Diablo 3: The Blizzard Sweatshop

[Marou]

http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/13...zard-sweatshop

Interesting perspective on the RMAH not too far from why I had zero desire to purchase the game.

[Alex Mars]

I'll never buy this game.

[Zavon]

Inb4 Diablo 3 fans have justifications about "smart business models".

[Draconian]

Only part I agree with is the question of whether or not this model can last - are there enough buyers?


I have zero issue with what Blizzard is doing and have enjoyed paying for my game by playing it.

[ofrm1]

Glad I saw through the bullshit hype 2 weeks through release and got a refund. The game is a titanic failure on just about every level that only hopes to capitalize off of diablo 2's success.

[Sillywilly]

Glad I saw through the bullshit hype 2 weeks through release and got a refund. The game is a titanic failure on just about every level that only hopes to capitalize off of diablo 2's success.

This. I saved myself from a wasted $120 by getting the refunds.

You know I'm not sure if the article was hitting on this but the article made the thought occur to me. I think all that happened is that in Diablo 2 Blizzard saw that Stone of Jordans became the real currency and gold was shit. Then they saw how much a SoJ could sell for in real cash and thought it'd be nice if some of that money was passing through their hands.

All this RMAH shit does is encourage Blizzard and future developers to design their games around what will make them the most micro-transaction money, not around what will be the most fun and sell the most copies of the game.

We only thought the quality of the current generation of games was on the decline. If this model catches on it's about to get a HELLUVA lot worse.

[VKhaun]

I have zero issue with what Blizzard is doing and have enjoyed paying for my game by playing it.

This.

I find the game more than enjoyable despite it's flaws, and I can make money off of it to take my other game spending entirely out of my budget. Going to open an e-banking account just for D3 and make that my full gaming budget. $50 new games, steam sales, cash shops, $15/month games, everything. It sounds like a lot as a list like that, but I really don't buy things that often and I'm averaging $15/week in D3 not even trying. I think it's more than feasible.

[Bragi]

And now I have even less reason to use the RMAH. Haven't played D3 in about 2 weeks--it's just one of those "I'm bored, what should I do?" games at this point.

[Marou]

http://www.cinemablend.com/games/Dia...-Up-44005.html

Related.

Also, a post I read on Gamespy from a user called "DeathToEA" basically told me every concern I had that prevented me purchasing it was valid. Go old age?

"At its fundamental core, Diablo III is a game that's not about building a character, but finding the right loot. This is the most important change from Diablo I/II, where the focus was on building a character and that loot you found simply increased your survivability and made your skills more potent.

The loot-first focus of the game isn't necessarily a bad thing, and Blizzard's idea for how players are supposed to farm loot was fundamentally sound. Instead of farming bosses, we had to clear normal areas, kill random champions, and advance through the game. In other words, to get loot, you had to actually *play the game*, which to me is a welcome change from teleporting through the Catacombs level 2 and 3 just to kill Andariel 20 times in an hour. The farming idea behind D3 was one that forced you to use your build, use your skills, and play your character in order to get gear, as opposed to canal trapping Mephisto and kiting Andariel around stacks of barrels.

In reality though, the game was poorly executed in almost every facet, with bugs and incomplete features all over the place. These problems all snowballed together and ultimately made their approach to farming look stupid. Most importantly, why is Snot Jaw the Inevitable the random unique pack leader in the Keep Level 3 several times more powerful than Diablo himself? There are so few attributes that random unique packs can have that the probability of running into a horrible, nearly unkillable pack is very high, especially if you aren't perfectly geared or are on hardcore. This makes framing these packs *less* desirable than farming bosses, who are much easier and less dangerous to fight. Pack farming is only efficient if you have already outgeared the content - in other words, item farming in the way Blizzard intended is only worth doing if you already have the gear you are trying to farm.

As for the subject of the article, no, it's not an RPG. It's an action game. But this is the trend nowadays, with RPG elements steadily being stripped out of games while the RPG tag remaining attached to the game, often to lure in RPG gamers and in the case of a sequel, to lend legitimacy to its claim as part of a legacy; Diablo III would be seen by many as unworthy of the name Diablo if it was not marketed as half RPG.

In fact, the removal of character customization has caused one of the game's biggest faults: the over-reliance on gear. Items in this game are very powerful and make a ridiculous difference. A couple items can change a completely undoable pack into being killable before enrage. If players were still able to assign points at level up, or at the very least if we gained more attributes on level-up, then our characters would be more powerful without the best gear and still able to kill packs. Those five points per level in Diablo II were huge - even without great gear, you could still kill things in Diablo II because you could dump lots of points into VItality to get more health, or Dexterity to increase your block rate. Even without a good shield, you could still have a high chance to block because you had lots of points in Dexterity. Without the ability to do this in D3, having a decent block rate depends solely on having a top-of-the-line shield.

Then of course, there is the 'builds' issue. There are still builds in D3, though dumbed down and far simpler. Now your build consists solely of what six skills and runes you pick. Unfortunately, many classes have only 1-3 optimal builds. Wizard especially pretty much has only one optimal build at level 60, with the only difference being whether to use Imbue Weapon or Blizzard, a difference that is usually solved by whether you're on hardcore or not. Think of how many optimal builds the paladin had in D2: Hammerdin, Zealer, Smiter, 1-smiter, charger, even Fist of Heavens for PvP. These builds were all optimal even without good gear, if you knew where to put your skill points. Because of the simplified mechanics of D3, many skills and runes are rendered almost completely useless, and many are only useful in on a specific story boss. Unfortunately, the Nephalem Buff mechanic limits how much you can experiment with your build during a game.

Isn't that a problem though? In D2, you had all of your skills unlocked by level 30; by the time you finished normal, you had every skill available. You had all of nightmare to experiment with those skills and than Hell to finalize what you want to use. In D3, you don't unlock your last rune until the very end, level 60. Basically, you don't even have all your skills available to you until the moment you step into Inferno. Since the skill balance in the game is atrocious, resulting in some skills scaling very well from single-digit levels and others scaling very poorly, it's not uncommon for players to walk into Inferno still using skills and runes they unlocked before level 10 and having not even used many of the other skills and the vast majority of their runes.

Why? Because the game didn't give them an opportunity to test their high-level abilities extensively, and falsely leads them into thinking low-level skills that have scaled well through Hell will continue to be useful in Inferno. In fact, some low-level skills that were powerful up through Hell become completely useless in Inferno. They throw you into the main difficulty of the game without even giving you a chance to become comfortable with all your abilities - indeed, the game really doesn't even begin until Inferno, and everyone with eyes can see almost every aspect of the game's design lends itself to this approach. Except, of course, the poor decision to pace the skill system out this way.

Removal of RPG aspects, poorly thought out design decisions that unbalance the game, a self-defeating approach to loot farming, a requirement to have good loot in order to do anything, laughable bugs and oversights like repeatable quests to farm experience and level to 60 in three hours - yeah, great game. No, not really. This game is a joke, and it confuses me how so many like it. It annoys me that 98% of all reviewers gave this game glowing scores despite not even playing past nightmare. I use my copy of this game as a means to let some of my friends try it out and see what they think of it. I didn't get my money's worth out of the game, but maybe other can for me."

[VKhaun]

"At its fundamental core, Diablo III is a game that's not about building a character, but finding the right loot. This is the most important change from Diablo I/II, where the focus was on building a character and that loot you found simply increased your survivability and made your skills more potent.

I get so tired of the spec/character building point...

You had all of nightmare to experiment with those skills and than Hell to finalize what you want to use.

THAT IS SHIT and you should know it M

D2 and every other ARPG was only good 'character building' when you looked at a character builder application. Not when you played for 60+ hours just painting by numbers to follow your skill plan. Everything good about that system is alive and well in D3 because of nephelim valor buff dropping when you change a skill, which means very straightforwardly that FINDING ITEMS = MUST MAKE A BUILD. Everything bad about that system is fixed in D3. You can experiment, you can RESPEC, you can misclick, and you can have variety in how your character plays. Leveling is interesting and keeps giving you new things, instead of just waiting for 'the' skill you're speccing synergies for.

Blizzard fucked up so many things in this game it makes my brain hurt, and BNet is still shit, but god damnit I like this genre of games and I'm tired of everyone acting like the wheel was better square.

[Zoobi]

This feels like hellgate london all over again.

[Sillywilly]

[url] 'lotta truth

It only makes sense that a developer who decided to try and make money off of RMAH transactions would make the game revolve around gear. I mean, the more important the gear grind is too progressing in the game the more people will want it and the more people will want it the more willing they will be to use the RMAH to get it.

For me D3 was the game Blizzard made as a cheap shot excuse for generating easy money, not by way of massive sales of a great game like Diablo and D2.

[Marou]

D2 and every other ARPG was only good 'character building' when you looked at a character builder application. Not when you played for 60+ hours just painting by numbers to follow your skill plan. Everything good about that system is alive and well in D3 because of nephelim valor buff dropping when you change a skill, which means very straightforwardly that FINDING ITEMS = MUST MAKE A BUILD. Everything bad about that system is fixed in D3. You can experiment, you can RESPEC, you can misclick, and you can have variety in how your character plays. Leveling is interesting and keeps giving you new things, instead of just waiting for 'the' skill you're speccing synergies for.

Experimenting with esoteric builds is what kept me playing D2 on and off for months on several occasions.

I had one sorceress focused on Frozen Orb (of course), another on Firewall, another on chain lightning *and* Frozen Orb (my most effective). Quite a few that tried to somehow make viable builds with Meteor/Fireball (decent in Act V, horrible in IV Hell Difficulty). Another that focused on those fire summons and glacial spike (very effective). These characters were made through a combination of trial and error, as well as the incentive to reroll whenever I'd sometimes find exceedingly good items. This is just the sorceress(es). I also had several varieties of Amazon, and Paladin. It's also worth noting that none of these characters had the same attribute spreads. How I distributed was totally based on what items I had available to me.

The furthest I ever got on hardcore was Brimm Fucking sparkfist in Nightmare Act III with a Firewall sorc.

When I'd make a pretty effective character that could farm everything in the game, I would do so off and on for a few days until some drop would inspire me to start another character. The highest level I ever got any single character is probably between 70 and 75. Diablo 3 was made for people that played Diablo 2 very differently than how I did. I didn't play Diablo 2 after they added "synergies". At that point I had already irrevocably lost my BNet account due to it being associated with some old dial up email from the mid 90's I used to create it for Diablo 1.

[Zavon]

Vkhaun, I think that them allowing you to respec willy nilly, actually was a step back.

Before, when you had to start an entirely new character just to try out a new playstyle, it shifted the focus to the choices *you made*. Now, it doesn't matter. Its like the soul has been ripped from the series (coincidentally a staple occurance in the game itself).

[ofrm1]

The reason D2 works and D3 doesn't is simple. One gives you a reason to play through the game more than 20 times and the other doesn't. Everything Marou said in his last post is enigmatic of why D2 is still around and why D3 won't be 10 years after release. No one is going to bother making a second monk or DH when you have access to everything on the first one.

This is all ignoring the gear issue which is a whole other problem with the game.

[Zavon]

Yeah I basically said the same thing as that, but just added a "why"

100% agree

[Valec]

Vkhaun, I think that them allowing you to respec willy nilly, actually was a step back.

Before, when you had to start an entirely new character just to try out a new playstyle, it shifted the focus to the choices *you made*. Now, it doesn't matter. Its like the soul has been ripped from the series (coincidentally a staple occurance in the game itself).

Disagree. Forcing people to roll new characters to try a new spec is an archaic idea and doesn't really improve on fun. I know personally, i'm not going to bother rolling another character for this reason(hypothetically).

Also, they added respecs to Diablo 2, if i'm not mistaken. I can't think of too many games now that don't have respecs now, and for good reason. It's annoying and also punishes new players who don't know how effective x skill is until they've selected it.

[Zavon]

But how do you balance consequence of choices, with a meaningless free for all?

I contend that this free for all method of "no punishment" completely removes any incentive for replayability.

[Valec]

But how do you balance consequence of choices, with a meaningless free for all?

I contend that this free for all method of "no punishment" completely removes any incentive for replayability.

I don't know, honestly. However I still feel the idea of games with an end game that have zero ability to respecialize are obnoxious. I don't want to make a whole new character and run through the same content(which is now almost completely inconsequential since you'll need nothing that drops along the way) just to, say, try a new spec. Or, god forbid, whatever I am specialized in is hit with a hard nerf. I'm expected to roll a new character now because attempts at balance rendered my current one shitty?

I just have never felt not allowing respecs to be a good thing in any way. I'm traditionally okay with getting them being a task, but I prefer it to be quick and easy.

[Zavon]

But the question here is did you feel that way at the time? In my experience in D2, just like Marous, id play again to try some crazy build.

It made the gameplay so different on a character to character basis, that each character and experirnce felt totally unique.

[Sillywilly]

But the question here is did you feel that way at the time? In my experience in D2, just like Marous, id play again to try some crazy build.

It made the gameplay so different on a character to character basis, that each character and experirnce felt totally unique.

I made several different kinds of toons just for that purpose.

Hell I did that in DAoC too. I had an armsman that was specced polearm, sword and board and then I had a saracen that I went all qui/dex/con and put all my points into shield and parry and only the left overs into slash.

[Zavon]

Yeah, see that consequence of failing or succeeding on the choices that *I* made are what gave me a sense of accomplishment from playing D2.

Instead of there being just 5 classes, I had 50 to play with.

I did the same thing in DAOC Silly. That kund of thing gives you pride in your character.

[Valec]

But the question here is did you feel that way at the time? In my experience in D2, just like Marous, id play again to try some crazy build.

It made the gameplay so different on a character to character basis, that each character and experirnce felt totally unique.

Yes, I did feel that way at the time. I didn't even bother completing the game with anything but the Barbarian, and not really on that either, since I got bored by Nightmare. I don't love running through the same content over and over, I never have. The only reason I let MMORPGs do this to me is because of end-game, which in my case, has to be PVP. Typically I prefer, in these cases, to rush through the content as quickly as possible to be ready for PVP. I don't mind raiding, but not the same damned dungeon 20 times. Usually the novelty of playing something 'new' in pve wears off for me pretty fast and all i'm gaining on the way is a better understanding of my abilities, which is a pro assuming my abilities actually require getting used to. Regardless, i'll still try to burn my way through content asap.

[VKhaun]

--.

You're not linking the two things.
Why does being forced to reroll have anything to do with what you liked or experimented with?
Why is it less satisfying to experiment in real time rather than spend two days waiting to see a change?

... it shifted the focus to the choices *you made*. Now, it doesn't matter.

Hyperbole. Of course your skill choices still matter. Especially end-game where they should matter most.

Yeah, see that consequence of failing or succeeding on the choices that *I* made are what gave me a sense of accomplishment from playing D2.

Instead of there being just 5 classes, I had 50 to play with.

You are choosing the frame it this way... D3 has more builds than D2 did plain and simple. More skills, and runes change how each one synergizes, or even makes them into new skills. What you choose to play at any given time obviously still matters. The only difference is you don't have the wasted time and can keep playing the game at the setting you like. There is no reason to make the wheel square again and force everyone to replay to change builds.

Hell the whole community BEGGED for respecs for years.
I shouldn't even have to make this argument.
No one wanted this, they all wanted round wheels from the beginning.

[VKhaun]

It's like an old man in the park walking all the way home to put his chess pieces away in a safe and walking all the way back before taking his next turn, every time his opponent takes one and saying he likes it because it makes him 'play more conservatively'. No one would do that by choice, and no one would play with that guy because it would take days to have one game.

Just play more conservatively if that's what you want. Don't change your skills, or don't use skills until you get the ones you planned on if you like it that way... you won't... just like no old man is going to fucking walk home between turns... because it was always nonsense. It was ALWAYS stupid. It was always rolling along on a square wheel making people unable to change anything.




The word missing from your argument is 'unique'. The point of building and speccing and itemizing without respecs is to build something entirely your own. D2 never had enough viable options to do that. No ARPG I have ever played has ever had enough viable variations to actually accomplish that, and even if you feel D2 did it had no preview mechanic to know what you were going after so it's nonsense to use the word 'pride' because you either guessed what you'd like, you copied someone else, or you wasted a ton of time experimenting and picked one of the few viable builds. That wasn't you. That was just picking the best skills for you just like in D3, except you wasted a ton of time figuring out what they were.

The only action/rpg game I saw do unique building right was Planet-Side. They had a giant map that was a kind of virtual reality sim where you could try everything in the game so you knew what you wanted. I personally hated respecs and cert packs in that game and I feel like they ruined it's balance. Because a person really could be unique, and really did have a viable way to build something unique on purpose. That was never there in D2. Too many skills were just outright failures, and even if blizz fixed them all, the skill system made going for skills you liked horrifically restrictive throughout most of the game and made you hold your points, again, just to get to a new guess or follow a guide.