07-09-2012, 04:37 AM
(This post was last modified: 07-09-2012, 04:54 AM by the Langolier.)
I've been thinking quite a bit about what makes Diablo 3 is such a poor game, especially compared to the previous Diablo games. After all, you can't fix a problem until you've identified it.
The Diablo Formula is what defines a Diablo game. It is the format created by Diablo and followed by Diablo 2 that resulted in those games having such longevity. It is the formula that Diablo 3 falls short of, causing players to ask "now what?" within a month of release. I will explain this formula and how Diablo 3 fails in every aspect of it.
It comes down to three factors (in order of importance).
1) Gameplay that is fun and maintains interest
2) Highly replayable through randomized content
3) Rewarding item system that causes the feeling of anticipation
Gameplay that is fun
First and foremost, a game must be fun. A player doesn't need any other motivation to play a game other than to have fun - period. Players don't question what there is to keep them playing a game until they stop having fun. At that point, it doesn't matter what there is to do; the moment the motivation to play the game stops being to have fun, it becomes a chore. Chores are tedious; you can only play so long before it gets too boring.
A large factor in how fun the game is how well it maintains the player's interest. That is primarily accomplished in two ways: depth of gameplay and breadth of gameplay.
1) Depth of gameplay
Diablo 1 is an example of gameplay with a lot of depth, but very little breadth. There was really only one thing to do in the game - Hell/hell runs. There was a lot of of depth to them, however. The player had to learn about many aspects of the game to be effective: item affixes, spells, enemy stats, and many different tactics to use against all sorts of different enemies and combinations thereof. The skill differential between a new and seasoned player was very large. A new player with the best gear in the game would get absolutely destroyed in hell/hell while a good player could clear it with relative ease.
2) Breadth of gameplay
Let's be honest, most of Diablo 2's gameplay was pretty simple - most engagements didn't require a lot of tactics, just spamming a primary attack. What it lacked in depth, however, it made up for in breadth. There was just tons of stuff to do in the game. When PvE got boring (which happened relatively quickly), you could do Baal runs for exp. When that got boring, you could do Meph runs with MF. When that got boring, you could do trav runs, pindle runs, countess runs, key runs, cow runs, try a new build, or even just chat on b.net. The point is, whenever the game got boring, there was always something else to do to have fun.
High Replayability
Randomized content allows Diablo to be highly replayable. It is tied very closely to keeping the game fun by maintaining the player's interest. What you must understand about Diablo is that the game's content is the end-game content. The game is designed for players to play the same thing over and over and over again. You see, most games are just meant to be played through once - that means that they don't have an end-game. Think games like Zelda, Super Mario Bros, etc. - even MMO's which rely on continually adding content as opposed to playing the same content multiple times.
Therefore, in order to prevent a Diablo game from becoming repetitive too quickly, everything about it is randomized. Maps, quests, events, enemies, the combinations in which enemies appear, and items are all randomly generated. It's all designed to keep players from getting bored from playing the a fun game over and over again. Case in point: the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remains a fun game to this day, but how many times could you play through it before it gets stale?
Rewarding Item System
This is the slot machine effect that really differentiates a Diablo game. Many games are both fun and highly replayable, but only a Diablo game has the constant feeling of anticipation for reward in addition to being inherently fun in the first place. The key is that the reward must be, well... rewarding. Diablo 1 and 2 pulled this off extremely well.
Drops in these games were exciting even if they weren't upgrades to your gear. In Diablo 1, every single ring/amulet drop was exciting. In Diablo 2, it was always exciting to find a unique such as a shako even if you really didn't have use for it. It was still fun to find somewhat decent gear even if it wasn't the best. Of course, when an item was an upgrade to your gear, it felt just that much better.
The bottom line is that the player was rewarded frequently and consistently while playing the game, regardless of whether or not the drops are upgrades to their gear. That's important because the longer a player plays, the less often they will find upgrades (as expected).
How Diablo 3 fails in every aspect of this formula
1) The gameplay isn't very fun
The fact is that if the game were fun, players would enjoy playing it regardless of what items they found. Instead, the gameplay stops being fun relatively quickly because it has neither depth nor breadth. There is very little to maintain the player's interest. It quickly devolves into an item/gold grind which is a chore, which can only keeps players going for so long.
The gameplay has no depth. It revolves around encounters with elite enemies with very cheesy mechanics. There's no strategy involved in engaging these packs. In other words, a player's skill factors very little into whether or not a player can overcome them. Being successful just comes down to two things:
1) Having good enough gear (the "gear check")
2) Being lucky with affix spawns
Honestly, a new player will be just as effective as a seasoned player so long as they have some of the best gear in the game. If your items aren't good enough, you'll just keep getting one-shot and cheesed. Once they are, this game takes no skill. Contrast that to Diablo 1 where new players would get owned in hell/hell even with the best, hacked items in the game.
Furthermore, the game has no breadth. The gameplay revolves around killing elites for NV stacks and then killing bosses... and that's pretty much it. When you get bored of that, there's nothing else to do except maybe play the AH a bit (which is pointless). Inferno revolves around farming elites in the same area of the game over and over. If you want to get to Act 3, you have to farm Act 2. When you get bored of that, you can't go farm somewhere else - you're just stuck. Contrast that to Diablo 2 where you could do any one of a dozen different kinds of runs.
2) Diablo 3 is the epitome of repetitiveness
Players are forced to replay the same exact, scripted quests with the same dialog every single time. These quests are perfectly linear; players are on one quest at a time and one quest begins as soon as the previous quest ends. They must play through the same static maps that make up 90% of the game. These maps always have the same enemy types. They must fight the same scripted boss fights. That makes the game bet boring very quickly regardless of how fun it is to play or not.
3) Diablo 3's item system is unrewarding
The first problem is the AH because it's the most reliable method of obtaining upgrades to your gear - it's also the least satisfying. It doesn't produce the slot machine effect. There's no anticipation you get with drops, there's just short-term excitement that comes with buying something new. That a one-time rush that wears off quickly.
The problem with the drop system in Diablo 3 (with regard to rewards) is that the player is only feels rewarded when they find an upgrade. For whatever reason (such as the item system is just flat out boring) there's nothing exciting about finding gear that isn't better than what the player has already found. Frankly, even upgrades to their current gear are kind of boring, i.e. upgrading to a 1100 DPS weapon from a 1000 DPS weapon.
Unlike the previous games that consistently rewarded players with fun drops, players in Diablo 3 are only rewarded when drops are upgrades. That means that as players acquire better gear, there's a longer and longer amount of time before they are rewarded. Having such a long time between rewards greatly diminishes the feeling of anticipation for drops.
This is the reason people are complaining about the low drop rate/quality of drops in Diablo 3. The core problem isn't that they aren't finding better items - after all, that's also how it worked in Diablo 1 and Diablo 2. The core problem is that there is nothing exciting about the drops they find in the meantime.
Conclusion
The Diablo Forumla is what has made this series so great. The gameplay is fun by having depth and/or breadth, the game content is highly randomized to prevent it from becoming stale too quickly, and the drop system frequently and consistently rewards the player.
Unfortunately, Diablo 3's gameplay has neither depth nor breadth, the game content is very repetitive, and the item system is unrewarding. Diablo 3 fails at everything that made the Diablo series awesome, making it a mediocre game and a terrible installment of the Diablo franchise. The gameplay quickly devolves into nothing more than a gold/item grind with a drop system that doesn't even reward players appropriately. The result? - players are quitting in droves.
I really don't think patches are going to salvage it, and I am certainly not going to spend another $60 for an expansion that attempts to reboot it (especially from the same design team).
The Diablo Formula is what defines a Diablo game. It is the format created by Diablo and followed by Diablo 2 that resulted in those games having such longevity. It is the formula that Diablo 3 falls short of, causing players to ask "now what?" within a month of release. I will explain this formula and how Diablo 3 fails in every aspect of it.
It comes down to three factors (in order of importance).
1) Gameplay that is fun and maintains interest
2) Highly replayable through randomized content
3) Rewarding item system that causes the feeling of anticipation
Gameplay that is fun
First and foremost, a game must be fun. A player doesn't need any other motivation to play a game other than to have fun - period. Players don't question what there is to keep them playing a game until they stop having fun. At that point, it doesn't matter what there is to do; the moment the motivation to play the game stops being to have fun, it becomes a chore. Chores are tedious; you can only play so long before it gets too boring.
A large factor in how fun the game is how well it maintains the player's interest. That is primarily accomplished in two ways: depth of gameplay and breadth of gameplay.
1) Depth of gameplay
Diablo 1 is an example of gameplay with a lot of depth, but very little breadth. There was really only one thing to do in the game - Hell/hell runs. There was a lot of of depth to them, however. The player had to learn about many aspects of the game to be effective: item affixes, spells, enemy stats, and many different tactics to use against all sorts of different enemies and combinations thereof. The skill differential between a new and seasoned player was very large. A new player with the best gear in the game would get absolutely destroyed in hell/hell while a good player could clear it with relative ease.
2) Breadth of gameplay
Let's be honest, most of Diablo 2's gameplay was pretty simple - most engagements didn't require a lot of tactics, just spamming a primary attack. What it lacked in depth, however, it made up for in breadth. There was just tons of stuff to do in the game. When PvE got boring (which happened relatively quickly), you could do Baal runs for exp. When that got boring, you could do Meph runs with MF. When that got boring, you could do trav runs, pindle runs, countess runs, key runs, cow runs, try a new build, or even just chat on b.net. The point is, whenever the game got boring, there was always something else to do to have fun.
High Replayability
Randomized content allows Diablo to be highly replayable. It is tied very closely to keeping the game fun by maintaining the player's interest. What you must understand about Diablo is that the game's content is the end-game content. The game is designed for players to play the same thing over and over and over again. You see, most games are just meant to be played through once - that means that they don't have an end-game. Think games like Zelda, Super Mario Bros, etc. - even MMO's which rely on continually adding content as opposed to playing the same content multiple times.
Therefore, in order to prevent a Diablo game from becoming repetitive too quickly, everything about it is randomized. Maps, quests, events, enemies, the combinations in which enemies appear, and items are all randomly generated. It's all designed to keep players from getting bored from playing the a fun game over and over again. Case in point: the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remains a fun game to this day, but how many times could you play through it before it gets stale?
Rewarding Item System
This is the slot machine effect that really differentiates a Diablo game. Many games are both fun and highly replayable, but only a Diablo game has the constant feeling of anticipation for reward in addition to being inherently fun in the first place. The key is that the reward must be, well... rewarding. Diablo 1 and 2 pulled this off extremely well.
Drops in these games were exciting even if they weren't upgrades to your gear. In Diablo 1, every single ring/amulet drop was exciting. In Diablo 2, it was always exciting to find a unique such as a shako even if you really didn't have use for it. It was still fun to find somewhat decent gear even if it wasn't the best. Of course, when an item was an upgrade to your gear, it felt just that much better.
The bottom line is that the player was rewarded frequently and consistently while playing the game, regardless of whether or not the drops are upgrades to their gear. That's important because the longer a player plays, the less often they will find upgrades (as expected).
How Diablo 3 fails in every aspect of this formula
1) The gameplay isn't very fun
The fact is that if the game were fun, players would enjoy playing it regardless of what items they found. Instead, the gameplay stops being fun relatively quickly because it has neither depth nor breadth. There is very little to maintain the player's interest. It quickly devolves into an item/gold grind which is a chore, which can only keeps players going for so long.
The gameplay has no depth. It revolves around encounters with elite enemies with very cheesy mechanics. There's no strategy involved in engaging these packs. In other words, a player's skill factors very little into whether or not a player can overcome them. Being successful just comes down to two things:
1) Having good enough gear (the "gear check")
2) Being lucky with affix spawns
Honestly, a new player will be just as effective as a seasoned player so long as they have some of the best gear in the game. If your items aren't good enough, you'll just keep getting one-shot and cheesed. Once they are, this game takes no skill. Contrast that to Diablo 1 where new players would get owned in hell/hell even with the best, hacked items in the game.
Furthermore, the game has no breadth. The gameplay revolves around killing elites for NV stacks and then killing bosses... and that's pretty much it. When you get bored of that, there's nothing else to do except maybe play the AH a bit (which is pointless). Inferno revolves around farming elites in the same area of the game over and over. If you want to get to Act 3, you have to farm Act 2. When you get bored of that, you can't go farm somewhere else - you're just stuck. Contrast that to Diablo 2 where you could do any one of a dozen different kinds of runs.
2) Diablo 3 is the epitome of repetitiveness
Players are forced to replay the same exact, scripted quests with the same dialog every single time. These quests are perfectly linear; players are on one quest at a time and one quest begins as soon as the previous quest ends. They must play through the same static maps that make up 90% of the game. These maps always have the same enemy types. They must fight the same scripted boss fights. That makes the game bet boring very quickly regardless of how fun it is to play or not.
3) Diablo 3's item system is unrewarding
The first problem is the AH because it's the most reliable method of obtaining upgrades to your gear - it's also the least satisfying. It doesn't produce the slot machine effect. There's no anticipation you get with drops, there's just short-term excitement that comes with buying something new. That a one-time rush that wears off quickly.
The problem with the drop system in Diablo 3 (with regard to rewards) is that the player is only feels rewarded when they find an upgrade. For whatever reason (such as the item system is just flat out boring) there's nothing exciting about finding gear that isn't better than what the player has already found. Frankly, even upgrades to their current gear are kind of boring, i.e. upgrading to a 1100 DPS weapon from a 1000 DPS weapon.
Unlike the previous games that consistently rewarded players with fun drops, players in Diablo 3 are only rewarded when drops are upgrades. That means that as players acquire better gear, there's a longer and longer amount of time before they are rewarded. Having such a long time between rewards greatly diminishes the feeling of anticipation for drops.
This is the reason people are complaining about the low drop rate/quality of drops in Diablo 3. The core problem isn't that they aren't finding better items - after all, that's also how it worked in Diablo 1 and Diablo 2. The core problem is that there is nothing exciting about the drops they find in the meantime.
Conclusion
The Diablo Forumla is what has made this series so great. The gameplay is fun by having depth and/or breadth, the game content is highly randomized to prevent it from becoming stale too quickly, and the drop system frequently and consistently rewards the player.
Unfortunately, Diablo 3's gameplay has neither depth nor breadth, the game content is very repetitive, and the item system is unrewarding. Diablo 3 fails at everything that made the Diablo series awesome, making it a mediocre game and a terrible installment of the Diablo franchise. The gameplay quickly devolves into nothing more than a gold/item grind with a drop system that doesn't even reward players appropriately. The result? - players are quitting in droves.
I really don't think patches are going to salvage it, and I am certainly not going to spend another $60 for an expansion that attempts to reboot it (especially from the same design team).