I don’t know why everything has to also be solo-able. Make world bosses world bosses.
I mean, flip, I’m fine with making some solo-exclusive modes or bosses in specific solo dungeons, where you CAN’T have more than 1 person. Both exclusivities are fine, as long as both do exist.
There shouldnt be either solo or group exclusives imo. Let people play in groups if they want to. Or solo if they want to.
Telling a group of friends that they need to split up and do their own thing if they want to do the next dungeon, because it happens to be solo only, is just not a good experience. Some MMOs have done that in the past.
That’s what exclusives for both allow. Solo players can have their solo-only content, multiplayer can have theirs.
Obviously you should be able to seek out either one when you want, and not all of a sudden have a solo dungeon come up when you’re playing multiplayer.
Neither can have all content. Adding even more “solo/group only” content only makes things worse. Making things worse for everyone is not a balance to strive for.
Just let people experience all the content regardless of their group size. What is bad about solo and groups being able to both kill world bosses?
Supposedly, world bosses will suddenly show up when doing solo content.
I don’t remotely care about that.
Right. It’s better we potentially sacrifice game design and fun because solo players can’t handle not thinking they’re special snowflakes if they have to group occasionally.
Kind of goes against what a world boss is, doesn’t it?
But regardless, I don’t like the attitude "you can’t do this because it’s for solo players or “you can’t design that because it takes more than 1 person.” I think it limits design and encourages development to play it safe.
Because they’re already scaling it. Can’t use an example of scaling to counter a situation where there isn’t.
I do.
I bet a lot of people do.
Why would you sacrifice any game design and fun in this scenario?
We have a world. There is a boss in it. World boss. Not sure where world boss is defined as something that would need a group.
As far as we know, they dont scale the world bosses.
Seasons can be played Solo;
-i don’t play them, because they are challenges and take away my mobblaster freedom and fun in the Normal-Lore-Immersion mode.
-and i still suffer from my lack of enough crucial stash-tabs.
if they are a fun Solo grind and not a challenge to beat, all is well.
-grinding for gear drops first is aRPG-proof ofc.
no, only to have that feature:
Diablo is unique: it’s iso good vs evil, within the Immersion of some human history (could and should be more).
why not make D4 a solo aRPG and MP optional:
-it would be a way more logic approach, catering for both options equally.
here my concern in general is:
‘will there be items, cosmetics, elitist gear…as drops for the 1%…’
Nothing as such is confirmed yet. Obviously items and gear are going to drop from mobs, i’m not sure about cosmetics but probably some will be obtainable in game. However the better looking cosmetics will be purchased with real money. At least that’s how i see it, it makes sense as they want to make more money than D3 did.
One time we agree on something
Can you point out an example of a world boss that DOESN’T? I mean, world bosses as we’re referring to them were originally featured in MMOs, weren’t they? And you sure needed a group to take out all the ones I’m aware of - when they were relevant, anyway.
I care about having “enough” content.
I don’t particularly care whether everything can be done a certain way because I’m flexible enough to do more than 1 thing.
To answer that fully, I’d need to have a better grasp on what we think “scaling” encounters means.
Yay?
It’s always been about a party of heroes really. Just look at literally every concept art of D2, it’s always showing a party.
Not always. On Diablo 1 you’re ONE of three heroes. You’re a lonesome hero in a dark dungeon.
Dispite “every concept art of D2” showing a party, when you play (in a single player game) you’re the only one capable of saving the world (even if you get a mercenary).
Basically, the essence of Diablo series is a hopeless world in ruins, attacked by hordes of demons and undeads, where you’re the only one who can stop the great evils.
Lore for the games is always a group reference. All 3 heroes killed Diablo in D1, and “a group of heroes” stopped Diablo and Baal in D2.
D3 is the only ambiguous one (because “Nephalem” is singular and plural).
Yea a group
But not independent individuals randomly running around in sanctuary and bumping into each other xD
On the books, yes. On the games, no. The point in this topic is about the games. You play alone, in a desolated and lonesome atmosphere. You don’t bump groups of heroes in the cities and dungeons.
This is a point that differs Diablo series from other RPG series (specially the MMOs)
In d2 you can play solo, entirely.
Solo play is the focus on D2, as collecting all the items and not grouping the quests isn’t easy for all builds. Not to mention, no bots, so, no hr’s for you early or even reasonably soon.
D2 is about solo play, group is just this thing for exp for the ppl who want to skip the content w/o caring.
D3, is not at all about solo play. The endgame is not finding items, its about gemups and group meta comps, to then solo. Take away exp from mattering or being awarded in groups, and gemups from mattering or being awarded in groups, and then why play group? Take away the redic salvage system in D3 that lets you create copies of rare items instead of finding them, w/o much effort, and why play groups?
The smart way to make a Diablo game is to nail solo. Make sure solo is unreal. NOT making ppl play meta in group comps. It’s design 101 and what d2 did. And d1 ofc.
Blizz is like trying to be nintendo and force group play soooo heavily, when, this isn’t MK. It’s co-op, meaning, max-efficiency is wanted, meaning, meta is wanted, meaning, creativity / not meta isn’t wanted. Duh.
Nobody likes that, it was a fad to game all youtubey and meta comp. Let it die, don’t go back to that ‘just bc we can bc twitch is so popular’ doesnt mean it’s the right way to make a game. Or, make D4 like MK where your group is vsing each other constantly, so there is no team, its everyone for themselves in group games. Like MK. You dont put a group prio’d diablo game out there. That just says play meta or log off.
Solo should be prio 1, figure out group after like how D2 did it.
One reason all those old nintendo / good 90s games worked is they didnt bank on group co op and choices, nobody cared about ‘meta’ back in the 90s bc games didnt incentivize it / force it like D3 does. Meta is so lame. You dont need reg balance patches and such if the game is about solo. You do, heavily, if it’s about meta, and no content would be enough if they’re going meta group comp. They’d have to patch it like every 2 months to keep interest.
Could be lots of things.
Obviously, the more players the more HP the enemy have.
But to some degree it could also be; if more than 10 players are at the boss, it is able to use an additional type of attack, to make the fight more challenging.
Blizzard is using scaling a lot in WoW these days. Should be possible to get some inspiration.
Both in terms of amount of players. Example from Blizzard:
Today, Sun Tenderheart’s Shadow Word: Bane ability afflicts 2 targets if your raid size is between 10 and 14, but begins to hit a third target at 15.
Once our upcoming change is in place, if you have a 13-player raid, there will be a 60% chance for each cast of the ability to hit 3 targets, and a 40% chance for it to hit 2. If you add an extra player, and thus have 14, there will now be an 80% chance for 3 debuffs to go out, and a 20% chance for only 2.
But also just difficulty scaling. Like going from LFR, to Normal, to Heroic, to Mythic, adds new abilities to bosses.
Or going through Mythic dungeons, from +1 to +15:
At certain levels, the dungeon gains an “affix” that changes the way enemies will act, adding additional complexity to the content
Personally I want to do ‘all the things’.
Tried googling a bit. Looks like some singleplayer JRPGs (such as Xenoblade) might refer to their overworld bosses as world bosses, though hard to say if that is official naming or not.
and then we bounce on my proposition again:
make an Epic Solo AI-MP approach:
-give us our own developed characters as followers! 