"A Message from Mike Morhaime"

[Injera]

A Message from Mike Morhaime

Pretty interesting that they decided to go above the developers. A couple of points some here might find interesting in terms of future changes.

Regarding the real-money auction house, our primary goal for including this in the game was to provide convenience and peace of mind for those players who might otherwise turn to third-party services to buy items. Black market trading sites can put accounts at risk and create many customer service challenges. We felt that the players themselves also deserved the opportunity to benefit from the extra loot they found, as opposed to having all of the benefit go to the black market/illegal trading organizations. We know the auction house isn’t perfect, but with your help and feedback, we’ll be able to continue making it a better experience for those who choose to use it. On the flipside, we are also committed to ensuring you have a great experience with Diablo III without feeling like the auction house is mandatory, which was never our intention. Thank you for all the feedback about that.

We’re also working on a gameplay system that will provide players who have max-level, high-powered characters new goals to strive for as an alternative to the “item hunt.” We’re not ready to get into specifics just yet, but I can say that we’re actively taking your feedback into account as we plan out the future of the game.

[KingOfPain]

Thumbs up to Bliz for this one!

D3 has huge problems and unless they are improved (in the magnitude that D2 went through) in future patches, D3 dev team will be known the ones who killed the Diablo legacy.

I know some of you can't handle negative comments on the game, and even take it personally (Which baffles me). Such fanboyism is probably what let game makers think they can be sloppy and get away with littering the game with one hit killers. There's been no more bliz dissing now than there ever was for D1 and D2. But you know how we love D1 and D2; and we (RB and LL - more or less interchangeable then) have made our fair share of contributions. Hiding our heads in the sand does not help the game, nor this community. Sure, it will be good if we can talk more about strategies and fun things to do... But this is exactly where D3 fails!

We at RB are tinkerers. If there are meaningful strats or fun to be had, we will be talking about it. If D3 has legs, we will have builds and variants. This community was built on Diablo with die-hard fans of the franchise. We all eagerly waited for this day. We want to love this game.

Look at the Diablo traffic here, and even at the LL, the forums might as well be considered dead (especially in comparison to the former glory). And, on my friend's list are full of people who haven't log'd for weeks

But this is exactly where D3 fails!

The problem is not the end game. People are not playing period, the journey itself is not fun enough.

The problem is not the difficulty balance whether it's too easy or too hard. It can be easily tweaked.

The problem is not the (RM)AH. Item drop can be tweaked easily.

The problem, the game is just not fun! It is a polished game and one would get his/her money's worth. But the game has no legs. The devs are good at what they do. I mean, they even managed to have monsters cast Confuse/Fear at the player and have it work. I always thought that's one awesome feat. Too bad the devs are working for the wrong people (um monsters) instead of the players.
They have turned the table around against the players.
They gave the monsters all the fun skills,
and tried to limit the ways the players can play. They punish the players for getting creative.

(sorry on my way to work, it will be quick outlines. might expand on it later)
D2, with all it flaws, was fun.
The game let you do almost anything.
The game has all sort of crazy skills that are fun, let you create all sorts of builds that are distinctively different.
Skills that you interact with, that made you play different.
Items are fun. Even lowly sets/uniques has some properties that are desirable and fun.

The speed and number of monsters the game throws at the player kills D3 in the Feel department. How can you have meaningful feedback when too much is happening. Example Strafe and Whirlwind. Further example of feel and of item fun - WhirlWind with IceBlink and or Cleglaw glove.

Sorry for a sloppy post, but I tried to say too much before running off to work ;p

[Lewwyn]

D3 is boring. There's nothing driving me to play. D2 I was obsessive because there were particular items I was trying to get or a level I was trying to reach. I miss wanting something. I also hate how trapped into the linear I feel. In D3 you have a quest that you're doing or whatever but I don't want to feel like the quest is driving me all the time. I miss being able to waypoint between acts or wherever I want to go.

Dunno. It needs work. When it was coming out I kept telling people to wait and see the game. And it was okay for a bit. But I really feel like it has run its course.

I don't buy a lot of new games. I always feel like they're too polished and generic. It seems D3 is a lot like that. I would still play D2...

Here's hoping they make it unboring.

[Dr.Disaster]

Thumbs up to Bliz for this one!

It's far too early for a thumbs up because we have no idea in which way they want to "change" D3. Reading Mike's post did not reassure me here. It leaves me with a gut feeling the much-needed quantum leap will become a very short hop.

D3 has huge problems and unless they are improved (in the magnitude that D2 went through) in future patches, D3 dev team will be known the ones who killed the Diablo legacy.

Let's hope they get it done but right now i'm into "Seeing is believing" mode. No more kudos in advance from me. One 4 year hype followed by a 2 month crash is enough.


Just consider this quote. It is part of an interview on GameBanshee.com done with one of the four (4!) person dev team behind Legend of Grimrock:

"GB: What is your definition of an RPG? What are the key elements that any respectable role-playing game should possess?

Petri: What separates RPGs from other type of games is the emphasis on characters and character development, and the separation of player skills and character skills. In encounters, be they action or story oriented, character skills are as important as player skills in determining the outcome. A good RPG also tells a story, but it does not have to be some predetermine epic storyline that the game designer has envisioned. If the game allows the player to use his own imagination to create his own stories about the characters and their deeds in the game world, the stories can be more fulfilling and richer to the player. A game with no predetermined story can tell a thousand stories."

I can't agree more to that. D1 and D2 did all of the above and worked great while D3 does none of it.

[Kristian95]

First Civ and now Diablo.... I guess good classics are meant to be destroyed

[KingOfPain]

I gave the thumbs up to Mike for publicly acknowledge D3 has serious issues. Of course he can't just come right out and say "We really fucked up", but for him to be addressing the issue and hopefully do some damage control that's just what he is saying.

Maybe the numbers are too much to be ignored. According to different sources, the player base has dropped to 1/2 (xfire), to as little as 1/3 (Gametrics). That's no small beans when we are talking ~7 million.

[Cyrene]

of course, they already have our money, so the smaller the player base the fewer servers they need 8-).

they can wait, and fix it in the first expansion, *then* make the money on the rmah 8-)

initial sales on the expansion will suck, but, if it is really fixed, they will suck us all back in. no, i don't think that was the plan. mind, nor was it my plan to use 'suck' twice in the same sentence.

i still like the game more than most here.

really

i could write a wall of text vis a vis my annoyances with the game, but it mostly boils down to feeling like the devs decided what should be fun, and intended to hit us on the head until we played the game their way, because otherwise we were being stubborn and had not seen the light.

not really the way D1 and D2 worked.

there were a zillion ways to play both of those.

(leaving out D1, as it was so different) in D2, the character was all in stats and skills. items didn't really matter. they were cool and a great starting point for a whole new build. you'd find some clegs or something and think--'oh cool, i could start a character that centered on this one item'. but, really, you didn't need items to run the entire game. i made a blaze sorcie just because i didn't see how sirian's could work.

it did.

i once was play-testing a concept character for a playstyle/variant in D2. Cy_Busted. Based on a Las Vegas Blackjack theme--she always hit (so usually busted). All she could use were skills that always hit, which meant whichever ice arrow that was, and guided arrow. that's it. no dex on an amazon. leather armor only, to show off, erm, *cough*, and no hat.

was a rocky start, but by late nightmare/early hell she was stupidly overpowered

i mean, she could play in public hell diff games and just rip. best part was when i joined games and people went wtf over my leather armor and no hat. didn't last long, though. heh.

anyway, items were cool and nice and a central part of the game, but you could also ignore them, if you wanted.

in D3, not so much...

and, i've run WoW characters up to 65 in BC and fresh ones up to 85 in Cata, and i don't mind the item thing, if i have some control. random stuff is cool. what chaps my mouse is (1) i have 2 clvl 60's in D3 and two more alts somewhere in the process, and have never once, not one single time, gotten an item i needed to level up for. not. once. nothing to look forwards to. 99% of the things i have gotten are only good for future alts. (2) somewhere mid-hell it goes gear-check, and i can't get around it with attrib, skills, or taking my time. then, of course, in inferno there are enrage timers, so everything is a timed event...

now, WoW can be gear-check, but there are guaranteed ways to beat it. not random drop ways to beat it. random drops are the best, which is fine. but there are multiple ways to guarantee you get an item at about 95% of the best random drop. or at least 90%

[Dr.Disaster]

Aye Cy in one point you pretty much summed it up: with character development and gear upgrades being 2 different roads playing is fun and random stats on gear are not a problem. In D3 character development got entirely replaced by gear upgrades. With fully randomized stats on said gear char development becomes constant gambling most of the time. That's why people play the auction house subgame instead of farming gear in-game. If Blizzard does not realize this and reading Mike's post tells me they do not there won't be a long-term fun factor for me. It does not matter how much new content Blizzard may add in the future. When the basics stay flawed D3 has no future.

One more point which is not mentioned so often but really massively annoys me are those forced conversations and cutscenes everywhere. Granted, that's nice for the first and even second playthru. But still being forced to follow the mainstory after a dozen and more games is a mayor fail. I won't be surprised if people dump the game after a few runs because of this.

BTW: what the .. "playing a game as the devs want us to" ?? Cy this is RB for a reason! No wonder why KoP and others see people in his/her f-list who were not on for days/weeks.

[KingOfPain]

Nod Cy & Doc. Seems Bliz is focused on fixing the end game stuff, which is nice but not the main problem by far. Make the journey fun, ie, WTF, you want me to spend 50 (ymmv) boring hours just to get to inferno to spend more boring hours to hunt for items!?!? I mean, I am playing HC to find my thrills and even with the chance of a character wipe at any moment, I often get so bored I play one handed.


They have to put the fun back in the skills and make the journey fun. They have to want the game to be fun, more than the will to make the game superficially more challenging.

The best example is the Nephalem Valor. They made it so you have to repeatedly farm for items to progress, but they don't want to make it easy or fun, so they give you a bonus on MF if you spend hundreds of hours farming using the same boring skills doing the same boring runs. A total different philosophy from GW, which encourages and supplies you ways to quickly change your skills to meet situational challenges.

They have to put the fun back in the skills. My biggest peeve, for example: Really, Teleport is so out of control you need to put it on a timer, while a DH can backflip all the way home!? Couldn't they just up the mana cost? The same goes with barb's Furious Charge, finally there's one fun skill (since WhirlWind is totally lame now) for the barb and it's on a 10 sec timer. Sure there's the Merciless Assault that will cut 2 sec off from each monsters hit. Couldn't they just nerf the dmg if it's overpowered? Just two example out of many.

And sometimes, they just do a half ass job like Trap skills for the DH. 2 traps, that's it!?

There are two major problems to over come in order to fix the unfun, one is resource management and the other is monster speed. The latter is going to be a bitch to fix since the whole challenge of the game is based on monster speed.

I really don't like how they handled the resource management! A lot of the fun is taken away from the player based on limited resources and how they are generated. I mean, I am at max lvl cap, I have just saved the world, no, make that I have just saved haven and restored order on the realms... And I am out of mana after 4 fireballs? What about toning down the damage or make the skill slower (yikes, did I say that?) but not be constantly have the toons remind me "I can't do that" because I am out of this and that resource. Yeah I know there are some ways to fix some of these problems, but at what cost?


Monster speed, and by necessity slower player walk speed. I thought wow if I can enjoy D3 I can enjoy playing D1 again. Please do yourselves a favor, scarify any stats you might need and be willing to die more often, but get yourselves some movement speed. Your game will be so much more enjoyable.

Monster speed and the amount of monsters they throw at you at one time takes away all the feel/feedback that are so essential to immersion. This is where D1 shines even over D2. You can feel every stun, it feels real when your sword hits a shield, you can swear you can feel your carefully preserved Thinking Cap is losing durability. And who can forget that satisfying feeling when you chopped down an Illusion Weaver? How many times you felt embarrassed having found yourself leaning on one side of your chair trying to bend that arrow oh so slightly?

The amount of monsters also creates balance issues. For one, they have to make most mobs do so little damage to be irrelevant. If each monster does a handful more damage you'll be spiked to death all over the map. The amount of monsters makes you feel you are just going through the motions. There are simply too many at time to make out the scene so you just click and hope for the best.

Monster speed takes away players crowd control skills. (How many fun builds this alone eliminated?) Instead of having fun and introducing Tactics into the game, you have practically no control over the battle. You are controlled by the monsters, the AI is having fun but you are not.

... to be continued...

[KingOfPain]

So why are we dissing the game? We are not. This is dissecting the game and see what make it fail, and maybe ways to improve it. Hopefully some energetic soul will compile a list and make it seen.