10-30-2006, 07:52 PM
Quote: So to say something like item saturation is a factor, I don't quite agree. I mean yes saturation is of course a factor online, but more important to me is it a saturation of real or counterfeit items? In online public D1 games I remembered there was quite a lot of players sporting triple Obsidian Zodiac jewelry. But it's not really true to say that D1 drops a glut of obs-zod.
Indeed, the uber-rare items should never be saturated, but that doesn't really pertain to Cruel merchant elites (in my experience). These will ALWAYS be either saturated, or made irrelevant by saturation of better items online. Even factoring in that some, even a majority of players have bad luck here, what if they mouse over the items in the merchant every time they go up to town to heal? And if they always buy the high-end cruels? Of course this never happens except on characters isolated from the online economy, or in a virgin economy, because everyone has their eight Breaths of the Dying.
Slightly different point: if you have a mace barbarian, and you buy a Cruel Thunder Maul of Alacrity, you will no longer be looking for said beatstick. So even if you saw one, you probably wouldn't buy it. But in an unsaturated economy, you'd grab that sucker (assuming you intend to trade at all, I suppose), which would start the saturation process.
Diablo two has no real outs for items (except for Ladder dumping into non-Ladder when Blizzard feels like it). Non ladder just grows more and more saturated. Nothing breaks. Nothing is even left on the ground after a point. Does it matter if the items are real or counterfeit? Not really. Ethically, maybe, but in practice, that duplicated Zod rune will cost you just as much as the one you KNOW is legitimate.
On an unrelated note, I think my accounts died sometime this month since I haven't gotten my hard drive fixed yet. G'bye Zod Rune. I hardly knew ye.
Quote:But, it might be more interesting if that charm affix actually holds something of value. Maybe not in the immediate situation, but it does have its uses. Then the player might have to consider is it worth doing the re-roll. Don't think of it as a roll to get good<better< best. More like rolling to get either rock, paper, or scissor. (And there's no guarantee that you will get what you actually want, a rock charm might just re-roll into another rock.) Choosing whether or not to roll a junk charm into a useful one isn't really meaningful. Seriously, who would turn that down in a regular standard game?
Grand idea, but the problem is you're no longer in Diablo II. Diablo II was marketed on the basis (*I* believe, anyway) that people enjoyed the treasure-hunt aspect of Diablo I. Good<Better<Best is EXACTLY what the game was trying to accomplish, not balance, or paper, rock, scissors, which is my major beef with it. Blizzard abandoned what I would consider "good" qualities in a game in exchange for giving people what they *think* makes a good game (but does not). Endless treadmill WILL keep you playing, and accomplish one of the two goals of games (wasting time), but it will also leave you with a kind of hollow feeling. Ever log off after nine thousand Mephisto runs and say to yourself "All in a good day's work!"? No. You always feel like garbage after that, no matter what you found, because you didn't find a ____. And even if you did find a ____, you still need that XXXX to make it optimal. And once you get XXXX, you either need a better one or have a new character to outfit. There is no gratification. There is no sense of accomplishment, because the only goals that one can actually achieve are ridiculously easy (IE, beating the game) or self-imposed (winning the ladder, beating Hardcore with a stupid variant, collecting all unique items, etc.). And while this endless item hunt does add some measure of replayability, I don't think of it as "good" replayability. Yeah, it keeps you coming back, but it's almost never an enjoyable comeback. Here is what is still enjoyable in Diablo II.
Playing a new character, from scratch, especially with restrictions.
Playing with friends.
Note that item hunting is not on that list, and judging by the number of bots and duplicates on the realms, I'd say it's not really high on anyone's list. Yeah, people do it, but it's either to show off, or to associate with other people who do it (kind of like twisted church).
Got a wee bit off topic again. *cough*
>Agreed, but would you have waited another year and payed an extra fifty bucks for these (Gogo hyperbole!)?
Quote:Looking at the bigger picture it's actually commendable that 1.10 even came out (and done by mostly one person iirc) at all. But would I wait another year for a better designed (read: not necessarily more content, but better.) yes. Would I pay an extra 50 for the effort? If it means better replay yes. If it means more meaningless filler hell no. Obviously I'm not advocating something like D3 to go into DukeNukem4ever mode, and bliz is a business after all. But personally no, I don't mind waiting a bit longer if it means they have more time devoted to quality.
I'd love to get quality. I'd gladly wait longer. I don't know how high the price tag will be though, with all of those paychecks going to the guys working overtime. Yes, it is commendable that 1.10 came out. But as I've frequently ranted, I'd really have loved if they'd had small balance changes and bug fixes instead of discarding balance entirely in order to temporarily ingratiate themselves with the public. Although I suppose I shouldn't say temporarily, since the majority of people seem to be in disagreement with me. I don't know. I've always been a huge fan of balance, perhaps because I'm (the soul of modesty) more intelligent than most people I come across, which means that given balance, I win.
The mark of a good PvP game is one that I (or rather, someone who is good at it), can grab any character, race, weapon, or other variable you want to name, and consistently beat all comers. Maybe not 100%, but it should be at least three quarters of the time.
This is a bit harder to translate into anything cooperative, because if you can beat the game with all variables, it may just mean the game is too easy (IE, Diablo II). I think part of it is that you have to work for the end-goal, and not in an "I can do this in my sleep." way, as Diablo II. If you can't pass an area, you basically go back to one you can, and click on things until you're high enough level to progress, or you find some ridiculous equipment. I can play Diablo II while eating and talking on the phone simultaneously. Where, Blizzard, is the challenge? Perhaps this is why I harken back to the days of 56k, unstable servers, and video lag around every bend as the golden age of Diablo II. Yeah, they were annoying as heck sometimes, but they were challenges to be overcome, more deadly than any monster, and only with careful progression, equipment selection, and character building could I actually complete the game.
--me