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 Post subject: Survey - Equipment Progression
PostPosted: Sat Feb 25, 2017 7:20 pm 
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Joined: Mon Aug 31, 2009 11:28 am
Posts: 1136
Location: Vancouver, BC
What are your thoughts regarding how a character's gear should change as they go from early-game to end-game. You're welcome to give an opinion based on other games, not just HU.

You're welcome to answer by simply stating what you consider fun:
  1. A challenging start that gets easier as you find strong gear.
  2. An easy start that gets harder as you find stronger monsters but similar gear.
  3. Something else (feel free to explain, but try to keep it related to equipment progression).

Some of the issues/features identified in most versions of HU (v1.7 included) are:
  1. Early-game equipment is quickly obsolete (mostly for weapon-reliant builds I think). For example, by the time you found the last piece of a Set the weapon's damage would be too low to use the Set. This might promote Trading or making Mule accounts to twink early characters (some folks really enjoy the item-management meta-game).
  2. End-game equipment is strong enough that game play actually gets easier and predictable. For example, caster or melee characters would gravitate towards the same gear for most slots and would have enough -%EnemyRes, %ElementalAbsorbs, etc, to make gameplay pretty trivial. Some players enjoy a sense of accomplishment as earlier challenges become easy.
  3. When mods like %ED are imbalanced from Basic to Exceptional to Elite, then it isn't worthwhile to use the Cube to upgrade Basic items since any Exceptional would have more %ED.
  4. When mods like %ED are balanced from Basic to Exceptional to Elite, then it reduces the value of Exceptional items because they won't necessarily be better than an upgraded Basic item.

Every feature has good and bad points, but if most folks prefer a particular style then HU may as well be geared towards it.


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 Post subject: Re: Survey - Equipment Progression
PostPosted: Mon Feb 27, 2017 3:40 pm 

Joined: Tue Apr 22, 2014 2:09 am
Posts: 146
I am not sure what exactly u ask here, maybe its due to my english being bad but ill answer you the way i understand it :D

What im going to say isnt item related only but generally related to Diablo 2-like games.

With all honesty i think the era of mindless hack & slash is comming to an end and this is the most important aspect to why ppl get disappointed from mods even if they dont admit it. H&S games tend to have no meaning and that itsself is boring. Realism and following the core principles of what makes your game what it is are crucial for any good game. If your games lacks principles that determine its world, classes, skills, etc etc then its a bad game.

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Monsters -> Quality over QUANTITY
Dont try to fill the map with monsters, instead try to make monsters different depending on their type and background story. Give them different stats and abilities BUT dont give them random stats and abilities for the sake of differentiation... instead give them stats/abilities that fit WHAT THEY ARE.
For example even at the very starting area in normal you can have one monster with 10-15 dmg and another with 40-50 dmg (the numbers are pure examples to show you the difference), or one monster types with very high speed (maybe they are assassin type or whatever ) and monsters with very slow speed (zombies etc), just dont be afraid to give them their own characteristics, cause will make your game interesting and non-linear.
As i said, dont fill every area with tonz of monsters, maybe some areas have only a specific type of monster and they arent that dense?
OFc all this kind of changes require vision, creativity and something like that is often way harder to find than just increase all monsters dmg by 50% cause they are now in Nightmare and not Normal...
Also, Ai improvements are always more than welcomed, especially when combined with low density monster population.

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Items -> Property quality over quantity.
When ppl think of D2 they think of items with 23021030 properties on them and this is exactly what kills item-isation because items start to feel the same with slight difference and they totally use their charm, you no longer hyped to see your next rare or unique cause u know most of the stats will be the same stats your previous rare, unique had. So itemisation becomes boring hence the game thats all about items loses its meaning, hence rip D2 mods :D

What you should do for example is:

Rare: 1 to 3 properties.
Considering there are so many properties in the game, you will always look forward to pick up your next rare cause it might have those 3 stats that you so much look for or maybe one stat x3. Example, you might get 5% Deadly Strike, 1% Life Steal and 1% Mana Steal or get 15% Deadly Strike (again numbers and properties mentioned are pure examples).

Unique
The word UNIQUE itsself should say it all.... You can have a unique item with 10 properties or just 1 property or maybe even uniques with negative properties?

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Skills
Make sure the skills you add to the class actually fit the class.

I hope i helped in some way.


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 Post subject: Re: Survey - Equipment Progression
PostPosted: Tue Feb 28, 2017 1:42 pm 
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Joined: Mon Aug 31, 2009 11:28 am
Posts: 1136
Location: Vancouver, BC
I don't mind reading a well thought out explanation. It sounds like you might enjoy the Baldur's Gate series, which is very similar to the Diablo series for looks and computer specifications, but which tries to put more emphasis on storyline and less on Hack & Slash.

H&S games are still pretty popular for younger players (I've got a nephew who's still a bit too young to handle the thinking (strategy or resource/item management) needed by Diablo2, but in a couple years he might enjoy it). I think there's a good chance you've simply explored most of the features of H&S and are ready to explore something new.

Thanks for the general feedback.

With your example of an item with DeadlyStrike and Life&Mana Leach how would you feel about finding an item with 5%DStrike and 1%L&MLeach as a Basic item (e.g. Lvl 5 short sword) compared to as an Elite item (e.g. Lvl 80 falcata). Some players feel that the elite item should have higher %'s, while others feel that a % should always stay the same (the Elite's base stats are higher, so the %'s return higher numbers too).

To anyone reading (not just DoubtFuLMind):
Do you think Elite items should have higher %'s than Basic items? You're welcome to explain your thoughts, folks are not restricted to yes/no answers.


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 Post subject: Re: Survey - Equipment Progression
PostPosted: Tue Feb 28, 2017 5:28 pm 

Joined: Tue Apr 22, 2014 2:09 am
Posts: 146
Actually i dont play games for their story. I just care for the gameplay aspect :)

To answer your question.
Generally its not a good idea to give high values to any kind of property if you want your game to have build diversity. Ill give an example.
Having 25% chance to Open Wounds is good and there isnt really a reason to increase it further especially in end-game where my guess is attack speed is higher.
On the other hand statistics such Deadly Blow are welcomed even with 100% chance. That was one thing. Generally, IF YOU WANT your game to have build diversity not just through skills but through statistics as well then you have to keep the properties' scalings as low as possible, so that players DONT HAVE EVERYTHING and if they want to max a specific statistic then they have to invest on it not just gain it because scalings on items/skills etc are high. Having every statistic maxed out (or big enough to be considered maxed) is against build diversity.
So again if i want to max Crushing Blow then i will have to sacrifice other statistics.
And keep in mind these 3 statistics are just examples, same approach should be done to every existing statistic.
For example one thing that i found kind bad about HU 1.7 (and other mods as well) is how easy it was to increase Attack speed, that showed that in end-game every class and generally everybody will have maxed attack speed and this automatically reduce the value of Attack Speed.
This is why i believe that the amount of properties on items and their scalings should be as low as possible. Exception would be the Uniques. As i said above a unique could have just one property or ten properties. OR maybe even penalties, dunno. They are called uniques and i think they should be kept that way and not have standard amount of properties and scalings like Rares for example.
In the end it doesnt really matter how many item types you have or how you call them, all that matters is how interesting they make the game. If their fail to fullfill that part then the system is bad :D
At least this is my point of view.


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 Post subject: Re: Survey - Equipment Progression
PostPosted: Wed Mar 01, 2017 2:14 am 

Joined: Tue Apr 22, 2014 2:09 am
Posts: 146
I also think properties such as Cannot be Frozen should exist only on Unique items (considering that there inst any other unique item type).


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