Don’t feed the troll.
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I wasn’t addressing potential pitfall after-effects of focus groups with the analogy, just their usefulness in general.
Overseen more in the way of being reported something and having full control rather than supervising it directly, no lead developer of big project will waste time on that.
Anyway, to sum-up my thoughts:
- Focus groups might be good in very big projects when a lot of things should be considered
- Focus groups would be necessary in new and experimental fields, where the developers and testers don’t have much experience
- Focus groups are not needed when the developers and testers are competent and experienced
- Focus groups could create potential pitfalls only when the field is new and the results from these are applied without further testing
Related to D4 focus groups should not create troubles if D4 is classical aRPG, if it is new age AI aRPG then focus groups might endanger some development aspects and the results from these should be tested and applied in stages - at first when their effects are dissociated, later combined.
You think I troll, really?
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That was a response to me talking to Runtofun, not you.
As for trolling… yes, I think your hype-training is trolling. Which doesn’t mean you can’t have a good discussion, which the focus group talk is.
But you’re definitely the boy who cries troll. Disagreement is not trolling.
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So, here’s a real world example of a focus group, and the impact it can have on a game.
When Bioshock Infinite came out, lots of people loved it. But there was a lot of people unhappy with the ‘gung-ho’ direction. People who loved the rpg elements of the series felt they were somewhat watered down in Infinite, and the combat took the main stage. Infinite was somewhat devisive as encounters in previous games required you to plan out your attacks. It was methodical and slower paced. Not so in Infinite. This pleased FPS fans, but didn’t click so much with RPG fans.
During the development of Infinite, 2K used a focus group. They specifically picked from a pool of FPS players - Modern Warfare fans in particular. When playing the game they provided feedback that favored FPS features like area-based combat encounters, regening health, shields, that sort of thing. And although Infinite was a commercial success, many Bioshock fans found the over reliance on combat exhausting.
So what does this have to do with Diablo and how would a focus group affect its development?
Imagine Activision uses a focus group for D4. What pool of players would be most beneficial to the game. D2 players? D3 players? Mobile phone gamers? What features would those groups clamor for, and how different would each version of the game be? I know which group -I- would want, and possibly what one Blizzard would want, but what one would Activision want?
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My bet is that they will annouce whatever that moble game is will be launching…the announce will have a shteating grin on, say something like…well if you dont have phones i guess diablo 4 will do then… Or something along that line, one to bait a reaction two to poke fun of last years fiasco.
They have to decide only about one thing whether to go D2 or D3 way - drop chances. Everything else including itemization could have different mode representations.
The reason different modes for drop chances won’t succeed is that every player will jump on the higher drop chances mode.
Imagine that right now in D3 you have a choice to farm with the usual rate or farm x20 the PTR rate. 99% of the player base will jump on the x20 rate (and even if you enjoy the slower rate more, eventually you will jump on the faster one simply because there won’t be any other players on the server except you). Same would be the case for paragon if it could be earned faster - people simply WANT IT ALL. That is in our nature.
PoE, D2 or D3 drop chances then?
It really depends on how they structure the game, namely the Seasonal experience. This depends on the frequency of the updates we are going to receive, which depends on the popularity of the game and the player pool.
Best case scenario is huge popularity and massive player base. This means very frequent updates and Seasons refreshing each month with new content. In such case D3 drop chances would be optimal. Seasons lasting 3 months would benefit more from D2 drop chances, while a NS scenario would benefit most from PoE drop chances.
Another option is they structure the experience not around Seasons rather around Leagues, which would be customized Seasons. Say you have an option to choose how long your Season to last from 1, 2 or 3 months and depending on your choice you will be matched with the respected player pool.
They have options how to approach the Seasonal experience, but for the drop chances they don’t.
Also, power creep is another factor that can turn players off and the more frequent the updates are the higher the chance power creep is introduced with each of these. So, the developers have to balance between content updates and power creep smartly.
An extreme option would be character aging to be introduced and NS mode completely removed. This would mean the characters will die at the end of each Season and the farming for gear and stats would have to start a new with each and every Season (just as in real life - you are born, you learn things and eventually you die). This then would make power creep irrelevant.
Many options for many things except the drop chances. This one simply has to be decided and not touched further since this would create power creep too.
I would say that both are important. I do believe that the next PC/Console Diablo game D4 will be able to be designed in a way that pleases both Blizz North fans as well as Blizz Irvine fans. It is not as hard as some think. More so if the differences between optimal and suboptimal are not that huge.
As far as drop rates goes that will depend on whether D4 will have trading in any form. If it does then you can expect the drop rate to be worse than it is in this game. More so if the itemization is done way better where gear only enhances your build instead of making it like it does in this game. Then if the gear has at least a few alternates to BiS gear that is easier to find then the game will be good to go, even if that game supports trading.
This is not true. They can do as they wish with drop rates and not unavoidably run into issues of power creep should they not choose drop rates once in the beginning of the games lifespan and never alter it from there…the 2 things are not so tightly attached at the hip.
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each post has it’s merit, i treat posters, disliked by me like this.
try to react on-topic off-OP or ignore, instead of upholding yearlong stigma’s.
i try this in others threads.
i don’t try this in my own threads, with some exceptions.
i was banned more than once… only in my own threads, being too assertive.
-i was never banned out of threads of other posters.
on-topic:
interesting, i’m not sure who is right here;
-i do think that any change in droprates have to be very well thought over.
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Most definitelty they need to be thought over. However the devs have the ability to change everything about everything through the add or removal of computer code. Powercreep is not absolutely connected to drop rates, because precisely what is being dropped (regardless of rate…) is unspecified.
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there’s where my paranoia creeps in:
-is your quote really true?
-speedfarmers have a strategic advantage.
Yes it is true that what items are to drop for players in Diablo 4, is currently unspecified.
D4 ,
don’t you mean d3 instead?
As long as the drop rates in question serve the players to find the in-game items, these two are directly connected.
You may have a scenario where some items S drop only in specific place X, and by changing S drop rates you won’t create power creep if you remove X, but why changing the drop rates in first place if no player is going to find such items? No point in that.
People (developers mostly) really underestimate the effect power creep has on the player base.
I wrote many times in the past that smart dedicated players are going to leave the game as long as the rate of power creep continues. I wrote about this first in Season 3.
Players like gabynator (who the community hates) also shared such fears in the forums. If you check the old forums there was a thread, in which gabynator spoke against the power creep in D3 and got flamed by the community. Well, guess what? Major portion of those who flamed him stopped playing the game some Seasons later, be it streamers or other dedicated players. Truth is gabynator was smarter than them and saw what is coming earlier.
TLDR: If D4 devs introduce the same amount of power creep in D4 just as in D3, no serious dedicated players are going to invest time in their game.
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i’m thinking also about the unproven factor recently, wich class has a bigger chance to find new cube-items, needed for several classes.
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nope, because he said a choice must be made between the previous 2nd and 3rd games, for the yet to be announced 4th.
This is a different claim. your original claim was that the drop rates must be set in the beginning of the games lifespan and then never altered or that change would lead to power creep.
The power creep in D3, is a disgusting and unwanted joke, and any idiot withat least half a brain should have clearly been able to see how blasting the numbers towards the moon and having boring items rain from the sky drenching the players in tens of thousands of a percent in damage boosts is going to lead to power creep, however the defenders of D3 are a completely lost cause. The more you anger them and drive them away the better the game likely is. if Gabynator did receive opposition from the community, he was almost certainly on the right track.
But this is not to say, that for Diablo 4, they must emulate the drop rate model of D2 or D3, and then never alter it after their initial choice, because that alteration what leads to power creep.
No, it is not. Drop rates have not to be buffed otherwise there will be power creep. What is so hard to understand here?
i thought we were talking about several versions, D3 in this case, instead of being pinned to a future Diablo PC-version.
-which wouldn’t be a problem to me, meandering from the starter post.
well the first quote above you say drop chances have to be decided upon and then not touched or that would create power creep.
Then in the second quote you say drop chances must NOT be BUFFED or that will lead to power creep…
So which one of the above quotes do you feel explains what leads to power creep? The devs changing drop rates after what they initially chose?
Or the devs increasing drop rates?