05-10-2003, 09:51 PM
And just what judgement call would that be, praytell? We already know that sickeningly "good" items are going to be thrown in. That right there kills any chance for balance. How do I know? Simple: I'm a modder. :P Granted, I'm no God at it or anything (in fact, I consider myself quite the newb at what I CAN do; I do, however, like to think I'm good at balancing what is within my realm of experience). But, I can tell you from experience that the higher you set the bar, the exponentially more difficulty it is to balance something. Balancing for SP is tough enough. Balancing for MP is even tougher. And balancing for both? If you want the truth, I honestly don't think there's a way to achieve any true semblance of balance without having completely seperate patches for both SP and MP (my mod may be heading in that direction post-1.10, actually). Granted, you can get at least somewhat close, but even then you'll never get anywhere near close with items like "Azurewrath" and "Prismatic Jewel" in the game. It's just not feasible. You'd need at least several months of actual player testing, and not just in-house testing, in order to do that. And even then, your userbase (pubbie B.Net) isn't qualified to comment on such things (take a stroll over to the War3 forums). 'Course, it doesn't help that alot of the Blizzard people seem to have the same desires as your average pubbie B.Net-er (read: item finding, power-gaming, etc.). *shrugs*
If you're referring to my comments about the synergistic skills, I say again: potentially a good thing, but too much room for it to screw things up. On its own, it's a "cool" idea. That does NOT make it a "good" or "balanced" idea. Diablo II's making was entirely about "cool" ideas, and not nearly enough about "good" or "polished" ideas. And since, instead of fixing alot of those elements, we get more "cool" stuff, it just goes on and on. Synergistic skills has the potential to add balance. But, come on. Let's face it. It would take months of testing, again, in order to balance it properly. And with constantly changing other aspects? I.e. increased monster challenge in a variety of ways, increased number of powerful items (skills not only have to be balanced against one another, but also against items, too)? Heh. It just gets harder and harder.
Want me to be blunt? There's virtually no way for a two-man group to balance anything. Period. It's just not feasible. There are simply too many things that, regardless of how good you are at spotting broken elements AND fixing them, you'll miss. And we've already seen that the Q&A department, at least in the past, has been much less than adequate (for TWO games now, they've flat out stated that they "don't test the game in Nightmare or Hell difficulty"? Come on, guys...). I'll be the first to admit, given the amount of time this patch has been in development, it does show at least a bit more potential (potentially ;)) than previous patches. But, again, look at the history.
That's not even taking into consideration that they apply a single patch for, essentially, two completely different games (although technically this isn't true, it was GOING to be before they decided on a one-size-fits-all way of doing things; I can understand WHY they did it; I just wish they hadn't ;)). So, yeah. Even if Blizzard was the God of gaming companies (which, sorry to say, but North is a far cry from), it's simply beyond reason for them to deliver "balance" in ANY portion of this patch. At least, balance to a point that will please the hardcore crowd that you hear complaining so vocally. ;) That doesn't mean I won't be disappointed, though. ;)
I fail to see how I have an "over bias" about this. I've only addressed the issues that can be addressed, and left the others completely untouched. Name ONE other aspect about the patch that I've address with any amount of detail outside of a) items, and B) skills.
. . . Exactly. I don't waste my time speculating. I don't like to speculate, with ANY game. It's just not something I enjoy. Some people ENJOY frothing at the mouth of potential items. Me, I'd rather wait till I have some concrete evidence. Uber leet items are a known fact (GF even went so far as to label them "Uber" on the Arreat Summit, mistakenly put up or no). So are synergistic skills (the actual numbers are arbitrary). That's all I've bothered to comment on, because for ME, that's all there IS to comment on. I have my own "speculations" about what to expect for increased monster difficulty, lowered exp, etc. But, what's the point? None, IMO. 'Least, not for me. So, I don't speculate. I'll wait like the rest.
Care to point out where I commented on something that "doesn't exist"? I'd be really interested to see this. And if you can call me on it, I'll gladly eat my words. Because, for the life of me, I can't think of a single instance.
If you're referring to my comments about the synergistic skills, I say again: potentially a good thing, but too much room for it to screw things up. On its own, it's a "cool" idea. That does NOT make it a "good" or "balanced" idea. Diablo II's making was entirely about "cool" ideas, and not nearly enough about "good" or "polished" ideas. And since, instead of fixing alot of those elements, we get more "cool" stuff, it just goes on and on. Synergistic skills has the potential to add balance. But, come on. Let's face it. It would take months of testing, again, in order to balance it properly. And with constantly changing other aspects? I.e. increased monster challenge in a variety of ways, increased number of powerful items (skills not only have to be balanced against one another, but also against items, too)? Heh. It just gets harder and harder.
Want me to be blunt? There's virtually no way for a two-man group to balance anything. Period. It's just not feasible. There are simply too many things that, regardless of how good you are at spotting broken elements AND fixing them, you'll miss. And we've already seen that the Q&A department, at least in the past, has been much less than adequate (for TWO games now, they've flat out stated that they "don't test the game in Nightmare or Hell difficulty"? Come on, guys...). I'll be the first to admit, given the amount of time this patch has been in development, it does show at least a bit more potential (potentially ;)) than previous patches. But, again, look at the history.
That's not even taking into consideration that they apply a single patch for, essentially, two completely different games (although technically this isn't true, it was GOING to be before they decided on a one-size-fits-all way of doing things; I can understand WHY they did it; I just wish they hadn't ;)). So, yeah. Even if Blizzard was the God of gaming companies (which, sorry to say, but North is a far cry from), it's simply beyond reason for them to deliver "balance" in ANY portion of this patch. At least, balance to a point that will please the hardcore crowd that you hear complaining so vocally. ;) That doesn't mean I won't be disappointed, though. ;)
I fail to see how I have an "over bias" about this. I've only addressed the issues that can be addressed, and left the others completely untouched. Name ONE other aspect about the patch that I've address with any amount of detail outside of a) items, and B) skills.
. . . Exactly. I don't waste my time speculating. I don't like to speculate, with ANY game. It's just not something I enjoy. Some people ENJOY frothing at the mouth of potential items. Me, I'd rather wait till I have some concrete evidence. Uber leet items are a known fact (GF even went so far as to label them "Uber" on the Arreat Summit, mistakenly put up or no). So are synergistic skills (the actual numbers are arbitrary). That's all I've bothered to comment on, because for ME, that's all there IS to comment on. I have my own "speculations" about what to expect for increased monster difficulty, lowered exp, etc. But, what's the point? None, IMO. 'Least, not for me. So, I don't speculate. I'll wait like the rest.
Care to point out where I commented on something that "doesn't exist"? I'd be really interested to see this. And if you can call me on it, I'll gladly eat my words. Because, for the life of me, I can't think of a single instance.
Roland *The Gunslinger*