Diablo 3 requires a final balance patch

[Unsanety-1456]

DMO for the Wizard could use some love, especially using magic missiles.

[Shadout-2849]

@Dimlhugion-1109

Scenario 3 is what we’ve had for over a decade and “most people” argue it shouldn’t BE that way. EVERYONE should be relatively equal, right? But do we mean Scenario ONE equal (everyone OP), or do we mean scenario TWO equal (everyone sucks)?

Cuz it’s REALLY really hard to try to dance the line where EVERYONE is EQUALLY “competent” without being OVER nor UNDER powered relative to actually doing Task X within the game.

So, the question really is, what the hell do we even WANT, as players? To feel powerful ourselves? Or to feel powerful compared to other players we don’t even directly compete with outside of leaderboards?

It’s a much more complicated situation than most players are willing to admit.

If those were the only option, definitely number 2.
The player should feel weak against the hordes of hell. An uphill battle against evil, yada yada.

@Dimlhugion-1109

They’ve historically been incredibly successful at achieving what I call “Relative Balance Scenario 3” in my previous post:

That isn’t balance. Rather the opposite.
Flavor of the month design. Intentional imbalances. Each season, one or more new builds takes the spotlight.

[Mattelot-1113]

Just wait for the crucible season. Fixed!

[Unsanety-1456]

That’s true, watch those magic missiles fly all over the place. But… I would be happy with a slight damage boost and seeing only 3 missiles flying around at a time. It’s such a fun build.

[anon30358639]

@SwankyDevil-1805

You forgot ethereals and 4th cube slot

ethereals were CRAP.

[Alexismad-1310]

@anon30358639

ethereals were CRAP.

I will take ethereals in a heartbeat over the “audio and visual vomit” theme. When they recycle that one, I will definitely auto-skip.

[anon30358639]

@Alexismad-1310

I will take ethereals in a heartbeat over the “audio and visual vomit” theme. When they recycle that one, I will definitely auto-skip.

Given that ethereals don’t cover ever main build, it’s a hard pass.That’s not a balanced theme.

[Kirottu-2131]

@anon30358639

That’s not a balanced theme.

No theme is balanced.

[Zymurgeist-1185]

@Alexismad-1310

Unless you count the countless threads over the years of people asking for balance.

Individuals ask, then the rest of the community proposes things that aren’t balance.

@Shadout-2849

The player should feel weak against the hordes of hell.

You mean the game should have challenge rather than blind luck and endless grind? I think people might faint.

[Dimlhugion-1109]

@Shadout-2849

That isn’t balance. Rather the opposite.
Flavor of the month design. Intentional imbalances. Each season, one or more new builds takes the spotlight.

Again, define “balance.”

Is it: “we should all feel an uphill battle against evil?”

Is it: “we should all feel EQUALLY uphill against evil?”

Is it: “I don’t like it when a guy I’m not even playing with NOR against, manages to claim an arbitrary spot on a thing I don’t have to look at or care about?”

Genuine questions. I’m not trying to be a butt.

I’m genuinely positing the argument that EQUITY - which people routinely misconstrue as EQUALITY - is literally impossible without setting hard rules and limitations on itself.

There’s a theoretical INFINITE number of potential players for this game, at any given moment in time. You can’t “some up, some down” that until we get a plumb line across the entire fence. It literally cannot happen unless resources for MAKING it happen were ALSO infinite.

And last I checked, this game isn’t generating “legitimate” revenue even compared to other titles in the franchise. (it’s possible botters are still hot-spot banned and maybe blizz gets a few dozen bucks here and there when the hackers re-up)

EQUALITY can be achieved but most people don’t actually LIKE that. Most people want “rules for thee, but not for me” (literally, “it’s only a problem if the intentional imbalance doesn’t favor MY class”). I’m not saying you’re one of those people. I am saying that I’M one of those people. I don’t give two s what happens to Witch Doctor because I don’t play the class. And I have no interest in playing the class. I DO care what happens to Necro because I like THAT class. See what I’m saying?

[Shadout-2849]

@Zymurgeist-1185

You mean the game should have challenge rather than blind luck and endless grind? I think people might faint.

Well, it is an A-RPG. There should certainly be grind and luck with the drops
Just also some engaging and challenging combat.

@Dimlhugion-1109

Again, define “balance.”

Is it: “we should all feel an uphill battle against evil?”

Is it: “we should all feel EQUALLY uphill against evil?”

The latter of course. As close to equal as you can reasonably come.
And by all, not literally all of the 10 trillion builds that exists, that would make builds pointless, if they all were the same. Picking 6 defensive skills and zero offensive, might not function well.
But “equally” (your word, not mine) well for well-designed builds with high amount of synergy between the skills, items etc. Which would include thousands upon thosuands of builds.
Yeah, that is the goal of balancing. A goal you cant ever fully reach, but you can always work toward it, with each patch.

Also note, it is the builds that should be equal here, not the players, obviously.
Players can have different skill levels.

And also, when talking balance, it should in most cases be “equal but different”. In the sense that one build might be really good at single target dmg, another build might be really good at AoE. So they are not equal for single target, nor equal for AoE, but overall against the various challenges of the game, their strengths and weaknesses evens out, creating that balance.
Nor should one of the builds be 100000000% better at single target, and the other 10000000% better at AoE. Make it 50% better at each for example that makes it much more likely you will achieve balance.

@Dimlhugion-1109

And last I checked, this game isn’t generating “legitimate” revenue even compared to other titles in the franchise.

Sure it is. It presumably sold somewhere between 30-60 million copies. It is most likely the Diablo title that generated the most revenue.

@Dimlhugion-1109

Most people want “rules for thee, but not for me” (literally, “it’s only a problem if the intentional imbalance doesn’t favor MY class”)

Maybe they do. Then ignore those people. Blizzard, or any other dev, should do what is right for their game, not just what a few crying players want (which yes, sadly tends to be MOAR powercreep).

@Dimlhugion-1109

I am saying that I’M one of those people. I don’t give two s what happens to Witch Doctor because I don’t play the class. And I have no interest in playing the class. I DO care what happens to Necro because I like THAT class. See what I’m saying?

I guess I dont. The very idea of “MY” class honestly makes no sense for an A-RPG. Or any game in general.
You do you of course, but no, I never understood that mindset.

In any case, I dont think it matters that you have that mindset either. Balance means the same thing even if you dont care about some of the classes.
Leading back to that “uphill battle against evil”. “Your” class should have that, just the same as that “other” class you don’t care about. Leading back to the equal uphill battle against evil.

[Dimlhugion-1109]

@Shadout-2849

Yeah, that is the goal of balancing. A goal you cant ever fully reach, but you can always work toward it, with each patch.

Insightful words. I do agree with you here.

@Shadout-2849

It presumably sold somewhere between 30-60 million copies. It is most likely the Diablo title that generated the most revenue.

But it doesn’t generate revenue today, is my point. How many of those 60 million copies were even sold in the last 6 months? Inflation alone dictates the money they made a decade ago had more buying power back then. And, reality dictates that money is most likely entirely spent by now. Unless Blizz is literally buying gold bars and burying them in a Cuban beach somewhere.

@Shadout-2849

Blizzard, or any other dev, should do what is right for their game, not just what a few crying players want (which yes, sadly tends to be MOAR powercreep).

Agreed on principle, but what do you do when MOST players are crying for powercreep? No players, no game, right? So at what point do you cross the threshold from idealism into pragmatism?

@Shadout-2849

The very idea of “MY” class honestly makes no sense for an A-RPG. Or any game in general.
You do you of course, but no, I never understood that mindset.

In an entirely literal sense, your confusion is warranted because obviously nothing about this whatsoever is something pertaining to ME, the person.

In a more abstract - or perhaps human-psychology - sense though, people are going to assume a certain level of self-representation through their avatars. Furthermore, the human brain doesn’t differentiate between psychological threat and physical threat. Nor from perceived threat and real threat. That’s the whole reason why PTSD exists, and why casual disagreements like what we have here can so easily turn into heated vitriol.

It doesn’t make sense when taken as an absolute, but it does track with everything we know about the human condition.

@Shadout-2849

Balance means the same thing even if you dont care about some of the classes.

I think the disconnect here is that you’re approaching “Balance, definition of” as a universal truth. Whereas I’m approaching it from the perspective of how most of the time in most use cases, said universal truth is entirely irrelevant. People aren’t going to care that gravity only exists because our earth’s core has a certain density. They just know that the world sucks. (as well it should, or else we’d all fall off)

[MicroRNA-1507]

@Alexismad-1310

Big problem is they are very, very, very terrible at internal testing. PTR’s are a horrible testing method as most people involved in the PTR are not testing what Blizz wants tested.

How much intdrnal testing is needed in light of tbe fact that we have class set specific leaderboards?

One could simply increase the power of undeperforming sets and decrrase the power of overpowered builds.

[naksiloth-1354]

There are more than one element to consider when balancing classes and builds. To be brief, ratio of effort to reward by input density, the risk weight of decision making and the frequency of obstacles that build may face, affect the decision. Looking at the leader boards will NOT give you an idea if their power is justified or not, unless you are a developer who work with proper QA teams to gauge it.
When you ask them to remove a portion of the struggle, they wouldn’t do that before gathering proper information besides glaring at leader boards. They usually go with what type of data they need to tweak things for next Season. This is how FotM builds appear, promoted to be played by a large portion of audience and all the while developers gather data for a planned upcoming changes across the board as a result.

While there are some subjectivity surrounding the judgement of such thing, bickering at me, will not convince developers to buff anything as they have the solid data of metrics. Developers only consider tweaks to power when it is not justified by the effort you have spent in comparison to other builds or contrast to some other elements.

All developers ever need is someone to tell them how a build operates under different circumstances and variables. They can do the comparison by testing it for you. I have seen several cases where people tried to backseat driving developers by “multiply this variable by tenfold pliz, so I can have an ez win by left clicking”; it all silently got turned down. I refuse to believe any of you have that sorta capacity to understand the game as a whole when hundreds of people worked on its design and it’s still an enigma to them partially.

Simply put, try different things with the builds you deem as underpowered and report your personal findings to developers instead of insisting on numbers. Try to figure out if you can wield a 2-hander for higher average damage and still sustain life in combat, for example.
If you refuse to play a build because it’s underpowered, then you are doing what developers asking you to do anyway and that’s fine. Next Season you may end up playing what they tried to promote with the Season theme.

Keep in mind that developers can calculate the numbers needed better than you. They just need an incentive to test things since it’s been a decade and this game ain’t making any money for them at all. Even if you fail to make them tweak things, you may cause them to choose their Seasonal theme in a way to gather information for the builds you put under the spotlight.

[Alexismad-1310]

@MicroRNA-1507

How much intdrnal testing is needed in light of tbe fact that we have class set specific leaderboards?

The game should be relatively balanced before it is put in a PTR or released lived. The fact that builds have been wildly unbalanced when the PTR is released and then wildly unbalanced when they went live shows they do little to no internal testing.

It is completely unfair to customers to have them spend 3-6 months grinding gear only to have that gear become antiquated because they couldn’t do their job and internally test the game to get decent balance. Live should not be treated as a PTR. It should be a relatively finished product.

A main reason I didn’t buy D4 is because I didn’t want to be a beta tester. All the effort put in by players just became legacy gear as they had to rework the entire itemization system. Had they actually done some internal testing to determine if they system worked and was actually what people wanted before release, this could have been all avoided.

Too many people nowadays are conditioned that it is their job to live test and debug software for companies. I am a little old school and believe a multi-billion dollar profit company should invest a couple million dollars of that profit into product integrity.

[Dimlhugion-1109]

@MicroRNA-1507

class set specific leaderboards?

First, solve the botting/hacking problem. Then, we can use leaderboards as a metric for gauging where we have balance concerns.

@naksiloth-1354

I refuse to believe any of you have that sorta capacity to understand the game as a whole when hundreds of people worked on its design and it’s still an enigma to them partially.

Look, I’ve never flown a helicopter. I don’t own any helicopters, and I have zero interest in EVER learning about helicopters.

But if I see a helicopter in a tree somewhere, just stuck there… I think I’m still qualified to use a modicum of common sense and go “hey, whoever the pilot was for this, they done goofed up to get that result.”

Right?

@naksiloth-1354

Keep in mind that developers can calculate the numbers needed better than you. They just need an incentive to test things

Nak, I know you’re a developer yourself on some sort of gaming thing unrelated and unaffiliated to Blizz or any company pertaining to blizz. I get that. You’re probably very smart. And you probably know more about “development” than most people.

There are billions of people on this planet, Nak. BILLIONS. It’s not a guess, but rather a mathematical certainty that there exists multiple people - LARGE numbers of people, like a figure in the MILLIONS - that are EITHER smarter than you, or more knowledgeable than you. At any given time on this planet and on any given subject.

The pool of people who intersect and are both smarter and better educated, is probably smaller but definitely nontrivial. It’s very arrogant to dismiss the totality of the human race except the dozen or so people you think coded this game and say “only THEY, I shall believe.”

@Alexismad-1310

It is completely unfair to customers to have them spend 3-6 months grinding gear only to have that gear become antiquated because they couldn’t do their job and internally test the game to get decent balance. Live should not be treated as a PTR. It should be a relatively finished product.

On the one hand, I agree with what you’re saying on principle. I really detest that the adage “fool me once…” is even a thing. Manipulation, dishonesty, greed - such words should not exist in our lexicon except as fanciful fairytales relegated to fiction. NOBODY “should” have to worry about caveat emptor.

On the other hand, there are VERY few examples of completely finished, bug-free games. About the only one I can think of from the top of my head is Minesweeper. Well over 99% of all video games for the entire history of the concept, and persisting to this very day, are “unfinished” in the sense you are describing.

I’m not defending D4. It’s a pile of rubbish. I’m just saying, have some realistic expectations for gaming in general terms. We should expect more from AAA companies, for sure. But when you start going off like this:

@Alexismad-1310

Too many people nowadays are conditioned that it is their job to live test and debug software for companies.

That’s literally just a meme-level take, my dude. It’s some sort of ecletic mix of “back in the good ol’ days” and “always has been.”

The only transaction is fiscal. I promise you, if D4 hadn’t made money. As in, if people ACTUALLY didn’t buy it. Then the problem would VERY quickly fix itself.

[Shadout-2849]

@Dimlhugion-1109

Agreed on principle, but what do you do when MOST players are crying for powercreep? No players, no game, right? So at what point do you cross the threshold from idealism into pragmatism?

Tbh, just because players claim they want something (because they presumably believe it themselves), doesnt mean it is good for them. They might very well still play without the power creep. Heck, maybe they would be more likely to still play.
Don’t just blindly cave to each complaint the players have. The customer is not always right.

@Dimlhugion-1109

In a more abstract - or perhaps human-psychology - sense though, people are going to assume a certain level of self-representation through their avatars.

Maybe some people. But I honestly doubt most people see these characters as avatars, of themselves or anyone else.
Nor do I see the pieces in chess as any kind of avatars. Just tools to use to beat my opponents in the game.

Each class is just a choice of a sub-set of possible builds you can make. Why limit yourself to just one of them?

@MicroRNA-1507

One could simply increase the power of undeperforming sets and decrrase the power of overpowered builds.

Yep.
Nor do you need to get it right the first time around.
Nerf by “5%”, buff by “5%”. Check again, was it enough? If no, repeat.
Balancing is an iterative process.

@Alexismad-1310

The game should be relatively balanced before it is put in a PTR or released lived. The fact that builds have been wildly unbalanced when the PTR is released and then wildly unbalanced when they went live shows they do little to no internal testing.

Yeah.
But even with good internal testing (so not what Blizzard is doing…) it wont be perfect at release. Balancing will need to happen as long as the game is being updated.

[Dimlhugion-1109]

@Shadout-2849

I honestly doubt most people see these characters as avatars, of themselves or anyone else.
Nor do I see the pieces in chess as any kind of avatars. Just tools to use to beat my opponents in the game.

Each class is just a choice of a sub-set of possible builds you can make. Why limit yourself to just one of them?

Have you ever played an MMO? Like we’re on a blizzard forums, so let’s use WoW as an example.

Obviously, I don’t “identify” as an undead rogue, or what have you. However, people WILL adapt surprising behaviors that they take from real life (where it’s at least somewhat logical) and throw into the online game they’re playing (where it’s somewhat silly).

Personal space is one such concept. If you’re sitting on a public bench somewhere in real life, and a stranger sits down right next to you. Like literally, they’re squished next to you, as if this were the only seat available on the planet and there was NO room for “personal space.”

You’d get freaked out a bit, right? Or at least, it’d be awkward, or uncomfortable.

People OFTEN take this “personal space” concept, and apply it to virtual space. If you’re standing around in Stormwind (or Undercity) and someone walks up, and puts their character in the EXACT same spot. Most people feel that same awkwardness. That same violation of “personal space.”

It doesn’t make logical sense. But humans aren’t logical creatures. We have CAPACITY for reason, ABILITY to logic. But we’re innately much more driven by more primal urges. We are still animals in the kingdom, in spite of evolving opposable thumbs.

You’d be surprised how much people get attached to video game characters, especially those they directly control in terms of in-game mechanical actions.

[naksiloth-1354]

@Dimlhugion-1109

You’re probably very smart.

Not really, but thanks. I am just telling you what worked for me and perhaps others while giving feedback to receive a proper response in the form of a tweak later. I have given Blizzard feedback on certain builds and it was taken into account just next Season. I didn’t do any math, I didn’t write fifty pages of arbitrary numbers; I just told them that this build doesn’t work as effectively compared to another build of the same class. It was that simple. Since I played both of those builds, I was able to compare their flow and since they have the server records, they should have seen that I mean it.

@Dimlhugion-1109

I know you’re a developer yourself

I may give that impression but I have another occupation. I just have interest in coding and development as a side hobby, I wouldn’t call myself a developer.

@Dimlhugion-1109

except the dozen or so people you think coded this game

Well… If we go by that, Diablo 3 is worked upon by many, many employees; designers, coders and a large team of focused audience in QA. They have listened feedback of players along the decade and tested them. As an individual nobody should have galls to say “I’m smarter than two hundred or so people who worked on this project” with a flat expression on their face.
If your friend got a job at a Forbes 500 company and you don’t, it simply means he or she was qualified for the job and getting paid for it. This has less to do with smarts alone but their social skills and being qualified for the job.

@Dimlhugion-1109

"hey, whoever the pilot was for this, they done goofed up to get that result.”

There are tons of variables in an ARPG and it’s hard to land all of them accurately. Their studies on metrics effort, whatever and yadda-yadda, can be subjective at places; this is why they accept feedback from fans and shape the game from it. Otherwise, why do we have Community Managers making reports from the forums weekly or monthly to bring to developers?

I have seen many failing or being inaccurate with the numbers while giving “feedback”. So simply, it’s in vain to dictate or pinpoint anything related to the theorycraft and mathematics side of things. All they ever need or require is your honest formed opinion, rather than you pointing at one online guide and saying “oh hey, make this work better but tenfold”. They can easily do that, but there are caveats to it.
Players have different comfort zones that allow them to give their own twist to the build and still enjoy it; making one aspect better could bury others or its diversity. Also, those guides may not reflect the build at its peak but written in a way to mitigate unnecessary risks and lessen the impact of frustration from bad randomization at the loot hunt.

[Dimlhugion-1109]

@naksiloth-1354

If your friend got a job at a Forbes 500 company and you don’t, it simply means he or she was qualified for the job and getting paid for it. This has less to do with smarts alone but their social skills and being qualified for the job.

Perhaps you’re not from the USA, but over here, we kind of don’t work in ways that make sense.

In terms of governmental structure, we say we live under a democracy, when in fact it’s actually a democratic republic.

In the job market, we say we have a meritocracy, but in fact it’s just a mixture of nepotism and generational wealth.

And in terms of consumerism, we say we believe in free market capitalism but really it’s just capitalism. Nothing free about it.

I very much doubt anyone lands a fortune 500 job these days that isn’t already benefiting from the aforementioned realities that trump (to turn a phrase) all the fancy-pants idealism we sugarcoat things with. There’s a reason USA is struggling with diabetes.

@naksiloth-1354

Otherwise, why do we have Community Managers making reports from the forums weekly or monthly to bring to developers?

Do we? Specifically for D3? Do we really? Today? Like, week ending 6-8-2024, we have a D3 CM generating a report to bring to developers, plural, for the continued benefit of improving D3?

@naksiloth-1354

I have seen many failing or being inaccurate with the numbers while giving “feedback”. So simply, it’s in vain to dictate or pinpoint anything related to the theorycraft and mathematics side of things.

Never mind “would” just straight up why should all developers behave in the exact same way regarding feedback? I don’t think there’s only one way to eat a Reese’s™.