Hindsight is 20/20

PC General Discussion
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fore·sight
The ability to predict or the action of predicting what will happen or be needed in the future.

Last month I watched a video of a lead developer for Diablo 3 on his opinions on many of the decision along the way. It’s interesting to hear that many of systems that were either changed, or outright removed. All of which had a history of people who tested the game, and other team members, stating it was the wrong direction. This is not the only diary/ interview that has existed like this.

For most of these instances, sometimes even 20 years later, they fully realize how stubborn they had been and often attributed it to following their vision for the title.

Hindsight is 20/20.

It’s easy to look back at the past and realize your mistakes. Knowing this, history often repeats itself. As with humans, however, it doesn’t always need to follow this pattern.
Perhaps the propensity of doing this is more common with game developers as of late? It’s certainly not strictly a Blizzard thing, but it surely feels like it.

During the Loot 2.0 update in Diablo 3, or many of the major quality of life changes in Classic WoW, many of the players were rejoicing. Stating things like, “After 4 years! Finally” or “We’ve been asking for this since Beta, or launch.”. This brings me to the section below, think of it as another squeaky wheel in a dumpster among many that sit in an alley outside of the office.

Go easy or, kicking and screaming.

Many of the following suggestions are eyeroll moments or feel like absolute chores. Detracting someone from having a blast in a world that you all work so hard to create.
Most of these are so obvious and have been suggested since early testing. They will change for the better at some point. That being said, I understand that some things seem simple to change on our end and they can be a nightmare on yours.

Boss Farming

  • Allow a reset option instead of running out (Written before PTR - Changed! Great Job!)

  • Even if a reset is instituted, we will need a peddler type NPC that is perched on a rock watching our demon slaying nature. Resets are nice, but it is a small fix for the larger problem. So much loot drops, that it needs to be sold. We would still need to run to town. Also, even if we only pick up certain loot, it will flood the screen, causing performance and graphical/ visibility issues. I can not overstate this enough. One change can not come without the other.

Tempering and Rerolls

  • We absolutely need more possible selections per reroll. Don’t insult us and add just one more option. Think 5 as some of the pools are so large the the gold sink is off-putting.

  • Remove affix rarity. Spending a week rerolling, farming for mats/ gold for a +3 skill is awful. It feels awful. Id rather go to Vegas and gamble my savings away. I want to feel the joy of getting my +2 or 3 and get back to playing the game. Knowing that I just quickly accomplished something and I can now enjoy the reward. Make each affix equal. No one wants to play an RNG Loot Box Simulator instead of making fun builds and slaying demons.

  • Allow us to save a Temper roll and give us more options. I have a feeling you will insist on giving us additional rerolls, however, that only slightly fixes the issue. It feels like an insult. Please… Let us keep an option per roll. Give us one additional Temper Option per roll as well. The community is screaming for a reasonable change here. I feel this is it if you are going to not allow a reset. (Also written before PTR)

Armory

  • This is the single most confusing thing in any discussion about the game that I have with others. I have heard so many people in discord sound absolutely disgusted, as have I, when we talk about a campfire and this subject gets brought up. The response regarding this is terrible. There seems to be a hatred that we are asking for this and that your eyes are rolling back so far into your head that you can see what’s going on behind you. The game would be SO MUCH better if this existed.

Glyph System

  • Redesign the system to that of the Barbarians Arsenal System. This way you do not have to add new ways to level them. You can equip any Glyph and play with it. The more you play, the more you level it. Perhaps keep Nightmare dungeons alternate purpose as a means to expedite this process a bit?

Training Grounds/ Testable Numbers

  • Create options within the Character screen, Options Menu or inside of the training grounds to Pin up to 5 attributes somewhere on the screen. Current example: I want to see how much attack speed that I have during combat. I have half of the screen filled up with my character and sheet menu that I have to be far to the right of the enemies. Even then, the number jumps up and down on the list that it makes it hard to track.

Changed Example: I can toggle on: Attack speed, Crit Chance and Lucky Hit Chance. Somewhere on the screen, it will show your current total.

  • Create the option to also show the Highest Number and a button to reset values.

Loot Filter

  • Another “Eye roll” coming by the devs here. Yes, we know you have reservations. You will likely slowly implement this over time in someway or another. All of the talk about how Loot Reborn will drastically change this is not entirely true. I still have to sort through a ton of GA items and I rely on selling legendary items and uniques to fund my rerolls, etc. How about we start rolling out those small concessions now? Perhaps in the options menu, allow us to NOT see some things.

Item Stack Size

  • This is one of the things that I referenced at the beginning in terms of how things will change at some point. Please do not change a stack from 20 to 40 and let us continue to complain about it for another year before you change it to 80. Then, after 4 years. You decide to finally increase it to 500 and you are the hero because the community is rejoicing that it finally happened after so many years of complaining.

Boss summoning materials

  • Arbitrary numbers on materials. Could we possibly have them consistent and reasonable? Why 9 for Zir? Can it just be 5? A similar change was made for Beast in the Ice, but not any others?

World Bosses

  • Make them more resilient or allow for people to 2-man them somehow for people who wish to do that for fun. No fun in getting there for a one shot (Also written before PTR)
  • Consider a smaller timer. Sometimes I go weeks without really being able to kill one. Sometimes try to remind myself that in 45 mins I need to do it, but forget while farming for Glyph XP or doing Pit runs.

Staff vs Offhand

  • Remove the 200% enchanting? Allow 2 aspects on it instead? Often times, the second aspect for 1h and offhand is a simply better.

Expand Transmogs

  • Please, let me look like I’m wearing a cool staff while actually equipping a wand and offhand. Why the limitation? Why not let us have fun and make our character look cool?

Boss mechanics

  • More engaging attack patterns that can be dodged. It is much more fun. Much like a world boss, they have great patterns. Being one shot and running back to your body in the Pit’ etc is not fun.

Respawn Points

  • During a pit, I have been one shot by the boss and spawned in 2 levels back. I had to run all the way through an area, click the portal, then run to the boss portal. Please let go of this philosophy. Let us res nearby or at our corpse. The current situation is a major deterrence,

Helltide Layering

  • I place 2 materials to summon the Maiden, I realize that I need to go to town to clear my bags. As I am teleporting away, someone drops the 3rd material, triggering the encounter. I click on the NPC, sell my marked junk and click the portal back. I am on a new layer and the event isn’t happening. I get put on a new layer. This particularly sucks when you are on a roll and in a grove with many other players. You are all summoning and killing her quickly. Until you decide to TP away and then you are suddenly struggling to kill her with no one else around.

Party/ Invite UI

  • The ability to invite to party, talk in group and many other things regarding anything social is some of the worst that I have come across. Sometimes, I simply never engage in group play due to this. The game was touted as being an open world with so many of the philosophies surrounding it, yet, it remains some of the most clunky ive ever seen.

Controller Input

  • My wife wanted to play on controller but we could not make Modifier keys. Can we make it so that I can hold down Left or Right trigger and press A for another action?

  • Allow for one button press to push any other buttons as well. (Playing a barb and spamming 3 shouts and another skill while holding down whirlwind is terribly hard on the hand. Can I hold down A and B to use whirlwind and the other to spam the other 3 shouts? Why destroy my hand?

Store

  • Allow us to preview any individual item on our current character
  • Allow us to preview and piece or the set in alternate colors.
  • Allow us to purchase one item at a time. I just want the helmet, not the set. Break the pricing up and have the total set be cheaper than each one combined. (look at Warhammer Darktide and many other shops as an example)
  • Stop with the rotating items. Please… Just stop, it smells of terrible behavior. There have been costumes that I wanted to purchase, but when I had the money to do so (since they are so egregious), it was not around any longer. By the time it showed back up, I didn’t have the money. I don’t care what the “Marketing” folks tell you… let your players support you. You could have made so much off of me if I could purchase parts of an outfit or a weapon. Display all of your developer and artists hard work at once. Give us tons of options to choose from. Stop being disgusting with the pricing. I enjoy making my character different from time to time and I enjoy supporting people for the work they do.

Character customization

  • Please create more color options for items!
  • Consider different idle animations.
  • More hair styles
  • More facial types

Open World Obstacles

  • Scaling cliffsides or using ropes was novel, I get it. Show off the verticality of the world that we now have. However, no. Please, just increase the animations by 500%. Let the barbarian leap half way up the cliffside. Every time anyone I play with comes across this, we roll our eyes. To me, this is so very important, this is starting to slowly kill me one cut at a time. As well as the next suggestion:

Mount sprinting

  • Revamp this system. It feels so bad. Listen, we never understood why you slowed us to a crawl in town. You avoided the subject for so long and ultimately changed it. What is wrong with just letting us have unlimited sprints? Too many times I use a charge to get going out of town, use another to up to full speed and then I go back to slow speed before the new charge is available. I miss chest openings, maiden kills, world bosses so often due to this system. I know a lot of work went into this, but it slows me down so often. I roll my eyes all the time. Lets just let this system go and let us run around and have fun. It is a constant limitation and in Season 2 you made it better by adding it to the seasonal ash reward. It felt better then. I’m not saying that is the solution, I suggest making it unlimited. But it has only felt worse since then for some reason.

Teleport Locations

  • Please let us set our TP location. I prefer some cities.

Pet as a vendor

  • Consider using the pet as a vendor NPC. Going to town for vendoring things is painful and it happens too often. Leave that to the blacksmith for salvaging and such.

Future Builds

  • Less gimmicky builds
  • Resource and spender system is just a hurdle that most overcome. Most builds played end up with endless resources to cast their skills. We aren’t building something, we are checking off a minimum requirement box instead. I know this is hard to change as its part of the game, but I think the system is holding people back from having fun sometimes.
  • Previous builds get nerfed and left behind. (My wife loves the ball lighting build, but its not as viable for certain things. She does not have much interest in the current build) Perhaps do more to keep old builds in check with new ones. More variety. This seems to be a habit with Diablo where a lot become meme builds. Then you buff them up after 6 months by 10% and people think its comical. Then another 15%, then another 10%. After a year and a half, you finally just buff it correctly by the 400% needed, alter the rotation a bit and people are happy. However, some people lost hope for their favorite build after so much time that they stopped caring or playing. Just a suggestion to keep them all within parity of one another. Good for the players.
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