Okay, so this is going to be a little different then my regular posts here. I know, i know i do have a little fun once in a while, but this is from the bottom of my heart. A mission statement per say. I know i’m not Raxxanterex but hear me out, i’ve been playing mmorpg’s and theorycrafting before he was even born, and i easily have 5 times his experience in how they work and what works and what doesnt.
So to start off i’ll get this out of the way. You’ve done an amazing job. Most long term games decline, this one is at it’s design peak. It’s obviously not at it’s highest popularity, but there are reasons i will outline later about that. But it is without a doubt the best D3 has ever been functionally and replayability-wise. Seasons and the sets and the balances and touches you’ve added have brought the game to a point that if it still had the hype train it did near release, it would kill everything for a short time.
For a short time? Yes. There’s a reason why players come every season, play for a week and leave. To keep a long post from being too long and to stop beating around the bush i’ll just come out and say it. The problem is Depth. D3 lacks it. I have a solution that will kill 2 birds with one stone.
So let’s identify the problem. Diablo 3 was released during a point in time when WoW dev’s thought it was a smart idea to dumb down the talent system in order to attract more casual players. Blizzard was convinced this was the trend and they pushed it into diablo, which had huge success using skill trees, so much so D2 is still theorycrafted and massively played 20 years later…Build guides and setups are it’s biggest strength today. They were wrong, and their new WoW expansion proves that with the re-release of a talent system. D3 took it too far, based off the evidence of the hugely popular League of Legends. What they didnt realize, is if League of legends didnt have 600 different characters to choose from, then the game would have failed pretty quickly. The depth in LoL is their massive amount of character choices with different skills and playstyles. Diablo 3 has a measly 7, which is actually a good amount if there’s a lot of depth and unique options within them. In WoW we have 3 different specs to choose from for each class. In D3 we have the sets you’ve introduced. If you compare everything, D3 very runs short of things that could hold interest and then you need to take into consideration that you cap out D3 end game very very quickly. Sure you can progress your power, but it comes in the form of PARAGON. Easily the most boring and repetitive monotonous form of character building in any game. You could censor the text numbers from view of a players at paragon 100 and a player at paragon 10,000 and both of their screens would look the same until the end of time.
So now what. Where is this leading to? D3 is an amazing game now, but if you have the creative power i suggest you do something a little drastic. I suggest you make a massive change to paragon. My suggestion leans a bit on my recent enjoyment with WotLK and also our recent season 27. I say you redesign the paragon system. Turn it into a talent tree. Go HAM and make 2-3 different trees to choose from for each class, like separate specs. Within those trees add special breakpoints for ability altering effects just like the s27 sanctified items gave. Make the trees huge like PoE and add tons of paths dipping into defense, damage, leech, regen, crowd control and reduction, gold and item finding, chance for primal, adds 1 gargoyle, adds 1 extra magic missile, adds aoe effect to frenzy, ect. GO HAM. Balance it later.
Now i know D4 is the focal point and it’s expected that D3’s days are numbered because of it, but i say F that, excuse my French. D3 is amazing, it lacks depth, fix that, i feel this idea works. I’m a gamer with as much or more experience than any other gamer on earth, i know this because i was hardcore from the start of gaming itself. Just imagine where your careers go if you bring back a couple hundred thousand players, and maybe down the road say 4 years from now D3 has a higher population than D4. You’re doing a great job atm, but i feel like there’s an obvious flaw with the depth of paragons and why people still come every season to get their fix and quickly feel fulfilled and leave a week after.
Anyways, D3 lately has been a nice surprise in what i felt like was a dying game making company. I mean look at OW2, smh. Keep it up.
