34 replies to this topic

[IMG News]

Blizzard Entertainment has announced some of its plans to update the recently released action RPG sequel, Diablo III. The article details some of the changes and adjustments planned for character skills, game balance, items, and crafting.

When it comes to making game changes, in general, our intent is to react quickly to critical design and balance issues, bugs, and other problems that seriously conflict with our design intent through hotfixes. For issues which aren’t as severely out of line, we plan to react in a more measured fashion -- through client patches. We have a patch coming within the next week (patch 1.0.2) that has been in development since the game’s launch and is mainly aimed at addressing service issues. The first real game balance changes, outside of hotfixes, will be coming in patch 1.0.3. We expect that because the game is new, some other issues will arise that will need to be immediately addressed through hotfixes, but in general, most changes will arrive through patches.

Regarding the changes to Lingering Fog, Boon of Protection, and Force Armor: we determined these skills were simply more powerful than they should be, and we felt their impact on class balance and how each class was perceived warranted hotfixes as soon as we were able. However, we don't want you to be worried that a hotfix nerf is lurking around the corner every day. If a skill is strong, but isn't really breaking the game, we want you to have your fun. Part of the enjoyment of Diablo is finding those super-strong builds, and we want players to be excited to use something they discovered that feels overpowered. A good example of this is the monk Overawe rune, which many players have identified as being quite good. We agree it's good, but we don't think it's so far out of line that we're going to swoop in and hotfix it out of existence.

Inferno is intended to be extremely difficult, but with some specific skills, a few classes were simply able to progress far more easily than intended. This made the classes, which were about where they were supposed to be, seem very underpowered. It also created the perception that the classes doing well were intended to rely on specific runes in all their builds, and the other classes were just broken. This is the opposite of what’s true. If any single skill or rune feels absolutely required to progress, it means that skill is working against our goal of encouraging build diversity -- and those “required” skills need to be corrected. We know these hotfixes snuck up on people, and it took us a day or so to communicate that they had gone live. However, our intent moving forward is that when there are circumstances where a hotfix is necessary, we’ll communicate changes that could impact your ability to play your class through ‘Upcoming Changes’ posts in the General forum. Ideally, we’ll let you know as soon as we even have the idea that we want to make that kind of change.

Check out the link below to learn more.

Return to Full Article - InsideMacGames News

[Wumpus]

I like the sound of the upcoming changes forum area. Wasn't upset about the first few class changes as I wasn't using those runes, though I'm also not in Inferno yet, still working my way through Hell. They seem to be taking a very reasonable approach.

[Riko]

Even though it had a massive sales record, the reception by players (not game critics) must have gotten them worried.

If only they would let go of the obnoxious single player DRM....
Oh well, back to EVE.

[Matt Diamond]

Riko, on 29 May 2012 - 01:59 PM, said:

Even though it had a massive sales record, the reception by players (not game critics) must have gotten them worried.

Respectfully disagree. They did this kind of rapid rebalancing for both WoW and Starcraft II. I wouldn't have expected anything different.

Riko, on 29 May 2012 - 01:59 PM, said:

If only they would let go of the obnoxious single player DRM....

Respectfully agree. :-)

[UniversalWolf]

The massive sales record proves that Blizzard correctly predicted that gamers are dumb enough to accept obnoxious DRM.  If anything the DRM will become more obnoxious in the future thanks to everyone who ran out and bought this game.

[Doc Savage]

I feel compelled to take a stand on this one.  I'm voting with my dollars and rejecting always online DRM.  I don't think I should have to create an account for a game that I know I will never play online either.

Unfortunately, my no-sale will be totally drowned out in the sea of money that Blizzard is taking in.  Sometimes principles are a pain in the hoo-ha.

[Matt Diamond]

You just called me dumb.

I suppose you could also call me dumb for playing Dragon Age, even though it obnoxiously quits in the middle of big battles, forcing me to fight it again. Or for playing AC2, which not only has DRM but forced me to switch keyboards every time I wanted to play it, and every 1-2 hours the mouse-look would stop working, forcing me to quit and lose progress.

Do you see a pattern here? Most games require a compromise, is my point. Perhaps I've been gaming too long that I've come to accept these things.

[Janichsan]

Matt Diamond, on 30 May 2012 - 04:53 AM, said:

Do you see a pattern here? Most games require a compromise, is my point. Perhaps I've been gaming too long that I've come to accept these things.

I never was kicked from any Dragon Age battle because the connection was lost (the game only uses a one time verification at launch, if I recall correctly) but what you describe for AC2 would have been enough for me to trash the game within 10 minutes and never touch it again.

In my opinion, no game is worth of such compromises. When I play a game, I want to have fun and be entertained, not be trained like a dog to jump through some hoops just to be rewarded with a treat when I happily accept the master's leash.

[Eric5h5]

Matt Diamond, on 30 May 2012 - 04:53 AM, said:

Most games require a compromise, is my point.

I don't agree with that.  Few of my games (and I own a lot) have anything that I could consider a compromise, since they start up and run without needing anything special.  The worst I usually have to put up with is a longer startup time for Steam games, but at least they'll still play if/when my internet flakes out.  Most of what you describe are bugs, which last I checked are bad things that people generally try to avoid.  Intentionally adding bug-like behavior to games can't be a good thing, surely.

--Eric

[Matt Diamond]

Eric5h5, on 30 May 2012 - 06:07 AM, said:

Most of what you describe are bugs, which last I checked are bad things that people generally try to avoid.  Intentionally adding bug-like behavior to games can't be a good thing, surely.

Blizzard's online requirement was at least known to me before I ordered the game. The bugs in the other games were not.

Quote

In my opinion, no game is worth of such compromises. When I play a game, I want to have fun and be entertained [..]

Again, I don't view these things as black and white. I bought AC2 and DA dirt cheap and got quite a bit of enjoyment out of them. And the Dragon Age crashing was almost non-existant until near the end of the game. It's now become a hassle, but the alternative to the compromise you object to would have been to leave the game unfinished. I've made my peace with it.

How much hassle vs enjoyment I get out of Diablo 3 remains to be seen. If the lag ruins it for me then I'll skip the next game with the same requirement. Much as I plan to avoid Transgaming ports for a while. :-)

[the Battle Cat]

Eric5h5, on 30 May 2012 - 06:07 AM, said:

I don't agree with that.  Few of my games (and I own a lot) have anything that I could consider a compromise, since they start up and run without needing anything special.  The worst I usually have to put up with is a longer startup time for Steam games, but at least they'll still play if/when my internet flakes out.  Most of what you describe are bugs, which last I checked are bad things that people generally try to avoid.  Intentionally adding bug-like behavior to games can't be a good thing, surely.

--Eric

I don't agree with whatever it is that you are don't agreeing with.  And stop calling him Shirley!

I don't think I've ever owned a Blizzard game other than Warcraft 1 and Diablo 1 demos.  OK games with limited interest for me.  All the rest of Blizzards games never interested me much, and I wouldn't have played the ones I didn't if they weren't demos.  The click and slash games bore me (I was soooo glad to finish the click fest Neverwinter Nights).  The Warcraft 1 strategies never excited me.  I didn't bother to get any followups and then Blizzard went massive online multiplayer and I quit even reading about their stuff.  I might like Diablo III but I'm not going to bother to find out.  I'm old school, if I own a game I want to have some measure of control over it.  My god, I carried my Marathon CDs with me on vacation because I was afraid something would happen to them.  ::tBC runs into the burning building pushing his wife and cats out of the way, throws a protective blanket over his Marathon CDs and struggles from the building suffering 2nd degree burns to his hands and face::  I'm a gamer, I want to game with my games when I want to game.  

I'm an honest customer, I don't like being treated like I'm some bum who can't be trusted with their stuff.  Imagine buying a Toyota but Toyota never lets you drive unless there is a company rep in the seat next to you.  Then while you are in a rest stop, some jerk steals your tires and radio, then ransacks your trunk and glove compartment while the company rep just sits there.  THEY are the bums who can't be trusted with MY stuff.  I can't imagine getting a game with a setup like that.  They protect themselves against piracy but in trade they expose their customers to a LOT of fraud, theft and abuse that couldn't possibly happen if you simply bought their DVD and took it home and played it.

[Eric5h5]

the Battle Cat, on 30 May 2012 - 09:17 AM, said:

I don't think I've ever owned a Blizzard game other than Warcraft 1 and Diablo 1 demos.

I have them all up until World of Warcraft.  Then they took a wrong turn (by gaming standards, not $$ standards obviously), or at least went in a different direction than I care for.

Quote

My god, I carried my Marathon CDs with me on vacation because I was afraid something would happen to them.

OK, now I'm becoming concerned.

Quote

I don't like being treated like I'm some bum

But...but...you ARE!!!

--Eric

[the Battle Cat]

Eric5h5, on 30 May 2012 - 10:21 AM, said:

But...but...you ARE!!!

I wasn't denying it.  I was simply stating that I didn't like getting treated like it.

[Matt Diamond]

the Battle Cat, on 30 May 2012 - 09:17 AM, said:

I'm an honest customer, I don't like being treated like I'm some bum who can't be trusted with their stuff.  Imagine buying a Toyota but Toyota never lets you drive unless there is a company rep in the seat next to you.  Then while you are in a rest stop, some jerk steals your tires and radio, then ransacks your trunk and glove compartment while the company rep just sits there.  THEY are the bums who can't be trusted with MY stuff.  I can't imagine getting a game with a setup like that.  They protect themselves against piracy but in trade they expose their customers to a LOT of fraud, theft and abuse that couldn't possibly happen if you simply bought their DVD and took it home and played it.

Sure, there'd be little risk if you only played the game at home by yourself without a server, but for better or worse that wasn't the game they wanted to make. DRM was only one of their goals, I think. I believe they sincerely wanted to fix the online game- D2's was rife with problems.

Unfortunately they've got three problems at the moment: 1) account security; 2) the size of their customer base has attracted an army of crooks bigger than any other game company has ever dealt with; and 3) the game's popularity out of the gate temporarily overwhelmed Blizzard's resources. I expect improvements to #1 and #3.

Also, all indications are that Blizzard takes thefts seriously. They are famous for banning tens of thousands of WoW accounts on a monthly basis. There will be bannings and deactivated serials over D3. They aren't "just sitting there" as you imply.

Yes, I would have liked an offline mode. Solo is how I do 99% of my gaming. But I'm not going along with the crowd that wants to paint everything Blizzard does in the worst possible light. That's the only reason I keep responding to these threads-  yes, I strongly disagree with one of their design decisions, and they need to harden their account security, but they aren't evil, and people who buy the game aren't dumb.

[Wumpus]

If you want to call someone Evil look at EA, or Activision part of Activision-Blizzard. Blizzard has always been proactive in support, security and customer response. I know some people have horror stories with WoW, but from my own experience and what I've seen they are good the rest of the time. You don't get to be as successful and well rates as Blizzard is by being a bunch of uncaring jerks.

Also I consider myself a smart gamer, and buying and *enjoying* Diablo 3 doesn't make me stupid because a handful of people object to it so much they won't play the game.

[Eric5h5]

OK, so now you're trying to marginalize those who object, and by implication trivialize the objection.  How is that better than someone calling you stupid?

--Eric

[the Battle Cat]

I like cheese.  Is that so wrong for a cat?

[Eric5h5]

Yes.  Yes it is.

--Eric

[Wumpus]

Eric5h5, on 30 May 2012 - 05:39 PM, said:

OK, so now you're trying to marginalize those who object, and by implication trivialize the objection.  How is that better than someone calling you stupid?

--Eric

I'm not out to insult you, nor imply anything in particular.  So I'm not stupid, and you are neither marginal nor have a trivial objection. The base truth is the people not buying and playing Diablo 3 *are* the minority. If that offends you then I don't what to say. I don't think the objections (mostly the always online requirement) are trivial at all. I agree with them myself, but I still have a lot of fun with the game. Would I prefer an offline mode? Yes! Am I going to take a principled stand about it? No.

I'm not against a healthy discussion of a games problems, perceived or real. If people want to object, or "vote with their wallets" by not buying the game, then good for you. To each their own I say. D3 is to my taste, and its not to yours. I don't care to hear people go on about how Torchlight 2 is going to be so much better, or somewhat beating the horse of the always online requirement. I say if you're going to truly criticize a game, buy it, or try it first. Then talk about how good or bad it is. Sitting back and going "oh no, Blizzard is ruining Diablo 3 and the future of games with always online requirements" is a speculative point of view, and an opinion. Of course saying that the game is good is also an opinion. But the base game IS good and it is fun. No one's really complaining about the game itself, just some of the requirements to play it. You don't like the game or its requirements? Great, life moves on for everyone.

Developers and publishers have been pushing connectivity and various forms of online requirements for years. You could say that's just accepting something bad, or you could say its embracing a flawed yet very potential idea to enhance the experience. You are never going to please everyone, though I do believe game makers should aim to please. This though I know is an entirely different subject with lots to say.

Maybe I'm not avoided creating groups of  "people who play D3" and "people who don't play D3." I don't want to fight over it. It strikes as commendable that Blizzard can drum up such positive and negative emotions over a piece of entertainment.

[Janichsan]

Wumpus, on 31 May 2012 - 02:07 AM, said:

The base truth is the people not buying and playing Diablo 3 *are* the minority.

I pretty much doubt that. There are about 7 billion people in the world, more than 1 billion PC users and the estimations for the number of  PC gamers range between 60 and 300 millions. So, no matter how you put it, Diablo 3 players are not the majority.