"There I said it. I tried the beta, this game is too complex.
So right off the bat, we get thrown in some snow storm. It was TOO cold, the sun was NOT out… so immediately my hands were shivering and I did not want to play further.
Then I levelled up, and was supposed to select a skill. HOW? There’s 4 choices there, which one do I take?? Each one splits off into two, that’s like 8 skills!
Blizzard how am I supposed to know which skill to take?
I made another class and they had 5 skills to pick from. I nearly fainted.
Needless to say I stopped playing the game.
This is too complex."
- Some game journalist probably
Dear Devs,
Rather than shying away from complexity and depth in favour of dumbing everything down for new players, just create a game where you ease people into that complexity and depth, slowly over time. So that they can learn about them at a comfortable pace. You are already doing that with Paragon boards unlocking at certain levels, and that’s perfect!
All items should be Legendary
You don’t need to funnel all the players into Legendary items. Players can slowly discover how the different item varieties work and the useful affixes that they have to offer, as they play the game. You don’t need to remove a wide selection of Normal, Magic, Rare, Legendary, Unique item Flavours, in favour of handing the player a Legendary that gives 250% damage to Pulverize. You don’t need to decide for them.
Skill tree should be a small twig for ease of understanding
You don’t need to clip the tree into a twig. You can have a much more complex and branching skill tree, but reveal small manageable portions, as the player levels up and unlocks skills. You can reveal the full tree with settings adjustment or at a high level, where the player can augment their skills even further.
Crafting should be simplified to add X to Y once and be done
You don’t need to dumb down crafting into “Put Legendary affix on Rare”. You can have lots of little Doodads (Gems, Jewels, Runes, etc) and White items with lots of sockets, that players can discover over time, that give them control over how they build an item.
Dungeons should be minuscule and easy to navigate
You don’t need to simplify all the dungeons into simple layouts with do X to unlock boss room. You can have maze-like complex dungeons, twisty windy dungeons, “I need to open a google-map for this dungeon” dungeons, deep endless level dungeons, etc.
Everything should be based on weapon damage and main stat
You don’t need to scale everything off of weapon damage and main stat. It’s ok if the player has difficulty selecting from bunch of attributes. Not everything needs to be based on main-stat, not every Barbarian needs to equip Strength gear to get damage. The game will not become unplayable if your damage comes from a combination of skills and weapons. Not everything needs to be based on weapon damage.
Multiply damage by a thousand, at the very least
1000 is big enough. The players are able to read the difference between 10, 50, 100, 500 and 1000 pretty easily. Damage numbers don’t need to hit in the millions for the player to think “Now I am doing a lot of damage”.
Remove all stun and give some monsters the ability to stun for 10 seconds
It’s alright if the small monsters micro-stun the player and stops them from simply dashing into packs willy nilly. It’s alright. The player will learn to be more careful and avoid bad positioning. It’s certainly better than stunning them for 10 seconds, where they stand there and wonder what is going on.
Remove all consequences on death and make PvP zone opt-in
It’s ok if the player is more than inconvenienced by dying in the game. It’s alright if they enter a zone in the map, knowing that that zone is one where other players can ambush them without warning. Certainly, if Runescape can do that with its wilderness, so can Diablo. Players will learn and adapt to it.
Just like you can click to open the above and understand a complex point, the player can learn these things if you introduce them slowly, as they progress in the game.
(Guys, let me know if I missed any points in my list.)
Thanks for reading.
For my full feedback, see - 益 What I HATE about Diablo IV Beta