Still on this myth? I didn’t know the “maths” of D2 and did just fine. Not because I can’t do math, but because I just didn’t care about that level of minutiae in the game. I just played until I hit a wall, grinded up some levels, skills, gear and moved on. Not once did hit recovery caps, MF caps, res caps or any if that come into my consideration for playing. Maybe some attributes so I could equip an item, but that was it.
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How reading a character sheet to come to a conclusion then clicking at a screen to play the game is any hard or require complex math knowledge?
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It is a bit like claiming you need to understand how electricity works, to play Diablo. How else could you possibly turn on your PC/Console!
Playing more characters won’t be of help if you don’t understand the Math. That’s the thing. You’ll be like someone redoing a grade in school over and over again without progressing to next. So, eventually you’d have to learn the Math or you know, copy/paste, if you want to move forward.
Let’s try to be productive a bit. Is Diablo 1 dumbed down?
Yes. Diablo was designed so Brevik’s mother, who had never played a video game could play and understand it. So yes, Diablo has always been dumed down.
No. That isn’t the thing. You can learn and improve. Or let me rephrase that, most people can learn and improve.
And none of it requires any complex math.
Learning about a game as you play, and improving based on that learning, is one of the most basic pillars of game design.
People need to understand the basic rules (how to control the game, what is the most basic goals; kill an enemy by attacking them until their HP reaches 0 etc.), but beyond that is the learning phase, as you play the game.
In that regard, all the Diablo games are immensely easy to approach. You can understand what is going on, and how to play, in a few minutes.
All the rest; how to play well, how to fight different types of enemies, what works and what doesn’t work well together in a build, how to be efficient, all that comes as you play. And even if you only learn some of it, you can generally get through most of the game, as they are designed to be pretty easy overall. Only toward the endgame will the bad builds gets filtered out. Figuring out builds that are mediocre or better is generally pretty easy however.
And still, none of the learning requires any complex math.
Math and theory crafting is crucial for a Diablo-esque game. If it was simply plug and play with no regards to anything it would turn off a lot of people. And in my mind i would just shrug the game off calling it shallow.
There needs to be things to figure out. It’s not a bad thing having to dust off your calculator from time to time.
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Yes, just roughly a thousand times less random.
That’s even worse with this a la carte affix targeting, players would just pick what they want with very limited variation (you said 30% of drops if I’m not mistaken, with 1 affix guaranteed). It won’t feel random at all.
That’s the idea. Crafting offers a long term goal to mitigate the inconsistent nature of random drops. That’s why it’s so popular in these sorts of games.
Of course it should be possible to equip only dropped items and still be competitive.
That’s what every random system does though.
Maybe I wasn’t clear before : smart loot only reduces affixes that can’t possibly be useful for a class, like +1 to Meteor and (in the case of D3) +Dexterity for a Barbarian. This has nothing to do with letting the player decide. Actually, this is what annoyed players in D3V and lead to the creation of smart loot in the first place.
What players want is to get perfect items immediatly. That’s why it’s up to the game to determine drop chances.
And D3 was designed so a grandmother can play it (I think Wilson made this statement).
Accessibility has nothing to do with being “dumb”.
“Smart Loot” is just a term that loot is not 100% randomized.
The design of how smart loot is MORE important than if there is smart loot. Its common sense there should be smart loot. The how to do it is the key part.
If someone play a Necro, wouldn’t he want MOST of what drop is either useable by Necro, like more scythes than bows, more Necro class-specific stats on gears than other classes.
Loot acquisition design will include Target loot, smart loot, crafting, gamble & well trading.
Experience players with know-how will be able to gear up fast knowing, where, when, how to best farm the gear they want.
This is far more interesting & encourages game knowledge than finding a few good spots to farm currency & do it all day, all week, then using the currency to trade for the item you want ala PoE. That’s exactly what I did last time I play PoE. It feels like work…One of the reasons I quit. What I do most of the time is farm & exchange currency, do trading, buy/sell harvest crafts (on discord). Go discord for bulk sell/buy contracts etc
And dumbed down is typically confused for accessibility.
Loot is still random in smart loot. The loot tables or rather the affix tables we just made smaller.
It’s not learning if you don’t understand the basic Math rules since you won’t be able to upgrade your character.
I like how you dodge the Diablo 1 question since that’s the best Diablo in terms of Math. It should have been the foundation for D4, not D3.
You are completely clueless here and me not using harsher words is a compliment. Most of the players that never played an aRPG struggle a lot in the beginning in D3/PoE exactly due to the Math in place (which results in quitting before finishing campaign). Give them Diablo 1 and they won’t struggle.
Only if a calculator is included within the game. Yes, requiring a user to use third party tools is an outdated game design.
Also, note that aRPG stands for Action RPG, not Math RPG. It’s a common misconception among some members of the community to somehow want complex Math in these games. Seriously, if you are after that there are better ways to satisfy your Math hunger.
I mean not 100% randomized. I update the OG post to clarify. Smart loot is controlled randomization of course.
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If you want designers could hide the weapon damage numbers and character sheet leaving you in the complete darkness about how to progress, sure. I mean, you’re completely trolling here but whatever. Every game you play has math in them if you try to see behind it, they consist of code lines and functions at the end. How do you think physics engine determines collision and position?
Any isometric roleplay, be it cRPG or aRPG requires some knowledge in math to at least function but it’s not necessary unless you are in endgame. It’s designers’ job to teach you mechanics of the game by gradually pushing obstacles and make you learn from your mistakes of neglecting some crucial choices. It’s not your concern to teach player to farm some previous areas or pick another dialogue line for another sidequest in a sandbox.
In diablo 3 there are layers of damage buff multipliers and damage reduction variables but those are not necessarily require heavy knowledge but counting how many of these buffs with already standardized values you have available to and have access. Knowing franchise really had a long history, I wouldn’t worry about people not knowing math. After this point nothing can surprise the fans as it peaked in D3 already.
Back in Diablo 1 you were restricted by magic stat to learn some endgame spells for instance. And in Diablo 2 you had to be aware which skill point you allocated for synergies at endgame. By that account D3 didn’t make anything different, entirety of Greater Rift content is optional and most of the multipliers in the system are not different than previous systems.
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Yeah and that is the thing, if overdo those QOL things with crafting and gambling and such it gets about farming mats/gold more as slaying monsters and becomes a chore if start to think, 5 more bounties and time to reforge rolls or can craft my item and it is best way in game to get best items and you keep repeating that cycle over and over. It is not bad if have a very long questline that gives you the sword of doom, that is the fifth best weapon in game, but the same questline that gives you a slight variation of the best weapon in game every time you do it, that gets to be work. That is basically in the end what mats farming in bounties is, without even the varied and demanding quests for the sword of doom that is in every RPG in one form or another.
D3 also already suffers from this especially since you can get the absolute best gear in game that way, much more reliably and faster as by playing the game. Then again with how D3 was designed with such narrow builds where you need all those prescribed items combined with so few builds really being incredibly amount stronger as all others so either it is them or you lose insane amounts of damage and all RNG is on the rolls of these items I guess it is almost impossible to do different and have people acquire what they need in reasonable time and with rewards so disparate between T1 and T16 that spending time below T16 starts to feel like a waste quickly. You basically need all those fail safes to get gear you need in a season let alone great versions of them and as a pure solo player you may well fail anyway even with all those fail safes in place though getting T16 is no problem if know the mechanics.
Though I still think it is a bit too fast for my taste you can acquire and target items so perfectly in D3, it unfortunately makes sense with games design, but also stalls making people in getting any further real progress too quickly unless you farm massive paragon. Bit too easy to get what you need and after that it gets too hard to make further real progress to quickly. Then again we all know this will not change in D3, but hope they will be more careful about that in D4.
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Why should I be trolling when it’s pretty obvious D3 is an epic fail in terms of Math rules?
At the old forums I suggested doing a study and showing similar items from D1, D2, D3, PoE and an itemization I have made http://rankings.byethost33.com/game.php to random people on forums/dc that never played an aRPG to see how well they’d understand the item value.
Those trolling are those defending D3 Math as easy to learn like the white knight Shad, not me. But the truth is D4 is to lose player base as long as its Math is not simplified enough and its combat is mediocre. Even if it has 9999999999999999999999999999999999 builds that won’t make it a non-garbage since simple Math and great combat are more important than the number of potential builds.
You also said Cyberpunk 2077 gonna bury Diablo 4 so I don’t think I can take you serious.
We all saw the alpha version of D4 and they have no intention of making it complicated. Game already showcased how it went back to roots with skill tree and complicated passive tree. Those are not strange things to followers of the series for two decades.
So you expect people to understand a game without playing it. Sure. Try the same thing in DotA2, Cyberpunk 2077, Minecraft and Borderlands 3, then note your findings.
All I ever did was suggesting to split caster and combat characteristic; by splitting weapon damage and magic capacity like imbued elemental damage you saw several times in the series. This already be the case with the system suggests to diversify utility of different weapons in the quarterly blog.
That’s not including more complexity nor demanding crazy math knowledge from players. All in all, any game you can play is not “crazy” enough compared to a lesson in calculus.
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Gotcha, read too much into you comment.
Yes, by you.
Indeed, and it doesn’t mean you won’t get bows too, just with less chance to have +1 to a Rogue skill.
Smart loot is an opportunity to avoid being drowned in loot while still getting what you need.
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I said CPO, there’s a difference. Also, Cyberpunk setting isn’t leaving the gaming industry.
There’s no need for it. We can simply have Damage as a value and that’s enough. The splitting part is then done by the skills or legendary properties.
When designing the Math and itemization rules simplifying Math and complexifying the min/maxing should be the goal. That means if you can achieve the same min/max complexity in two different systems you pick the more simplified one regarding Math.