PCGamesN new interview w/ D2R leads

Diablo II: Resurrected General Discussion
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That works well enough for single player, with Plugy, which is why after first season, that is probably the route I’m going to take. Doesn’t really work with the current ladder structure, since you have to endlessly reroll characters to strive for that “perfect” set up in a limited time structure since much of what makes that perfect character, is the stuff you can only get in ladder and to be able to achieve that in the limited time span, you need to play the economy simulator game.

Ladders would be neat, and I’d play every season if it were a bit closer to the itemization of classic, where rares were mostly “BiS” instead of the runewords, because then it would truly be a randomized loot grind where every play is a bit different, with no real set gear based goals for progression.

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My goals are to perfect my chars in Nonladder, so I will strive for 1 high end runeword/rare/ladder only unique every season, and try to get them, and start that grind all over again next ladder.

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Thank for this OP
This interview just confirms that VV guys know what they are doing.

"We have other games if you want that.”
this made my day

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One think I really disagree on,

“I was really impressed with how Resurrected handles the map. I remember having to toggle it on and off constantly in the original because it just got in the way so much.”

I really don’t think it looks very good compared to how the map layout worked on vanilla.
I’ve always played with it over the whole screen, so the players cross was in the middle of the map.
And looking at it now on streams, I think there is just too much stuff/icons on the map showing.

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Good interview.
I’m glad they clarified some of the changes proposed by players.

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"Going back to that issue of item duping, does history help you stay ahead of that or is it always going to be an issue?

Rob Gallerani : Like all live games it’s something that’s going to have to be an active

thing that we always work on. The technical alpha was an offline, local character experience. We had it connected to Battle.net, but that’s really just because of the nature of the technical alpha.

When your character is saved offline, there’s a lot players can do to that save. Right now, we’re focusing most of our efforts on the Battle.net saved characters and preventing duping there because it ruins the economy for lots of players. There’s no Soulbound, there’s no personal loot. And on top of that, unfortunately, a common way that people dupe items is by crashing servers, so we want to make the best experience for all players.

Having a history of 20 years watching how people dupe items is definitely helpful, but it’s something that has to be actively monitored."

The comment about personal loot seems to be a non-sequitur in Rob’s comment. If you look at the quote in context, he is talking about duping, then the effect on the economy, the fact that items are not soulbound, states no personal loot, and then talks about how duping occurs.

I wonder if he meant to say account bound rather than personal loot as some players confuse. Rod is VV and has less experience than some Blizzard developers that have extensive aRPG background. Personal loot has nothing to do with trading or duping or account bound.

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I’m going to say he did mean instanced loot. It fits the one article from before alpha on how ninja looting will still be there.

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Um, did they just confirm item stacking? Not been watching any streams so I was just wondering.

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Anton, I think that last bit was a list of things they arent doing because it would make it just easier not more accessible. The game inventory didnt change. So, no there isnt stacking.

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The quote about ninja looting was from February 20, 2021 from Matthew Cederquist that pre-dates Blizzard’s recent survey. In the context of Rob’s quote, it would be logical to bring up account bound since his prior sentence talks about soulbound. Personal loot is unrelated to duping and its effect on the economy in that paragraph.

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Personal loot would affect the game economy though. So him bringing it up when talking about others systems they wont implement that affect the games economy makes sense.

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The question that was asked was about duping. Rob’s answer was trying to explain that duping affects the trade economy. If items were soulbound and dependent on the method of binding, duping would impact differentially the economy. If items were 100% account bound on pickup, duping would not affect the economy because the economy would not exist. What does personal loot have to do with duping?

I have frequently seen people think that personal loot equals account bound. This is a common misconception and remember Rob is VV that may not be as upto date on the lingo as to my knowledge, this is the first loot aRPG loot game that VV has worked on.

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What? How would soul bound NOT affect the games economy? Is this you miss speaking because that makes ZERO sense.

If items equipped became soul bound and could no longer be traded that would 100% affect the games economy.

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I edited my post for clarity. I was referring to Rob’s quote shown below.

Rob stated:

When your character is saved offline, there’s a lot players can do to that save. Right now, we’re focusing most of our efforts on the Battle.net saved characters and preventing duping there because it ruins the economy for lots of players. There’s no Soulbound, there’s no personal loot. And on top of that, unfortunately, a common way that people dupe items is by crashing servers, so we want to make the best experience for all players.

You will notice that he groups soulbound and personal loot next to each other and even uses “There’s no”. Parataxis suggest that these are both related to how he thinks items are bound to an account and/or player.

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Amazing Guys :slight_smile: Thank you for posting this.
Everyone in this Forum should read that Article
(especially the people who are constantly demanding: Give us this, give us that, add this, add that, make this easier, make that easier …)

:slight_smile:

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Yes, duping ruins the economy, So does soulbound items. however, soulbinding, items alone wont stop duping, it just lowers the tradable item pool, while hurting the player economy. Personal Loot wont stop duping either, but it will damage the player economy.

Hes asked about duping, and hes talks about the game economy. Its not hard to understand.

You are clutching at nothing man. The guy says No Personal Loot. hes not a clueless idiot who doesnt know what game design terms are.

Your aurgument is literally, The guy Says No, but dude, he really means Yes.

Dude no.

You are spending so much time imagining words in someones mouth after they clearly state something.

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Do you know what parataxis is?

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How? Be specific here, because mathematically, you would have a more evenly distributed economy, with one flaw. This flaw likely wouldn’t outweigh pickit, so it shouldn’t have a net negative on the economy.

If there are zero pickit hacks, which I find unlikely, then I do feel personal loot could have a negative effect on the economy by making one group of people less evenly distributed in their loot share, but that would be okay in my eyes, because that group would likely be the ones doing majority of the killing, anyways.

There are a lot of variables that we just can’t know yet, but both FFA only, and adding a personal loot option both have major downsides. I hope they keep the option open, but am leaning against personal loot being added until we can see how good their autopick detection is.

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Gameplay Scenario - 4 players take WP to Cata lvl 2 to run Andy, Fan out looking for stairs, each players fights and slays mobs. Items that arent Personal Loot distributed to them are all left on the ground spread out through the floor. All the items, the monster killer doesnt want are left on the ground with no one else able to interact with them. No one is going to reasonable retrace through Cata lvl 2, seeing what items were dropped for Personal Loot for them from other peoples kills. So those items that could have been looted by the Killer of the mobs go to waste. That loses loot in the games economy. Items that Could have been looted go to waste.

Gameplay Scenario 2: Player joins cow game late, after other players have left. Enters portal. Nothing is there. All those items that have potential to be looted by the new player are invisible and are wasted potential loot. Because the players that can interact with them have left.

Thats how Personal Loot affects the game Economy.

Are there systems that could be added to mitigate these issues? yes, a whole host of other systems could be added to ensure, missed loot is less common, so Personal Loot would have a smaller negative impact on the games economy,

Clarifications, Below things arent “Bad”, they are just systems that would need to be added to the game while Personal Loot in “On” to diminish the negative effects that can accrue with Personal Loot.

radius of Personal Loot activation(no one around you, you get all loot, only people in radius get loot, so leecher in town gets none etc)

mini map markers showing were “Good” loot is like Diablo 3 that has dropped for the player, so players can locate items that personal loot distributed to them that they might be close enough to easily see.

And having a system that when players leave a game for longer then a duration, their personal loot is marked as free loot.

How many game systems need to be added and tweaked and adjusted to TRY and get Personal Loot to work well with minimal downsides?

If you want personal loot, play in a private lobby, then all the loot is personal to you. A lot less work then adding it a bunch of systems to try and remove the problems people would have with personal loot option in public games.

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A timed loot system of 3-5 seconds mitigates pretty much all of your concerns.

There are still other downsides to personal loot, but this isn’t a major one.

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