graphic upgrade(SLIGHT) for the gfx whores. And elaborate and add more to the rifts. That was a big change but IMo there needs to be more.

[zito]

As I said, D3 needs some customization of character and maybe a slight graphic upgrade(SLIGHT) for the gfx whores. And elaborate and add more to the rifts. That was a big change but IMo there needs to be more.

It's amazing how simple Grifts and rifts are, it makes you wonder how actually complex and time consuming did it take to even implement for the shallowness of its existence. It's just random existing maps with random existing monsters with random already existing boss fights with some rules. Nothing else mechanically. Yet we waiting how long for something so simple and shallow?

:l

[Fencers]

It's amazing how simple Grifts and rifts are, it makes you wonder how actually complex and time consuming did it take to even implement for the shallowness of its existence. It's just random existing maps with random existing monsters with random already existing boss fights with some rules. Nothing else mechanically. Yet we waiting how long for something so simple and shallow?

:l

The Grifts/rifts reminded me a bit of Torchlight's random maps and Path of Exile's old Maelstrom of Chaos mode. Rifts themselves were rather generic. Grfits added a few more mechanics but there isn't really a lot to it all. This fundamentally is an issue with the lack of consideration Diablo 3 requires from the player.

To play Diablo 3 is a "pick-up & play" experience.

There are days, weeks even, where I do not even open Path of Exile but I am fussing with builds, spreadsheets, in-depth discussions, online skill trees, offline skill trees, comparison tools, the wiki, asking questions on Reddit and the forums. It is an altogether considered experience.

That is not to say I expect or desire D3 to have the same level of mechanical or meta complexity. But the extremely linear game design is at once the strength of D3 and weakness in brevity.

I recently began playing the World of Warcraft Warlords of Dranor expansion. And it along with recent Blizzard efforts in Hearthstone, HOTS and Overwatch are the epitome of Blizzard's design philosophy. To play these games is to play very lean, concise and shallow video games of some the finest & most refined game interactions on the PC platform.

If other designers endeavor to create games like The Ramones or The Stooges created music for a mass audience that wasn't there, Blizzard are the Frankie Valli & Four Seasons of the industry for an audience keenly interested.

[zito]

Oh there is nothing wrong with the pick up and play experience, but staying relevant to the topic of content updates being spaced too far apart for shallow lazy updates is what brings me the question of how long does rehashing content you already have in the game without even adding anything mechanically take? Even seasons are horrible as the only thing different is they just add new achievements. Same game with new achievements....

I wish Diablo 3 didn't require gear specific builds and had path of exile like seasons while still retaining everything else. Meaning path of exile without a giant ass skill tree.

Probably why I don't still play path of exile... it's a little too much for me while Diablo 3 doesn't have enough.

What does torch light have again?

[Fencers]

Oh there is nothing wrong with the pick up and play experience, but staying relevant to the topic of content updates being spaced too far apart for shallow lazy updates is what brings me the question of how long does rehashing content you already have in the game without even adding anything mechanically take? Even seasons are horrible as the only thing different is they just add new achievements. Same game with new achievements....

What I am saying is that D3 can get away with less expansive patches if there were more frequent. Just enough stuff to make you want to jump on your Monk/Wiz/WD/Whatever and try a new rift type or mess around with a short duration ladder for a couple of nights.

The problem with the patches isn't totally that they are too slight (although they have been slight), but that you are waiting a long time for a tileset or 1 new bounty. If Blizz are going to have pick-up & play gameplay than they need add a lots of fun "little things" more often.

As a Guild Wars 2 player, I think you will understand my line of thought on this in the context of the Living Story. GW2's gameplay is similarly as shallow as D3 in it's own way, but the LS gives Anet an out (so to speak) to add little achievements, challenges, minigames, etc wrapped in the same basic/simple gameplay as when launched. That LS is so rapidly delivered does a lot to buffer the thin operation.

[Rickarus]

I wholeheartedly believe in small, frequent patches. One need look no further than Marvel Heroes (which happens to be made by David "Creator of Diablo and Diablo 2" Brevik) to see how great it can be. Always some event going on, constant updates to hero skills, new heroes constantly, new game modes fairly regularly. Now sure, a lot of that comes from the fact that it's free to play, and they need to constantly update things to keep people playing, and hopefully get people to spend money on all the stuff in their shop, but it makes for an enjoyable game, even for players not spending any money.

[Fencers]

One need look no further than Marvel Heroes (which happens to be made by David "Creator of Diablo and Diablo 2" Brevik) to see how great it can be. Always some event going on, constant updates to hero skills, new heroes constantly, new game modes fairly regularly.

Totally agree with this example. MHO is not a game I enjoy personally, but I admire their activity.

[zito]

Eh, don't let PoE intimidate you too much. The tree looks all "zomg scary" but it's not half as complicated as some people would have you believe.

Oh I am aware but it's still too "hardcore" for me. You kinda have to take time out of the game to decide your build, gear and such before you even make your character since skill points are that punishing. It's just not my cup of tea which is why I prefer diablo 3 model except for the shallow end game and builds being higly tethered to gear.

[Fencers]

POE style leagues that introduce a new mob types, rules or other global conditions actually fits well with the more breezy style of D3 gameplay. Originally I thought that was the direction of the ladders.

The ladder reset in D2 was kind of a big deal because by comparison D2's end point was not an forgone conclusion. Seeing how far and how much one could achieve in D2 was bigger deal as the game was an asshole to you.

In D2 stuff was more allied against you; you might never find that awesome rune, you might find three SoJs in a week... or none. Reaching the level cap might not ever happen for you.

In D3 it is- reaching the level cap is by design supposed to happen. Drops are tailored for you, the enchanting is stuff you chose, item sets are made for your class, monsters scale to your level.

You are the fucking rock star of D3. It gets dull after a while.

[Fencers]

I have never gotten a single drop in D3 since the loot revamp which was not for my class.

"Trash" is relative. There is someone totally hyped about the pair of Hammer Jammers that just dropped.

[Fencers]

I've had plenty of items that are not for my class

Based on my play experience and knowledge of how Diablo 3 behaves this claim seems extremely rare or dubious.

99.999% of drops are garbage for me regardless.

Your value judgement.

Claiming drops are "Tailored for YOU" would certainly make it sound like - to the unaware - that the game is making sure you're constantly getting what you need.

Tailored for your class is what I meant- per the loot revamp system.

As for someone being hyped about a drop, that's irrelevant to the system, as I'm sure you'd remind any of us if we tried to use such subjectivity as a point.

Irrelevant to the system, but is relevant to the argument of some items being "trash". Which is subjective just as in my example above- one man's trash is another man's treasure. All drops in Diablo 3 are tailored to you regardless.

Trying to turn that around into, "Drops are catered to you, unlike in D2" seems silly and purely nostalgic.

There was no mechanism in place during Diablo 2 that ensured stats were useful to your class in a linear fashion. There was no limited determinism in crafting items. There were no guaranteed legendary items for completing act bosses. There were no staggered item farming areas as in Grifts/Rifts.

You might go a season without seeing a full Marauders set- but you almost* always get gear that is suitable to you in Diablo 3.

*Adding in "almost" here as I am still skeptical of your claim of getting "plenty of items" that are not class appropriate.

[Mormolyce]

I must admit I kind of enjoyed the huge content explosion with this expac release.

That said, I think it'd be better if content was rolled out more progressively. I like how they gave us lots of time before raiding launched this time, I think that was a good move. I would even maybe say things like Brawler's Guild and Challenge Modes could be held off and released after a few months rather than all at the start. The rush of content is fun but also a bit overwhelming.

I'm very concerned over speed though, content needs time to breathe so you can actually have your fill of it before more is released. I really hope all this pressure on them to push things out faster doesn't mean WoD will end too soon, or even that the launch content will become quickly supplanted. I'm really enjoying right now and I want to have enough time that I can enjoy it all, level alts, maybe even play other games before new things arrive to take its place...

Okay I'm terrible, this is the D3 subforum. I'm quite happy with the way D3 is handling content. I view D3 as a pick-it-up and put-it-down game where I don't feel like I'm missing out on stuff that's going to be removed all the time like in WoW (really wish WoW would cut that out). So I don't mind waiting until the next xpac, or maybe having new stuff come in slowly over the intervening time so next time I pick it up there might be a new surprise.

- - - Updated - - -

In D2 stuff was more allied against you; you might never find that awesome rune, you might find three SoJs in a week... or none. Reaching the level cap might not ever happen for you.

I played D2 for... I think 6 years or so. I had 7 accounts full of chars (a lot were mules of course, I had 1-2 of each class of main chars) and I actively tried to collect every set and unique item in the game. Including the Normal/NM ones. Got most of them in the end, had whole mules just full of them.

And I never once got a single SoJ. Which was the unit of currency in D2. True story.

Highest rune I ever got was... one Ohm I think? People complained about drop rates in D3 and I just laughed my ass off...

[Coldkil]

Personally, i think the new development team has a lot of issues with the game because of the core it was built upon. It must not be so easy to recover a game and make it more interesting when the core itself is built around extreme simplicty with the idea of and auction house in mind (which i still think it's one of the major reasons the game has turned out to be so bad at the beginning).

It's simply not like that they can jump in and redo the entire itemization from scratch - they must work with the tools they have in their hand, which we all know being not that good.

New sets/items tier can keep the interest high in a simple way (like all the game has been designed); they can use them to make "viable" new abilities - the risk is that you cannot simply do this indefinetly because the game will reach a bloat point where there re so much sets and stuff to drop that it becomes just a roulette of which set you manage to complete first.

They need to give alternative/parallel way of character progress; example idea is "enchants" that you can "equip" on abilities and they give them additional suffixes - there can be a lot both designed for specific skills (like "your whirlwind had +X yard range") or more general ones ("this skill gets Y% chance to knockback"). These enchants can level up either in a similar way of legendary gems or can level up via monster experience like character does.

It's actually pretty simple to come up to new ideas; it's hard to put them in the game when the means you have to do so are not that good.

[Rotted]

Edit

Just noticed this was a Diablo thread, my bad xD

[Kelimbror]

As a non subscription service game, I actually feel like the updates they provide are exemplary considering we don't pay for them. Not too many other games offer updates of this variety without constant revenue streams that come with F2P games. With that being said, I wouldn't mind new game modes/areas tied into season changes every 3-4 months with an expansion after 2 years. Josh Mosquiera has already corrected pretty much every major flaw from the initial release and I like the ideas his team has.

I play D3 in phases, as it seems to be designed for, and don't need an MMO's equivalent of content. In fact, I would feel a little pushed away if content was given that rapidly as they have other games that demand that sort of attention.

[Deleted]

Smaller for sure, would keep it alot more interesting having something new every couple months

[Fencers]

Scaling levels is not scaling difficulty.

How so? One can play on normal and always have the monsters be relative to your goals- and more importantly the game's goal. One can do this on hard, master, torment, etc. Further one can freely select the mode while within the environment and the game's adversaries adjust accordingly.

That is scaling difficulty. No other game in the genre has this to my knowledge.

When D3 creates a system that autoscales normal through torment 6 based on how well you're playing then you can say D3 innovated something about difficulty scaling.

You are simply describing another feature entirely. Also what relevance is innovation?

Until then they haven't done anything new that other single player games haven't been doing for years.

Name these ARPGs that have monster scaling, environment difficulty selection and free mode difficulty selection within 4 discrete modes of play before Diablo 3.

I can join games in D2 pretty damn easily.

What is the relevance? In D3 joining games is even easier, slicker and designed with greater clarity.

It is highly unlikely we will ever see interfaces like D2 in the ARPG market again post-D3. The implementation of hotjoin MP in D3 is the key feature in contrast to it's predecessors.

So your idea of innovation in ARPGs is removing a few buttons and adding annoying text message bullshit? Give me a break.

I am not understanding your choice of language. Innovation seems rather pointless to my commentary. It has no relevance or importance in the conversation.

Iterative design is however critical to video game design. So streamlining the process and/or designing greater usability in any game of any genre would be noteworthy in contra to preexisting designs by every method of game design and production I know of by AA & AAA development for the mass market.

The exploration mode in D3 is a post completion mode because you had to have beaten the game once to use it. It is no different than WP hopping in D2...

Waypoint hopping was not an integrated design. See above: iteration is critical to the design and production of video games.

No ARPG had a linear story driven campaign with a tiered exploratory mode before Diablo 3. In D3 they are discrete modes of play with their own rules of operation.

I was thinking torchlight 2, but you're right, D3 released 3 months before them. But I am sure they completely reprogrammed their game when they saw what D3 did AMIRIGHT? Same with Marvel heroes, totally reprogrammed their entire loot system to copy D3. LOLOLOL

If they are not first to market than the product has no claim what is brought to market afterward. In particular, the mass market.

I am still not understanding what about any of those bars was not "compact".

10-20 skills is less or as compact as 6? This seems like simple math on one hand. On the other, willfully obtuse to design which emphasizes the usage of a select few abilities over those without any emphasis or a much larger array.

Perhaps what you truly are saying is you dislike the smaller array of skills in the UI of D3. Which is fair- but so what?

You're point being that because D3 hit the market first they get 100% credit for personalized loot and EVERYONE after them copied it right?

Everyone after them is an also-ran in what features they bring to market where overlapping.

So you're telling me 3 months prior to release TL2 reprogrammed its ENTIRE loot system to copy D3?

No. This is an argumentative fallacy you are concocting.

First to market and market share are relevant in talking about what a given product brings to any given market it seeks to compete within. This has nothing to do with "best", "good", "fun" or "innovation".

[Orange Joe]

And they are doing the same exact thing for D3 as well. Hell, they are doing the same exact thing for EVERY SINGLE GAME where the player makes skill choices in any way, shape, or form. Cookie cutter specs will never not be a thing. Get over it.

Show me were I complain about this. You are telling the wrong person to get over it

[Frozen Death Knight]

Can you prove this?

I'm sorry, but the burden of proof is on you. You made a claim as well and provided no evidence.