07-05-2012, 02:38 AM
I am actually surprised anyone could disagree with most of it. At brief, my points were:
* Levelling-up is dull. I would like some meaningful interaction here.
* Item affixes are generally dull. The cool ones have low magnitude. Legendary/Set items were unpopular because they were not very powerful.
* Gear-checks reduce variety in gear. Players all need to meet a minimum of DPS/defence. As a result, modifiers that merely add flavour are unpopular, exasperating the point above.
* Nerfing drops from barrels, chests, etc is not fair on legitimate players who enjoy loot coming out of everything.
* Bosses are boring and weaker than Elites.
* Elites are an interesting concept, but need tweaking. The difference in power between Elites and whites is too great.
* Invulnerable Minions and enrage timers suck
* Inferno difficulty is a no-win situation for Blizzard, because there are too many different groups who want different things from it, so whatever Blizzard does will upset someone.
How could anyone possibly disagree with most of them?
To answer Mavfin's post in particular.
I stated I agree with the decision to remove stat-point allocation, and I stated I like the skill system they have in concept. It needs fixing, but they already know that and have said over and again they are working on it. In fact, they recently commented that a lot of balancing is due in 1.0.4. I would like to see something that made levelling-up meaningful, however. By level 30, you have all skills. In most skills (that people actually use), you also have the only Rune that actually matters (eg Poison Darts->Splinters, Smoke Screen->Lingering Fog, etc) by that point. This makes subsequent levels meaningless. If they were to dramatically improve Runes, that alone would go a long way to solving this issue. I am certainly not suggesting returning to Diablo 2, just making it something to get excited about.
I have no objections to difficulty and never stated that I want the game to be made into a faceroll. I said that gear-checks reduce all players to using the same kind of gear, but I never said I wanted a naked character to faceroll Inferno either. There is a middle-ground. Similarly, I said Elites need work, but I never said to eliminate them. There are situations that every player looks at, groans and parks or quits the game over. These situations need eliminating; the rest of the time, the concept is good. I also said I wanted more abilities added, to increase the variety and tactics. When every Elite in Inferno has four abilities, it does not take long to see every ability represented; you will VERY likely see one or two identical abilities from one Elite to the next. More variety is a good thing in this situation.
I do not believe I made any comment about the Auction House, beyond stating that min-maxers would rush to it for perfect items. That is not a criticism; it is a fact. If there is a streamlined and easy way for min-maxers to, well, min-max, they will use it and be happy for it. This has no reflection on the entire rest of the gaming populace as to whether or not they will use it. To answer on my personal views, I do believe you need it. I spent three weeks farming Inferno and was still using level 30-50 items because not a single item useful to my character had dropped. If after three weeks of straight farming you cannot progress through the game without using the Auction House, then I would suggest it is indeed required. Sure, I could continue farming and not make progress, but who considers that fun? Seriously, three weeks is acceptable?
* Levelling-up is dull. I would like some meaningful interaction here.
* Item affixes are generally dull. The cool ones have low magnitude. Legendary/Set items were unpopular because they were not very powerful.
* Gear-checks reduce variety in gear. Players all need to meet a minimum of DPS/defence. As a result, modifiers that merely add flavour are unpopular, exasperating the point above.
* Nerfing drops from barrels, chests, etc is not fair on legitimate players who enjoy loot coming out of everything.
* Bosses are boring and weaker than Elites.
* Elites are an interesting concept, but need tweaking. The difference in power between Elites and whites is too great.
* Invulnerable Minions and enrage timers suck
* Inferno difficulty is a no-win situation for Blizzard, because there are too many different groups who want different things from it, so whatever Blizzard does will upset someone.
How could anyone possibly disagree with most of them?
To answer Mavfin's post in particular.
I stated I agree with the decision to remove stat-point allocation, and I stated I like the skill system they have in concept. It needs fixing, but they already know that and have said over and again they are working on it. In fact, they recently commented that a lot of balancing is due in 1.0.4. I would like to see something that made levelling-up meaningful, however. By level 30, you have all skills. In most skills (that people actually use), you also have the only Rune that actually matters (eg Poison Darts->Splinters, Smoke Screen->Lingering Fog, etc) by that point. This makes subsequent levels meaningless. If they were to dramatically improve Runes, that alone would go a long way to solving this issue. I am certainly not suggesting returning to Diablo 2, just making it something to get excited about.
I have no objections to difficulty and never stated that I want the game to be made into a faceroll. I said that gear-checks reduce all players to using the same kind of gear, but I never said I wanted a naked character to faceroll Inferno either. There is a middle-ground. Similarly, I said Elites need work, but I never said to eliminate them. There are situations that every player looks at, groans and parks or quits the game over. These situations need eliminating; the rest of the time, the concept is good. I also said I wanted more abilities added, to increase the variety and tactics. When every Elite in Inferno has four abilities, it does not take long to see every ability represented; you will VERY likely see one or two identical abilities from one Elite to the next. More variety is a good thing in this situation.
I do not believe I made any comment about the Auction House, beyond stating that min-maxers would rush to it for perfect items. That is not a criticism; it is a fact. If there is a streamlined and easy way for min-maxers to, well, min-max, they will use it and be happy for it. This has no reflection on the entire rest of the gaming populace as to whether or not they will use it. To answer on my personal views, I do believe you need it. I spent three weeks farming Inferno and was still using level 30-50 items because not a single item useful to my character had dropped. If after three weeks of straight farming you cannot progress through the game without using the Auction House, then I would suggest it is indeed required. Sure, I could continue farming and not make progress, but who considers that fun? Seriously, three weeks is acceptable?
May the wind pick up your heels and your sword strike true.