The philosophy of the "I Win" Button

PC General Discussion
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We’ve all seen people asking Blizzard to incorporate systems into D4 that remove any sort of friction or challenge or loss from the game. Some examples are calls to make tempering infinite and free. And for anyone who doesn’t like that idea, they can just trash their own equipment after 5 tries. Boom. Problem solved!

Or that all the uber uniques should have a higher drop rate so that everybody can get them all. Again, those who don’t like the idea, just don’t use them! Problem solved!

But do you realize that too many actions like these take away from D4 being a game?

Look at chess for example. While playing, I can’t just pick up my opponents king and throw it out the window and be like “I WIN!”

Why not? Because the rules of the game include artificially created restrictions and rules to ensure that getting my opponents king off the board is far more difficult than that. That’s what makes it a game: the unnecessary rules that cause you to struggle and lose sometimes. Every game has these. If they didn’t, they are not games.

Or take Super Mario Brothers 1. This philosophy would assert that you should be able to press a button at any time to grow wings and you can just fly overtop of all the levels to the flagpole and beat the game. It blows my mind how many I see on here wishing for those proverbial wings to be added to every game, because why not… those who don’t like it can just not use it.

But do you know why the game designers didn’t add an “I Win” button? That is, the ability to just pick up your opponents king any time and toss it in chess? Or wings in Super Mario Brothers? If you don’t, I’m here to tell you the reason:

It ruins the game for the rest of us.

In the examples above, if it were legal to toss the opponent’s king out the window, or grow SMB1 wings but I didn’t like that mechanic, I now have to place the artificially created restrictions and rules upon my own self. And that sucks, because I can no longer “do everything in my power to win the game” without outright instantly winning the dang game, which is no fun at all… judging by virtually every game ever invented in all of human history.

TL;DR You are supposed to lose in games sometimes. You are supposed to fail. Things are supposed to be in the way of your success.

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this is entirely a generational thing i think personally. some of us grew up with games that had limited amount of lives that when you ran out it was game over and you started all over again. some games you couldnt save and if you didnt complete it in one sitting you had to start all over again. modern games take away those difficulties and allow players to just reset or restart from last checkpoints infinitely. the modern gamer doesnt like failure or difficulty. i think that is the big difference

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try again; I’ve likely been gaming longer than you and I’m wise enough to know the current tempering system is complete trash.

To the OP: you missed most of the point of why people are upset over this game.

1- some of us dont have infinite time because life happens. If we spend 100 hours trying to upgrade an item through RNG, why the F do we want that to be thrown away in 2 minutes of trying to temper the item?
2- You dont see Barbs complaining do you? Because most of the issues people post about are class balance, who want to play their favorite class and have it be equal as a Barb. Not a difficult concept.
3-please dont compare Diablo to chess. Not even remotely apples to apples.
4-There is no winning in the game. Its much different from a Super Mario where you have an endgame, but have the same exact powers you started with. Its just not a good comparison. There is no offiicial “end of the game” here. Its either when you get bored or too pissed off to give a crap anymore.
5-People fail in this game all the time- I fail in Pit 105, Barbs fail in Pit 145. Its the way it goes.
6-I think the temper mechanic is abysmal. I’d like it modified. Not to temper until you get the max roll, but just so you get a roll. Why dont we save ourselves some time and put the same limits on enchanting too? This way we can have RNG over RNG over RNG over RNG.

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doubt it. the tempering system is fine. im sorry if you think everything should be handed to you super easy.

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Sports teach values because there’s an actual cost in training or injury or even not making a team. With games there is no cost so losing teaches nothing.

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You can add difficulty, grinding etc without making systems like Tempering to be pure garbage.
Negative RNG will never be a good idea in video games.

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I have ran into this argument quite a few times and it’s just difficult to make people understand why limiting options can also be a good thing. In these arguments I have tried comparing this game to a toy or a sandbox. A game needs to have rules. When you have too much freedom of choice in a video game it turns into a sandbox. A typical mindset of an adult needs rules for a video game, otherwise it’s simply boring. I used to play with Lego bricks and I still would if I had the imagination. It’s a similar case with D4, this game needs way too much imagination to be fun.

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We aren’t children anymore is the biggest issue, we don’t have time to put in 15 hours a day anymore, I wish I did lol

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one thing is being challenging and increasing gameplay depth, and one thing is mechanics that increases grind. what you are getting challenge wise from failed tempering? I just see wasted X hours because of RNG nothing more.

even if tempering would not fail, would ir allow to skip tormented bosses or Uber Lilith mechanics? will it make Pit harder? nope. it just wasyes player time forcing to do mindless repetitive thing. that’s the problem, not all think that mindless repetitive thing should be part of any game nowadays.

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hehe. im retired now so i do have that time again lol

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Good attempt OP.
Not a :dart: though. Kind of missed the board and hit the scorekeeper.

The Philosophy of hyperbolic statements and blanket assumptions.

A prime example in this very thread…do try to follow along.

Now here they were being sarcastic - BUT “Ideally” Tempering would in fact follow the same rules Enchanting follows.
This is a bare minimum base level request: If a Players gets an Affix - the Affix should be able to be retained or DISCARDED for a Better or Different Affix - exactly like Enchanting.

Ask for this extremely simple and “should have been part of Tempering to begin with” FEATURE and the following blanket assumption and dismissive, borderline insulting reply generally follows:

the tempering system is fine. im sorry if you think everything should be handed to you super easy.

A simple request? An attempt at REFINING a system truly deserves such a reply?
Did they ask for an “I WIN” button?
Did they ask for “Infinite Rerolls”?

No. It’s a common request - LET. ME. KEEP. CURRENT. ROLL.
If a Player has EXTRA Tempers remaining after hitting 2x Temper Affixes they can CHOOSE to attempt to REFINE their gear.
Exactly the system the Occultist has.

It’s called trying to find common ground solution to a poorly desinged and not well received - Liked YES! People like it but always with a caveat - They are SCARED to try to Refine an item and will often be left with multiple Tempers remaining because they have ZERO CONTROL - ie. They cannot keep the roll they have.
It’s called Player AGENCY and the tiniest bit of CONTROL vs this ridiculous blind RNG on blind RNG.

But y’all keep on being hyperbolic and assuming people want it “EZ MODE” or whatever.

Go read the PTR Forums from early April and S4 PTR - Tempering threads.
Pro Change: Civil and discussing like adults, looking for common ground, pros and cons etc.
Anti Change: vile words, attitudes and overall rabid(not all but many).

Quite telling…

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keeping the current roll is fine and i support that change. but that wasnt the request

he edited his post afterward if you didnt notice

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Big problem: These three things are different and are requested by different types of players.

Friction refers to how “smooth” the experience is… in other words, that you don’t suddenly run into a wall. The difference in difficulty between Pit bosses and Pit mobs is an example. These players don’t necessarily want easier bosses, but rather consistent difficulty.

Challenge directly affects difficulty. And there are two types of challenges: The fair ones and the easy ones.

Those who ask to be able to do a pit 200 or at least a 61 are the ones who ask for easy challenges.

Those who ask that invisible instakills not exist ask for fair challenges.

Loss refers to the feeling of losing something (obviously). When you lose your time, your materials, your character, or anything, due to a random event, you feel like you have no control over it, which leads to frustration and the feeling of loss.

A classic example of loss is the loss of an HC character due to server maintenance.
Many feel the same when they lose a good item due to Tempering.

Games are designed to be beaten. Even difficult games are designed to be non-impossible.
When the game is designed in such a way that you are destined to lose, that is when you have problems.

P2W, for example, designs games in such a way that they can only be beaten with money. In those games you are supposed to fail.

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I wasn’t calling you out specifically - you just stepped into it with how you said it - and no I didn’t see their original wording.
I know you have strong feeling about the over-watering-down of the game and I’ve made it clear I do too.

But this system of zero control blind blind blind crap needs a minor tweaking.
If I hit my 2 Affixes on the first shot and they’re both minimum and I have ALL my Tempers remaining…
(saying this rhetorically)What’s wrong with letting me shoot for higher rolls?
I might hit nothing - At least I’ll walk away happy that I DID get my rolls AND I felt safe and secure using the remaining Tempers to attempt to refine my items.

Players are miserable because they dread rolling a snowflake item they found…

Heh If Blizz wants to add a Make or Break system to the game: Vaal Orbs - a similar system.
The gamblers would absolutely LOVE it and I’m sure most everyone would too. It would incentivize saving up multiple copies and SLAMMING them hoping for something crazy to happen.
But for simple crafting - make or break is a bit extreme with very rare items and extremely limited rolls.

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thanks for the reply!

1- Agreed that the temper system needs improvement
2- I understand if people are pissed that their class is underpowered. That’s unfortunate
3- Fair enough but my intention was to show that these fundamental game theory philosophies exist in all forms of games… not just video games, not just single player video games, not just sports… virtually every game
4- I feel like there is winning in D4, it’s just a different kind of winning. I think you could interchange winning with “doing well” for the purposes of this disscusion
5- Yes! And the game may be better for it, don’t you think? Some would have that aspect of the game removed
6- Wholeheartedly agree that there is lots of room for improvement in the specific tweaking to the systems in D4

thanks and cheers!

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my favorite suggestion that has been made on the forums is to make the manuals per skill. like the bis you are looking for might be frozen orb cast twice but the other three options are still frozen orb options just different so you still get something worthwhile. id prefer that but i wouldnt complain if it stays the same

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They seem to be making moves in a more sensible direction - at least that’s what I gathered from the datamined Temper Manuals.

It appears most of them are 3 affix only.

BUT what you’re saying sounds really nice.
Kind of a failsafe - might not be the EXACT Temper Affix but if you get any of the other 2 - the item will still be serviceable and functional and one can try to roll the target Affix on the offhand or 3rd weapon etc.
That’s a solid option.

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The issue with you is that the first response you gave was extremely ignorant and snotty. Like you’re better then everyone else because RNG over RNG over RNG is the same thing to you as having everything handed to you which couldn’t be more wrong.

Your responses after were much better.

Let me ask you curiously: what class do you play? Have you engaged in any kind of trading with other players?

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i wont take credit its from Urza’s tempering 2.0 thread. i dont often like or agree with his suggestions, but that one was pretty good

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i play all classes. i had a lvl 100 of every class in the first week actually. i dont engage in trading i prefer to farm all my own equipment

after the second week of the season i have mainly been playing in hardcore and have gotten 6 chars to 100. lost 4 of them but still have 2 seasonal 100’s atm