I think it is very important for us to have freedom in all the environmental interactions which create the gameplay experience, in order for our playtime to be long-term exciting. However Diablo IV we are fed with constant “direction-focused” goals and scenarios, absolutely contradicting what history teaches to be beneficial for the players of this genre.
In Diablo IV the Campaign is leading us by the hand like a mother would lead a four year old. What I mean is very well documented by reviewers online, criticizing the sluggishness of the campaign progress and style execution. You cannot do anything with it, but only enjoy/dislike whatever it gives you, on the exact pace it delivers it to you. No second chances, three way options, NPC character fates decided by the player. Simply a fun movie to watch. Lilith, big dog, a girl too young to lose its mother, Meshif comes back, march of the church and some platforms crumbling.
In the same “limiting area” fall the general gameplay design. AoE hazards limit the freedom of moving excessively. Note: “the grid” and movement on the grid is the most fundamental aspect on AARPG games! Yes the expansive AoE hazards design can be called “fun” but is also is acting as “a directive”. Mini-events and quests, pin-point interactions, which also lack a chance to exercise open-mildness and impulsive flow of thought. “Stay on this platform” or “kill “exactly this mob”,” bring this to the pedestal, in order to open the next door", “and just to let you know, there isn’t any other way around… etc”. We all know this, I won’t need to rehearse it all…
There are plenty of these “directives” and while they create sense of purpose, they limit the player as well in very harsh manner to their own logical(hazards) paradigm. Well, beg me pardon but we did not needed “great purpose” in the similar games of the past. A scenario was created, some mystic things were intertwined, some medieval based gameplay took place and it was all about done.
It was enough to put a sword in our hand and a boss on the other end of the mountain, so we the players would make this simple idea work flawlessly…
Now let me elaborate further: Take any particular zone encounter where the “whole room is on fire”. This is very common scenario of limitation of our choices, where we most likely will have to move to the designated area where “nothing is burning”.
But hay, is this what we really want? Does this action comes from our heart, does it projects us intellectually, like real human, or it is survival reaction, reflex of a crocodile, arisen from the chaos of game plan?
Do we express ourselves within the game freely enough, or the game is binding us to its own will? Truly we can stay in the fire, we can use resistance we can try to mitigate any AoE, but the fact is that such tactic cannot be a perpetual gameplay solution in Diablo IV, the game is too forceful in this matter and in practice 75% and more of the time, we just move away. We are being driven.
For the whole timeline of RPG style of games players and developers were hunting one simple thing - EXCITEMENT. One type of excitement found it in motion, other type in the tactical approach and the realm of the intellect. But both of them rely on the simple idea of FREEDOM/RESTRICTION.
Freedom - gives opportunity, it is opening aspect, it is natural growth pattern and it is bound to the light spectrum of ideas, it is high intellectual catalyst as well. Restriction on the other hand is Shadow - an enclosing idea, it is the liming factor and it is the primitive part of us, the masochist, the unwanted.
While we have freedom in may ways still in the game, what se see in Diablo IV is the huge prevalence of shadow impulses forcing (re)action - to achieve motion - in order to reach excitement, specifically in the gameplay and general design.
While other games, much more wise and older, offer freedom to the player, add specific amount of tension - just as little as needed to evade stagnation and in their true nature are freedom-based. They do not rely on rules and they do not establish gameplay metas themselves, all these things are to be discovered(and developed) by the enthusiasts who play. They also funnily enough do not focus on making things much much exciting, actually they are quite simple in essence, the true power they have is that they are simply there, open, ready, breathing dragon fire…
The reactive part of a gameplay is holding the real excitement locked in the heart, and it is always ready to be freed, but too much reactive and goal-oriented gameplay is simply an excuse to say that we do not know how to let a river flow properly in AARPG terms and reveal the pure happiness for the player, which is when he creates his own unique game goal by and for himself, when he has 300 ways to fill a bottle, chance to fly too the sky, but only if he could build a castle with his two hands… and a land to walk where he never repeats his steps twice.
So how to head for tomorrow from here? I would Ask you this question, it is a hard one I know.
I would personally:
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Limit AoE Hazard and make fights more straightforward, relying in toe-to-toe combat.
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Focus next expansions to have open-ended scenarios involved in quests and the campaign. Free that guy or kill him, face the consequence.
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Less NPC drama (duh, I know this is hard)
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Totally new types of monster AI for the next expansions and please redesign some existing monsters. Make them snappy and crisp, like they were old times, not the fat cardboard boxes we have right now. If it explodes Ii want to SUPRISE ME!!
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Ensure movement on The Grid is possible even in tough big massacres! Positioning is everything in aarpg, even more important than tactics. It needs stimuli still, but don’t fill the grid with rubbish!
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Let the environment be filled with uncertainty and suspense, more than the exact daily chores of a house-maid.
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And these armor racks, I don’t know what are the exact loot tables looking for them right now, but I would love them to drop Uniques 1/1000 of the time after lvl 25. Like really YES! Kicking a stone and getting a Shako is what Diablo is known for!!
We need a scenario where nothing is prescribed, where variables are exciting and most importantly where gameplay is simple but open for interpretation, uninstructive system, where one color has its thousand shades and where there isn’t always some NPC(Non-player character) telling us what we seek in life and what is next to be…
Trying too much is achieving too little…
-one zen cat
