07-16-2003, 09:44 PM
I have to comment on your 1.10 is moving back the classic atmosphere and a few other things. Others, especially Occhidiangela have echoed my feelings quite well but didn't seem to touch on some other things.
I don't see the idea of them going for more of a classic feel, though as I will touch on later, some of the style you enjoy seems to be back. If that were true, there would not have been new runewords, there would not have been new uniques, there would not have been unique charms for certain. There would not have been synergies.
All of those changes made characters more powerful, which can negate a lot of the harder monsters (I've been doing some testing with this). I don't see how any of those changes point to Blizzard trying to make it feel more like classic. I would like to see how they do.
Classic had no elite items, only exceptionals. No exceptional uniques either. Hell was simply harder with out new rewards. Now they give you new candy. 1.10 to me points to Blizzard wanting to provide more candy for players, it makes me think they are aiming even more at the collector type player, which is no where near the play style you want. It's a new evolution entirely, it is feel that the game has never had before. I think they were aiming for this, something new, not something old. (Actually 1.10 feels like a single Blizzard programmers mod, but since he worked for Blizzard he got to make his mod official, or at least parts of it)
I see your point that your play style was mostly shafted, but I don't think Blizzard ever intended for that play style to happen. Considering just about every patch seemed to try and get away from that style of play. I don't see this patch turning that trend at all.
I personally didn't like playing solo, even with the minor competitve aspect (which wasn't much because very few people challenged your 'right' to an area from my experience with it). If I wanted to play solo I would have played single player. Blizzard even lets you play single player in players 8 now. Most of the solo play was for people who wanted to level faster, most of them (none that I personally knew who were on the ladder) enjoyed having to do that either, they didn't like your competitive aspect at all, they didn't want to have to claim an area, they just wanted experience and since partying provided a penalty it was not an option. I would be willing to bet that if you allowed the players X command on B.net, that most of the ladder players would be in a game by themselves with it set to players 8 even with the party bonus. I doubt they would join open games with more people for the 'competitive aspect' if there was a party penalty. I could be wrong, we won't know, but I bet that is how it would go from talking with the people I know who cared about the ladder. Heck some of them even said that they would do just that, party bonus or no, they just want the extra exp for more players in the game. While this isn't directly related to the environment you want, it seems to point to that environment being there for reasons other than you believe. I just think you vastly overestimate the number of players who like your play style. Though I can't really produce hard evidence for it any better than you can produce evidence that the environment existed because people enjoyed it and not as a by product of other factors that people didn't enjoy, but had to live with to play for the goal they.
As for the party experience bonus. Yeah, you can get rid of it, but you don't have to bring back the penalty it used to have. When the experience was cut to 75% and then multiplied by the number of players in the game and then divided out and all that. Getting less exp than you could in single player sucked! It sucked a lot. I don't want to party just to do the quests, the leveling is slow damn enough as it is, and slowing it down to play with friends blew. Needing to level level by yourself to get some levels sucked. I feel leveling just to level sucks. Even in a party, with good players and a plan, being 8 to 15 levels behind where you would have been solo at the same point makes the game really damn hard because of the monster vs player level curve. Oh and from expeince you would often not even be L18 if you played start through in a moderate sized party by the time you got to Diablo. You would be in the mid to late 20's if you played single player. That really really killed enjoyment. You don't seem to enjoy playing the game this way, so I am giving you a perspective from someone who does and has been playing the game since the day it was released, usually in parties with friends. The penalty took a lot of fun out playing with friends. A lot. It sucked a lot. I don't know if you realized how bad the old penalty really made trying to play the game through in a party, since you don't seem to play that way. I know plenty of people who came back to the game because partying didn't suck so much anymore. I don't know of any who quit because of it. Of course I think most of this is moot because of other changes there were made that I will get to.
However, setting it so that you get the same exp in a party as you would have playing single might be alright, I'm not convinced you need the bonus, but I also am not sure having the bonus is a bad thing either. With the new 'you have to be close' scheme it makes it work even better too. I have quite enjoyed it in 1.10. It keeps the people closer together, it lets those who don't know see how much more fun the teamwork can be. It also messes up trying to leach fairly well. I've experimented with it. You have to stay close, and it is so much easier to have a pack led to you so the real party members can deal with you. Partying and running the same area from different ends doesn't work anymore at all. If you want the bonus you stay together, and this is good. True party players aren't affected by this, leachers are easier to kill off, the idea of clearing Bloody (or any other area) from 2 ends to not interfere but still get the better exp is gone. Many of your problems with parties have been fixed by other changes actually. Rushing is still possible, but slower and more dangerous to the rushee. With harder leaching rushing without a reason makes less sense. If you have reason to rush (like enabling HC on that account or having a mule that can get into NM or Hell) you can still do it in a reasonable amount of time.
Actaully the new system does seem to put a bit of your style back. You can now start at the other end of the bloody from the party to get your exp, or go to an area the party isn't in. Your competition as I see it is back, or it looks to be back well enough so that you can get enjoyment from it and the partiers don't have to be screwed completely. Sure the partiers have an advantage in the area they want to play it, but that should just make it more exciting for you to try and claim it, or you fight off another soloer in the area they tried to claim. Maybe I didn't fully understand your point because I see no enjoyment in this game for a competitive side I use other other games that are designed for competition to get the thrill. The little competition the ladder can offer will still be there too and closer to what you wanted with the other changes.
The other changes make is so you don't need to get rid of the bonus, though I don't think it needs to be as big as it is, but there is no reason to go back to the old penalty, most of what you think that will address has been fixed by other changes, at least from the testing I have done, we will have to see it live to really tell. I also don't see this as an attempt by Blizzard to go back to that environment at all. I see it as a new vision that will help accomodate even more playing styles, or at least that seems to be the idea.
Just voicing my opinion. As you said, I don't think this change would happen because I don't think you reasons for why Blizzard would do it are tenable.
I don't see the idea of them going for more of a classic feel, though as I will touch on later, some of the style you enjoy seems to be back. If that were true, there would not have been new runewords, there would not have been new uniques, there would not have been unique charms for certain. There would not have been synergies.
All of those changes made characters more powerful, which can negate a lot of the harder monsters (I've been doing some testing with this). I don't see how any of those changes point to Blizzard trying to make it feel more like classic. I would like to see how they do.
Classic had no elite items, only exceptionals. No exceptional uniques either. Hell was simply harder with out new rewards. Now they give you new candy. 1.10 to me points to Blizzard wanting to provide more candy for players, it makes me think they are aiming even more at the collector type player, which is no where near the play style you want. It's a new evolution entirely, it is feel that the game has never had before. I think they were aiming for this, something new, not something old. (Actually 1.10 feels like a single Blizzard programmers mod, but since he worked for Blizzard he got to make his mod official, or at least parts of it)
I see your point that your play style was mostly shafted, but I don't think Blizzard ever intended for that play style to happen. Considering just about every patch seemed to try and get away from that style of play. I don't see this patch turning that trend at all.
I personally didn't like playing solo, even with the minor competitve aspect (which wasn't much because very few people challenged your 'right' to an area from my experience with it). If I wanted to play solo I would have played single player. Blizzard even lets you play single player in players 8 now. Most of the solo play was for people who wanted to level faster, most of them (none that I personally knew who were on the ladder) enjoyed having to do that either, they didn't like your competitive aspect at all, they didn't want to have to claim an area, they just wanted experience and since partying provided a penalty it was not an option. I would be willing to bet that if you allowed the players X command on B.net, that most of the ladder players would be in a game by themselves with it set to players 8 even with the party bonus. I doubt they would join open games with more people for the 'competitive aspect' if there was a party penalty. I could be wrong, we won't know, but I bet that is how it would go from talking with the people I know who cared about the ladder. Heck some of them even said that they would do just that, party bonus or no, they just want the extra exp for more players in the game. While this isn't directly related to the environment you want, it seems to point to that environment being there for reasons other than you believe. I just think you vastly overestimate the number of players who like your play style. Though I can't really produce hard evidence for it any better than you can produce evidence that the environment existed because people enjoyed it and not as a by product of other factors that people didn't enjoy, but had to live with to play for the goal they.
As for the party experience bonus. Yeah, you can get rid of it, but you don't have to bring back the penalty it used to have. When the experience was cut to 75% and then multiplied by the number of players in the game and then divided out and all that. Getting less exp than you could in single player sucked! It sucked a lot. I don't want to party just to do the quests, the leveling is slow damn enough as it is, and slowing it down to play with friends blew. Needing to level level by yourself to get some levels sucked. I feel leveling just to level sucks. Even in a party, with good players and a plan, being 8 to 15 levels behind where you would have been solo at the same point makes the game really damn hard because of the monster vs player level curve. Oh and from expeince you would often not even be L18 if you played start through in a moderate sized party by the time you got to Diablo. You would be in the mid to late 20's if you played single player. That really really killed enjoyment. You don't seem to enjoy playing the game this way, so I am giving you a perspective from someone who does and has been playing the game since the day it was released, usually in parties with friends. The penalty took a lot of fun out playing with friends. A lot. It sucked a lot. I don't know if you realized how bad the old penalty really made trying to play the game through in a party, since you don't seem to play that way. I know plenty of people who came back to the game because partying didn't suck so much anymore. I don't know of any who quit because of it. Of course I think most of this is moot because of other changes there were made that I will get to.
However, setting it so that you get the same exp in a party as you would have playing single might be alright, I'm not convinced you need the bonus, but I also am not sure having the bonus is a bad thing either. With the new 'you have to be close' scheme it makes it work even better too. I have quite enjoyed it in 1.10. It keeps the people closer together, it lets those who don't know see how much more fun the teamwork can be. It also messes up trying to leach fairly well. I've experimented with it. You have to stay close, and it is so much easier to have a pack led to you so the real party members can deal with you. Partying and running the same area from different ends doesn't work anymore at all. If you want the bonus you stay together, and this is good. True party players aren't affected by this, leachers are easier to kill off, the idea of clearing Bloody (or any other area) from 2 ends to not interfere but still get the better exp is gone. Many of your problems with parties have been fixed by other changes actually. Rushing is still possible, but slower and more dangerous to the rushee. With harder leaching rushing without a reason makes less sense. If you have reason to rush (like enabling HC on that account or having a mule that can get into NM or Hell) you can still do it in a reasonable amount of time.
Actaully the new system does seem to put a bit of your style back. You can now start at the other end of the bloody from the party to get your exp, or go to an area the party isn't in. Your competition as I see it is back, or it looks to be back well enough so that you can get enjoyment from it and the partiers don't have to be screwed completely. Sure the partiers have an advantage in the area they want to play it, but that should just make it more exciting for you to try and claim it, or you fight off another soloer in the area they tried to claim. Maybe I didn't fully understand your point because I see no enjoyment in this game for a competitive side I use other other games that are designed for competition to get the thrill. The little competition the ladder can offer will still be there too and closer to what you wanted with the other changes.
The other changes make is so you don't need to get rid of the bonus, though I don't think it needs to be as big as it is, but there is no reason to go back to the old penalty, most of what you think that will address has been fixed by other changes, at least from the testing I have done, we will have to see it live to really tell. I also don't see this as an attempt by Blizzard to go back to that environment at all. I see it as a new vision that will help accomodate even more playing styles, or at least that seems to be the idea.
Just voicing my opinion. As you said, I don't think this change would happen because I don't think you reasons for why Blizzard would do it are tenable.
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It's all just zeroes and ones and duct tape in the end.
It's all just zeroes and ones and duct tape in the end.