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Jack Trades posted:They updated the game to be worse and grindier after launch. If I kill enough golden geese maybe I’ll find one that keeps laying eggs
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Mar 27, 2023 18:22
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Can't make a golden omelette without breaking some golden eggs!
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Mar 27, 2023 18:26
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GaaS GaaS GaaS! I'm gonna step on the GaaS!
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Mar 27, 2023 18:46
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This CaaR ain't got no brakes
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Mar 27, 2023 18:50
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Do the Jock Games (Madden, FIFA, 2K, CoD) make tons of GaaS money or something, what's driving this
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Mar 27, 2023 18:52
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zoux posted:Do the Jock Games (Madden, FIFA, 2K, CoD) make tons of GaaS money or something, what's driving this they all have like card pack poo poo now i think
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Mar 27, 2023 18:53
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zoux posted:Do the Jock Games (Madden, FIFA, 2K, CoD) make tons of GaaS money or something, what's driving this FIFA makes a poo poo ton on their trading card Dream Team thingy.
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Mar 27, 2023 18:53
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zoux posted:Do the Jock Games (Madden, FIFA, 2K, CoD) make tons of GaaS money or something, what's driving this It's Fortnite.
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Mar 27, 2023 18:54
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mycot posted:It's Fortnite. Ah, so they're after mothers' credit card money
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Mar 27, 2023 18:55
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zoux posted:Do the Jock Games (Madden, FIFA, 2K, CoD) make tons of GaaS money or something, what's driving this EA made over $3.9 billion in 2022 off of "extra content sales". Jock Jams are a massive driver for this
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Mar 27, 2023 19:05
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singateco posted:This kind of 'simplifying/removing decisions because they are basically the same thing' mentality leads to boring rear end game all the time, because they really never are the same thing. Normally I would say that the builds just gets posted online and these are not usually considered meaningful decisions. This is usually the case and remains true of most games that hide behind a wall of minor, near-meaningless incremental decisions. However, Diablo and its imitators are notoriously light on decisions outside of gear and build obfuscation, as the core gameplay is simple enough and sufficiently undemanding that moment-to-moment decision making barely exists outside of hardcore mode. So I can see why removing this from D3 was controversial. That said, they eventually made up for it by the level 70 rift-based gameplay bring sufficiently fast paced and high-risk that the moment to moment decision making made up for the lack of gear trash decision making by a long shot. You still had to piece together the rest of the build, the set bonuses just told you what baseline stuff you absolutely needed to put in for your set-based subclass to function. As yes, these were functionally subclasses. And it was sufficiently complex in the end, in spite of the streamlining, that people still theory crafted builds and posted them online, anyway, so it feels like your initial complaint about it comes from a place of assumptions and flavor rather than hands on experience.
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Mar 27, 2023 19:34
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And yes, the way sets worked in D3 wasn't to simplify gear, it really was about functionally creating a subclass/specialization that played differently, sometimes dramatically so, from other sets. The summon-based necromancer was all about steady progress since your damage is tied to summons, but the corpse explosion necromancer is basically like playing Pac-Man on speed since you're fast but helpless until your I Win button comes online. So you're kiting large groups of jobs and elites waiting for your power pill button to come back online, at which point everything that was chasing you starts exploding in a chain of blood and bone shrapnel.
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Mar 27, 2023 19:44
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goferchan posted:The strong D3 builds that don't use a set instead use an item that basically says "gain 1,000,000% extra damage if you don't have a set equipped". And yet most builds still use sets D3 is like a masterclass of poor item design, they dug themselves into a hole with every aspect of the gearing system. Even the sets work this way - "Equip this entire set and then [ability] does 1,000,000% damage and hits extra targets and casts itself automatically!". It has very few pivotal items that don't just plainly buff a specific skill, and the buffs the sets/items give to those specific skills are so astronomically large that you'd have to be off your rocker to not use them - like, dozens of orders of magnitude stronger than any skill can be without a similar gear-based increase. The only decisions to make are "Do I want the DEMONGOD CROSSBOW to have 10% attack speed or 10% damage?" and you don't even have to think that out for yourself because the game shows you very clearly how much each one affects your DPS in the tooltips - 'oh well the 10% attack speed gives me +38% damage and the 10% damage actually only increases my overall dps by 6%' Compared to D2, which I think is pretty much top dog of ARPG loot, where some of the best items are things like "a ring that gives you lifesteal" or other 'generalist' type uniques - a mask that gives a lot of attack speed, an amulet that gives +allskills and +allresist, a belt with faster cast rating, etc. They're (mostly) all generalist pieces that work for a wide array of builds, meaning instead of "get items -> select skills that those items buff" it's more like "choose skills -> look for items that provide stats that help with those skills". I think this in large part came from their decision to allow unlimited respecs because now an item that boosts a specific skill "isn't useless" if you're not using that skill (because you can just switch to that skill), so they stopped trying to design 'generalist' items that players can mix and match to make a build out of, and started just making skill-specific items. It became pretty clear around TBC/WOTLK era WoW that Blizzard had no idea how to design fun/exciting/good gear anymore (when they famously spoke about how it's important to make most of the gear in the game entirely useless so that players get a bigger dopamine rush when they find the pieces that aren't) - they design their loot around the mobile gaming addiction model now instead of as actual good game mechanics. deep dish peat moss fucked around with this message at 19:54 on Mar 27, 2023 |
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Mar 27, 2023 19:50
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D2 and D2-inspired games like Grim Dawn are so loving boring because you're just stacking numbers and I'm allergic to spreadsheets.
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Mar 27, 2023 19:53
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I love both games but holding up D2 as some masterclass in item design is pretty laughable. Without exaggeration, 99% of all player power is bound up in like 4-5 runewords and a vanishingly small number of useful uniques. And unlike D3 there's not even any real differentiation among sets, the answer for the chestpiece slot is literally "Enigma" for 6/7 classes, Spirit for 5/7 classes on shields and some combination of SoJ/BKWB/Raven for rings. All classes, all specs. And don't say "well you can get through Hell without these items" because the exact same could be said of any suboptimal D3 set.
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Mar 27, 2023 19:55
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The big difference between Enigma in D2 and set chests in D3 are that in D2 it's a QoL piece that you reach for throughout an entire season (or until you can afford it) and that you craft yourself (by finding the right base item and collecting the runes) and there's a lot of player interactivity involved with getting it in the first place. It doesn't even make you strong, it just lets you teleport. Compared to D3 where you hit max level and the game gives you a Season Cache with a "wear this" chestpiece that dictates your build, and there are 2 other chestpieces you will find shortly as flat-out drops that will allow you to use two other builds, and throughout the season you will be hoping to find a version of one of those same 3 chestpieces but with extra stats. (edit: I will say that I have not played D2 resurrected so IDK if anything changed for it, only the original D2/LOD) deep dish peat moss fucked around with this message at 20:02 on Mar 27, 2023 |
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Mar 27, 2023 19:59
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Is VR that prevalent on PC that Half-Life: Alyx has that many positive reviews? I've always wanted to play it but just can't justify another VR headset after the PSVR on the PS4.
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Mar 27, 2023 20:02
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I like to play games like diablo to see numbers go up, monsters go squish good, and to dress up my hunched back witch doctor in swag. 9 times out of 10 I get bored and just roll a new character before I reach level 70 anyways lol so what do I care about the minmax hellscape that is post-endgame ARPGs?
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Mar 27, 2023 20:05
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Rusty posted:I haven't played it, but I saw a video recently on Ghostlore which is a diablo2 like in EA. It's on gamep rear end if anyone wanted to try it out
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Mar 27, 2023 20:06
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Kin posted:Is VR that prevalent on PC that Half-Life: Alyx has that many positive reviews? It's more that anyone with a VR headset on PC has played Alyx, because it's one of maybe 2 or 3 VR games ever released that feel like actual games and not just tech demos. There are some real neat VR experiences like Alyx, Elite Dangerous, Boneworks, etc. but most of them will require a non-traditional gaming space (e.g. a large open room with no obstacles for roomscale or body-movement based games [which is 99% of VR content]) and end up feeling more like DDR than traditional videogames. I was so unenthused with VR gaming that I gave my quest and my PSVR away, I was hoping for more 'traditional' games but VR devs are not interested in making traditional games that just happen to use VR, they all want to make move-control roomscale games holodeck games and the technology is just not there yet.
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Mar 27, 2023 20:08
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Nobody who has played D2 for any appreciable amount of time would ever say "what's the big deal with Enigma, all it does is give you Teleport" lol. It would still be a Top 2 chestpiece in the game even without TP, simply because of its incredibly good itemization at every level. It's not a QoL piece at all, not if you're serious about coming anywhere near the clear speed and farming ability that all Sorcs get for free. If you don't care about that stuff then that's fine, but then I ask, why would you also care about D3 sets just giving you an archetype to work with if you're not worried about playing suboptimally?
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Mar 27, 2023 20:09
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Yeah why would you use anything other than Enigma, an item that uses a rune that has a 1 in 60,000 chance of dropping from bosses, a rune that if you kill a council member you have a 5% chance of having a 10% chance of having a 0.08% chance of getting.
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Mar 27, 2023 20:12
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I played a shitload of D2, it is easily my most played game of all time. Anyone who played (original) D2 for any appreciable amount of time also played D2 primarily by botting for drops, usually with multiple characters at once, and yes you do rush an Enigma on each one of them because you want to be able to bot faster. It's a massive QoL item. The main reason it "has great itemization" is that there aren't a ton of good chestpieces in the game, but itemization-wise everyone is fine just using a Leviathan or whatever - the point of the Enigma is the teleport and the QoL it provides. I do care about farming efficiency but that doesn't play into D3's awful itemization either way - it's a game with three clear viable gear sets for each class and each one locks you into a specific skill build. That's just incredibly boring design, especially as the sequel to a game that had massive viable build diversity (and before you say 'but everyone used frozen orb or whatever!!!" that's just flat-out wrong - that's what everyone used on their MF sorc bot, not for actually playing!) e: as for not needing Enigma to play: the end-game consisted entirely of baal runs, which you do not need teleport or enigma for at all, because someone else in the group will always have it and will Town Portal to baal a few seconds after opening the game. The only thing you 'needed' enigma for was playing solo, which I guess is a thing? But I never played D2 solo. deep dish peat moss fucked around with this message at 20:18 on Mar 27, 2023 |
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Mar 27, 2023 20:12
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Volte posted:Yeah why would you use anything other than Enigma, an item that uses a rune that has a 1 in 60,000 chance of dropping from bosses, an item that if you kill a council member you have a 5% chance of having a 10% chance of having a 0.08% chance of getting. Yes it's incredibly stupid, this is why D2 itemization is stupid and not good.
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Mar 27, 2023 20:14
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Kin posted:Is VR that prevalent on PC that Half-Life: Alyx has that many positive reviews? It's one of the best PC VR games, but still has half as many reviews as Doom Eternal. There are some good games and great experiences in VR, but it would undeniably benefit from more good games to justify buying into the ecosystem. Even the "low cost" Quest is a few hundred dollars just to get started, and PC VR player numbers are a fraction of the total VR player base, which is a small sliver of the traditional game player base.
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Mar 27, 2023 20:14
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i never once botted in d2 i also never got a zod rune
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Mar 27, 2023 20:17
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deep dish peat moss, the fact that you have yet to cotton onto the actual design goals behind D3's set builds makes me skeptical.
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Mar 27, 2023 20:18
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exquisite tea posted:Yes it's incredibly stupid, this is why D2 itemization is stupid and not good. Actually this is the opposite of the truth because not having a player barter economy is what made every other ARPG except for PoE extremely bad.
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Mar 27, 2023 20:18
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Runa posted:deep dish peat moss, the fact that you have yet to cotton onto the actual design goals behind D3's set builds makes me skeptical. I don't care what the "design goals" are when the end result is extremely bad design - that's still extremely bad design. Blizzard's "design goals" have been an absolute joke since sometime between WoW and D3 e: This is literally the company whose "design goals" included "we need to fill our games with trash-tier loot that players sift through and throw away, because if we don't have a bunch of that, they don't feel an addiction drip when they get a powerful item!" deep dish peat moss fucked around with this message at 20:22 on Mar 27, 2023 |
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Mar 27, 2023 20:20
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deep dish peat moss posted:I played a shitload of D2, it is easily my most played game of all time. Anyone who played (original) D2 for any appreciable amount of time also played D2 primarily by botting for drops, usually with multiple characters at once, and yes you do rush an Enigma on each one of them because you want to be able to bot faster. It's a massive QoL item. The main reason it "has great itemization" is that there aren't a ton of good chestpieces in the game, but itemization-wise everyone is fine just using a Leviathan or whatever - the point of the Enigma is the teleport and the QoL it provides. Again, not really true. Maybe builds were more rigid earlier in D3's lifetime but balance changes and updates have brought a lot more builds into parity. Look at the Maxroll tier lists for both D2 and D3 and you'll find plenty of diversity among classes, with even more variation within builds due to more granular rune/gear combinations. Maybe it feels more liberating in D2 because you don't have to wear any green items or whatever, but I mean, you're just as free to be a lovely Whirlwind Barb in D2 and D3 if you're not willing to wear the correct items.
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Mar 27, 2023 20:25
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deep dish peat moss posted:I don't care what the "design goals" are when the end result is extremely bad design - that's still extremely bad design. Blizzard's "design goals" have been an absolute joke since sometime between WoW and D3 I get that D3 sets are a clumsy kludge added onto the gear system in order to create extra classes where previously there were none, and it's not perfect, but I'm going to call bullshit here. You've centered so much of the discussion around tedious itemization minutae that I genuinely think you missed the forest for the trees. There's a reason why D3 had a suspiciously large and long lasting community after the expac reversed course on the disastrous launch. You might not like the aesthetic feel of converting half of a character's gear slots into their subclass tickets but the end result made for genuinely fun gameplay. Actual, hands on mouse and hotkeys, clicking on things to kill them and avoid dying gameplay. It also wasn't anything like D2's gameplay, being fast-paced and requiring even a smidgeon of skill, but it was a valid game in its own right. A poor successor to D2 but a good game.
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Mar 27, 2023 20:33
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trash loot drops are actually a very important aspect of how the game feels. ggg recently did a patch where they gutted item drops and they kept saying "we dont know why you guys are complaining, by our metrics you are getting more currency drops overall than you used to!" people were complaining because killing a mob or opening a chest and seeing literally nothing drop feels like poo poo in a game like this.
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Mar 27, 2023 20:42
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I agree that trash is actually psychologically important to making epic loot drops feel impactful. Thankfully if you love D2, trash is so abundant that players fill as much of their inventory up as possible to NOT pick up 99.9% of anything that drops.
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Mar 27, 2023 20:44
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New on Fanatical: Diamond collection https://www.fanatical.com/en/pick-and-mix/diamond-collection-build-your-own-bundle quote:Coromon
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Mar 27, 2023 20:50
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Awesome! posted:trash loot drops are actually a very important aspect of how the game feels. Thing is D3 is filled with trash drops in neph rifts, which are the casual grind stages. They're all over the place and you still ignore them most of the time because it's trash. There are no chests in paragon rifts because those are pure time attack stages and anything that isn't killing as much as possible, as quickly as possible, is a distraction. Instead of loot drops you get, basically, time score boosts. After the score hits the requirements the stage boss spawns and you beat that guy. Then you get a big loot dump after talking to the stage manager npc. This sounds ridiculous to type out in a Diablo context but that's what D3 turned into. It's a game that's extremely different from D2 and legitimately entertaining in its own right. But it's so different from D2 that people who wanted more D2 definitely didn't like what it became.
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Mar 27, 2023 20:52
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fit em all up in there posted:New on Fanatical: Diamond collection Coromon is a really decent Pokemon knockoff.
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Mar 27, 2023 21:00
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deep dish peat moss posted:e: This is literally the company whose "design goals" included "we need to fill our games with trash-tier loot that players sift through and throw away, because if we don't have a bunch of that, they don't feel an addiction drip when they get a powerful item!" This is different from literally....every other ARPG ever made...how exactly?
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Mar 28, 2023 00:39
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I don't think people running bots in D2 was 'normal'. Maybe typical for a that crowd that deep dish peat moss ran with, but that's just the normalization of your own habits. Like people who have maphacks on in RTS' and stuff. It's how they play, but hardly how the game developers intended nor the majority of the audience consumed the product.
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Mar 28, 2023 00:46
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John Murdoch posted:This is different from literally....every other ARPG ever made...how exactly? last epoch and grim dawn both let you filter loot down to show only "items that directly benefit my specific build, any unusual items I want, and maybe stuff my friend is playing" just because many games have copied horrible trash design doesn't mean it's a mandatory part of the genre
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Mar 28, 2023 00:49
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Yeah, specifically it was that they were after the dopamine rush that a player gets when they finally get a good drop after getting so much trash. The goal is to wear you down into feeling hopeless because all this loot is trash, then string you along with that sweet release of pleasure you'll want to chase again. I think even D3 has auto-salvaging trash loot these days (as a season mechanic for a specific season maybe?) but that was their reasoning for not having loot filters in D3 all along (and/or their answer when asked why there's so much garbage unexciting green loot that players find in WoW? I can't remember exactly where I read that originally but it used to be mentioned by blues on the blizzard forums often). But the difference is that other games were always just okay with letting you filter the garbage loot out, because they weren't trying to make you feel like an addict praying for their next fix, they were just filling their game up with loot. e: For context I don't think D3's flood of bad loot/salvaging/whatever is the most horrendous thing ever in and of itself, it's just a sign of how they were designing games at the time: based on research on how to get more user engagement (which was largely lifted from studies on the mechanics of addiction). I haven't played a Blizzard game since D3:RoS but I think they're kind of stepping away from that stuff now, in some regards? At least what I've read about D4 sounds like it has different design philosophies. deep dish peat moss fucked around with this message at 01:00 on Mar 28, 2023 |
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Mar 28, 2023 00:56
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