05-25-2012, 08:47 AM
I have had a few questions spinning around my head as I play more, ones where I cannot seem to make up my mind on answers for them. Perhaps a little healthy discussion could arise from them 
Should skills be balanced so every Skill is viable across all difficulties, or should every Rune be viable?
This is an interesting one. With the way the game scales damage on all skills, there should be no reasonable excuse for any Skill to not be viable in latter difficulties, but Runes do not always scale well. To give an example, the Wizard's Shock Pulse spell with the Explosive Bolts Rune (dead enemies explode) is excellent in Normal difficulty. The Rune's effectiveness, however, is tied to how quickly you can kill enemies. As enemies take ever more to kill in higher difficulties, this Rune quickly becomes useless. Does this mean the Rune is poorly designed, or so long as Shock Pulse remains viable at higher levels the specific Rune used does not matter? We want to argue that Diablo III allows considerable customisation, but is that customisation of which skill-set you run even if there are few viable end-game Runes, or complete customisation down to Rune level?
How should the game's difficulty scale as you approach higher difficulties?
This is something that tends to bug me in games. Higher difficulty means the enemies gain more life and dish out more damage. That is not more difficult; it is more grindy. Smarter AI would be ideal, but probably too much to ask of from any game studio. Diablo III provides an interesting twist on this: Elites. At higher difficulties, Elites gain more spawn-points, and gain combinations of abilities. A single ability is nothing too much, but, say, a Knockback+Vortex enemy would require an interesting strategy to take out. This is done far better than Elites in Diablo II, who tended to just be triple immunes at higher difficulties (boring!).
Should Diablo's end-game focus more on the Elites and less on the grind? In other words, should enemy scaling remain closer to equipment scaling, so regular enemies are roughly comparable across difficulties, but Elites are more prevalent and the focus of the challenge. A group regular enemies who fall readily-enough are more of a challenge when they are almost always a meat-shield for a Mortar/Arcane (or whatever) pack. Similarly, Bosses could be rebalanced so rather than being a larger grind they instead telegraph their attacks less as the difficulty increases. Alternatively, it is better to focus on hard-hitting, meat-sack enemies and let the difficulty be more focused on attrition? The player prevails if they come in with sufficient resources to survive. In that case, however, would that not make the cool-down on potions a little over-the-top?
As a reaction to the current scaling used in the game, +Vitality gear is essentially the standard for all classes progressing through the game. Normally, I would have seen that as more of a Hardcore concern, leaving Softcore to maxing out DPS and making glass canons (or cool variants). Perhaps the glass canon is a viable option when you have an sturdy ally to resurrect you, but a squishy solo adventurer, or a team of glass canons, would face an uphill battle even in the latter stages of Normal difficulty, let alone higher. Are enemies hitting too hard, making +Vitality too important, or are they fine and players need to learn a better balance of damage reduction, or use of skills to compensate, thereby lessening the reliance on this crutch?
As a related point, how should the game scale with players? I have only played single player, so I have no experience on this subject, but it would be interesting to see what others thing.
What constitutes over-powered in the context of Diablo III?
I am sure everyone here knows about the recent skill nerfs on the Demon Hunter, Monk and Wizard. Essentially, defensive skills that remained powerful in Inferno difficulty have been scaled back. Diablo III is essentially a single player, PvE game that allows you to potentially bring in another player or three to join the PvE experience with you. Are powerful defensive skills over-powered in this context? Certainly, if one skill outclasses all other options within the class, that is an issue, but what if there is no equivalent? The Demon Hunter, for example, has had Smoke Screen nerfed (turn invisible for 2 seconds, now down to 1). The only remotely comparable skill is Vault (move 35 yards). Was Smoke Screen better than Vault? Sure! Why? Because Vault sucks. Solution? Improve Vault. Smoke Screen only became over-powered in combination with Multishot with the Suppression Fire Rune (essentially, instantly recharges Smoke Screen). Which was over-powered? Smoke Screen, or Suppression Fire? Should Smoke Screen have been nerfed, or Suppression Fire nerfed/changed?
Defensive skills are perhaps difficult to compare, but offensive skills are far easier. To continue using the Demon Hunter as an example, she has four attacks specifically designed to clear out large groups of enemies: Strafe, Multishot, Cluster Arrow and Rain of Vengeance. Of these, basically everyone uses Multishot and anything else is beneath consideration. Multishot is resource expensive and targets a specific area for good damage. Is that over powered, or are the other options simply underpowered? What is the best approach to balancing skills? Is it correct to compare Multishot with other Demon Hunter skills, or should it be related to similar skills in other classes (instead of, or in addition to)?
Should skills be balanced so every Skill is viable across all difficulties, or should every Rune be viable?
This is an interesting one. With the way the game scales damage on all skills, there should be no reasonable excuse for any Skill to not be viable in latter difficulties, but Runes do not always scale well. To give an example, the Wizard's Shock Pulse spell with the Explosive Bolts Rune (dead enemies explode) is excellent in Normal difficulty. The Rune's effectiveness, however, is tied to how quickly you can kill enemies. As enemies take ever more to kill in higher difficulties, this Rune quickly becomes useless. Does this mean the Rune is poorly designed, or so long as Shock Pulse remains viable at higher levels the specific Rune used does not matter? We want to argue that Diablo III allows considerable customisation, but is that customisation of which skill-set you run even if there are few viable end-game Runes, or complete customisation down to Rune level?
How should the game's difficulty scale as you approach higher difficulties?
This is something that tends to bug me in games. Higher difficulty means the enemies gain more life and dish out more damage. That is not more difficult; it is more grindy. Smarter AI would be ideal, but probably too much to ask of from any game studio. Diablo III provides an interesting twist on this: Elites. At higher difficulties, Elites gain more spawn-points, and gain combinations of abilities. A single ability is nothing too much, but, say, a Knockback+Vortex enemy would require an interesting strategy to take out. This is done far better than Elites in Diablo II, who tended to just be triple immunes at higher difficulties (boring!).
Should Diablo's end-game focus more on the Elites and less on the grind? In other words, should enemy scaling remain closer to equipment scaling, so regular enemies are roughly comparable across difficulties, but Elites are more prevalent and the focus of the challenge. A group regular enemies who fall readily-enough are more of a challenge when they are almost always a meat-shield for a Mortar/Arcane (or whatever) pack. Similarly, Bosses could be rebalanced so rather than being a larger grind they instead telegraph their attacks less as the difficulty increases. Alternatively, it is better to focus on hard-hitting, meat-sack enemies and let the difficulty be more focused on attrition? The player prevails if they come in with sufficient resources to survive. In that case, however, would that not make the cool-down on potions a little over-the-top?
As a reaction to the current scaling used in the game, +Vitality gear is essentially the standard for all classes progressing through the game. Normally, I would have seen that as more of a Hardcore concern, leaving Softcore to maxing out DPS and making glass canons (or cool variants). Perhaps the glass canon is a viable option when you have an sturdy ally to resurrect you, but a squishy solo adventurer, or a team of glass canons, would face an uphill battle even in the latter stages of Normal difficulty, let alone higher. Are enemies hitting too hard, making +Vitality too important, or are they fine and players need to learn a better balance of damage reduction, or use of skills to compensate, thereby lessening the reliance on this crutch?
As a related point, how should the game scale with players? I have only played single player, so I have no experience on this subject, but it would be interesting to see what others thing.
What constitutes over-powered in the context of Diablo III?
I am sure everyone here knows about the recent skill nerfs on the Demon Hunter, Monk and Wizard. Essentially, defensive skills that remained powerful in Inferno difficulty have been scaled back. Diablo III is essentially a single player, PvE game that allows you to potentially bring in another player or three to join the PvE experience with you. Are powerful defensive skills over-powered in this context? Certainly, if one skill outclasses all other options within the class, that is an issue, but what if there is no equivalent? The Demon Hunter, for example, has had Smoke Screen nerfed (turn invisible for 2 seconds, now down to 1). The only remotely comparable skill is Vault (move 35 yards). Was Smoke Screen better than Vault? Sure! Why? Because Vault sucks. Solution? Improve Vault. Smoke Screen only became over-powered in combination with Multishot with the Suppression Fire Rune (essentially, instantly recharges Smoke Screen). Which was over-powered? Smoke Screen, or Suppression Fire? Should Smoke Screen have been nerfed, or Suppression Fire nerfed/changed?
Defensive skills are perhaps difficult to compare, but offensive skills are far easier. To continue using the Demon Hunter as an example, she has four attacks specifically designed to clear out large groups of enemies: Strafe, Multishot, Cluster Arrow and Rain of Vengeance. Of these, basically everyone uses Multishot and anything else is beneath consideration. Multishot is resource expensive and targets a specific area for good damage. Is that over powered, or are the other options simply underpowered? What is the best approach to balancing skills? Is it correct to compare Multishot with other Demon Hunter skills, or should it be related to similar skills in other classes (instead of, or in addition to)?
May the wind pick up your heels and your sword strike true.