Introducing a new mode to separate out participants further segments the community (we already have four degrees of separation between Seasons and Hardcore mode; a new mode would, in theory, make 8).
This is true, but because we're talking about solo-only modes is it really going to be that bad? I get that the dev team is worried about fragmenting the playerbase, but solo-only players actually WANT to play alone. In this very specific instance the argument against fragmenting the community seems very weak, if applicable at all.
This is where this discussion has always gotten interesting for me.
What currently stops someone who only wants to play alone from playing alone right now? Is it the leaderboards? The thing where you're actively playing against other people to compete? ;) (Forgive me, I'm a little cheeky today.)
The nature of competition means you aren't ever really playing alone, because you're still opting to measure your efforts against someone else's. If anything, the request is really for an SSF leaderboard rather than an actual mode. That's a wholly different request, and one that's difficult for different reasons (largely has to do with databases and long-term storage issues; I can't get into details, but there's a reason only the last several Seasons/Eras are tracked in-game).
It also comes down to supply/demand and resource management (i.e., us choosing our battles). Fulfilling this request is one that would take a lot of time and a ton of resources, and we don't have data suggesting that a majority of players would want or use this feature. Most of our data suggest players want more content, more items to chase, and more Seasons (with more new rewards).
Making the choice between the two, given limited resources, seems pretty evident.
Note: Comments on all Diablo blog entries have been disabled. This is part of our website migration for GDPR compliance. We apologize for the inconvenience; please continue your conversation over on our General Forum!
What you selectively decided to complain about.
Note: Comments on all Diablo blog entries have been disabled.
To be fair, that disclaimer wasn't there at publish. I re-added it since not everyone seems to be aware of this change. ;)
Why aren't some vastly underperforming skills just buffed into space to just see what happens?
Examples for Wizard are Blizzard, Slow Time (still made about when you removed DMO's set bonus that used to make it a DoT, that was fun design to me), Wave of Force, Hydra (though you guys are probably sick of Hydra after it dominated for multiple seasons, but oddly enough think Archon and Bazooka dominance is fine) and some others?
If you're goal in this ending stage of D3's development is to open up build variety, then why not go crazy? I would assume it takes far less time to change some numbers and multipliers on skills and then potentially squish them again as opposed to designed and developing entirely new sets and legendaries? But maybe I am wrong, I'm no developer.
Skills are a bit more finicky to balance and tinker with, whereas items are a lot safer from a design/quality risk perspective. It's really easy (and fast) to disable an errant item if something goes wrong. As I've discovered from tinkering in my own design projects, what's under the hood typically works a lot differently than you might initially anticipate.
As for a "squish," that's probably not going to happen. To provide context, the amount of work that went into doing the squish for WoW was ENORMOUS and took an incredible amount of back-end retrofitting (over the course of more than a year) to accomplish so that it could be done again in the future. D3 doesn't have that luxury or even close to the same infrastructure, nor does doing so make a ton of sense when a new game is on the horizon. We want to make the most of what we have, but also have to recognize we have limitations (resource and otherwise) in how far we can go.
That was a whole lot of words for saying absolutely nothing.
I mean, if you took nothing out of it... then this blog probably wasn't aimed at you as part of the target audience.
We knew going into writing this it wouldn't be for everyone. It's very specifically targeted at our community's theorycrafters, guide builders, and other folks who regularly engage in discussion around game balance and the changes we make.
If that's not you, then yeah, this probably isn't as meaningful for you. You're most likely looking for specific info on what changes we're making, or what the next class set's going to look like. And that's fine! We'll have patch notes for you when the PTR is preparing to launch. :)
I wouldn't think of it that way. I generally average 600-800 a season before I stop to avoid burnout. But I do think the people who are regularly hitting 5000 paragon tend to forget that your or my accomplishments are more in line with the average player experiences.
It's still important we make our changes based on both types of players. But I do think it's easy for players (like you or me) who average 800-1k per season to believe they can and should be performing the same as someone at 8000 or higher because the build they're referencing was created by someone at that level. That context is insanely important, but really easy to miss or forget.
We do a lot of math to land somewhere in between so we can suit both audiences.
1000 Paragon is 10 trilion exp. That is like 1.5h of farming for high end groups right now.
The key to your statement is "high end groups."
This might be mind blowing, but most players don't actually play the way you see most streamers playing, or possibly even the way you play. Some play in their own group of friends, at their own pace. Some play entirely solo. Some do a mix in between. They might lose some efficiency for a few minutes because someone had to tend to their child, or take their dog for a walk. Or heaven forbid, take a bio break! ;)
Now that I'm done being facetious, I want to reiterate the point that not everyone plays to be 100% efficient all the time. It's called "high end" because that's the upper echelon of a group of players, and usually a minority.
Something I like about most ARPGs is that you can set your own goals and go for them, at your pace. For some, that's spending time doing research and in spreadsheets to figure out where to squeeze out your next 100 dps. For others, that's picking a play style you really like and doing the absolute best you can with it. I'm usually in the latter camp, and I know I'm not going to be topping any leaderboards for it. But that's okay, because that's not why I play. I suspect there are some players who hold themselves to the standards that would be necessary to climb leaderboards, but don't actually have the desire to do so. To those, I say: You don't need permission to play the way you want, efficiency-driven or otherwise! :)
I know. See I came of more offensive than I wanted I just wanted to put it in perspective how big the gap in exp. I know people that last season (when exp gains were way lower) were going for the equivalent of 0-1500 every single day.
Not at all, no offense taken!
I know folks tend to get most heated about balance, and I want to emphasize that, at the end of the day, we're all here to have fun in a game. Blasphemy, I know, but we could all do with a little reminding, now and then, that the balance of a class or set isn't going to stop the world from turning.
Good post overall, it's useful to see that the devs are actively considering individual class GR potential and looking to balance based on that.
Various comments / thoughts:
I'm definitely one who thinks 5k is way high on the paragon side, I only play seasonal and reaching even 2k would be a lot for me. Then again, looking at the "upscaled" numbers doesn't change the picture too much except for WDs.
Since they explicitly mention this is a generalized picture of class performance, I hope I'm reading between the lines correctly in that the overarching / longer term goal is for each of the class sets to also hit similar benchmarks.
I'm glad GR150 cap is here to stay; adding more scaling beyond that is just pointless inflation that requires more paragon grind.
zDPS is an interesting debate - irrespective of whether or not everybody likes to play it, the fact is that it's a permanent fixture in group meta so adding variety to the classes that can fulfill it seems like a useful goal; "not actively looking to add" just means every group will continue to run the same old supports.
Creative mechanics: glad they mentioned Bazooka by name for once, nerfing anything that almost requires macros or silly force move stuff would be a huge win.
And some questions:
What's the rationale for adding a Monk set focused around two skills that were already the focus of the last set they introduced?
Are there any thoughts on balancing the XP per hour that you can gain solo versus in groups? It's pretty annoying that you have to spend tons of time doing 4-man XP runs just to be able to compete on the single player leaderboard. Specially if you really want to play a class that isn't in the 4-man meta.
Re your questions:
Monk: It was less about the skills and more about the purpose it was intended to serve (though we also saw a lot of clamor for wanting a more usable Tempest Rush build). We wanted Monks to have a fun, fast way to farm while leveraging existing Legendaries that didn't see as much play (and needed a little boost themselves).
This doesn't mean we're ignoring Monk forever. If we find other opportunities to improve existing builds or add in a few new unique powers, we will! It's important you stay active, constructive and vocal in your community (either on the Monk forums or /r/d3monk ) if you want to see change.
Solo v. 4-man XP: Not something we're specifically targeting at this time, but certainly something we've been aware of and have discussed. This is kind of a beefy topic with a lot of history, but I'll try:
Many proposed solutions to solve this cause a lot of other issues, and we like those outcomes less than the current state. Introducing a new mode to separate out participants further segments the community (we already have four degrees of separation between Seasons and Hardcore mode; a new mode would, in theory, make 8). Reducing group bonuses discourages group play when our goal with the game from the start was always to encourage great, engaging (and yes, rewarding) multiplayer. Tipping solo too far in favor would just invert the problem, making solo farming more efficient to build for 4-man pushes.
Additionally, this issue really only exists for players who are looking to min/max their experience and push to the top of the leaderboards. Even if we fixed this particular issue, that group of players would find the next most efficient method and swap to doing that. We've seen this happen before with Alkaizer runs and chest farming. By addressing that, chests overall have become less rewarding and you're no longer terribly excited if you find one.
We don't want to fundamentally change this approach when it would likely cause a worse game experience for most players while shifting the problem to a new area for advanced/high-end players. It makes pursuing this issue an unappealing use of a limited pool of development resources, when that time could be better spent on broader QoL improvements or more Legendary powers for everyone to play with.
TLDR: It's not an easy problem to solve, and it's realistically a problem only for a very small, high-end group of players.
They disabled the comment section on their website and somehow they are "listening" to the community.. lol
Our comment section was disabled because it was tied to our old forum software, which was not GDPR compliant. This was communicated quite some time ago, but I'll continue adding the disclaimer to the bottom of posts because it's clear not everyone saw it.
I'm happy to continue doing my best to engage in areas like reddit and our official forums on the post made today.
In keeping with “it never hurts to ask”, would it be an idea to create a poll that allows the community to choose which skills or class features the remaining unreveales class sets will be designed for? Assuming they aren’t yet finalized.
We usually don't use community polls because, well, they're not very scientific and tend to be terribly biased (especially if results are view-able in real time).
I spend a lot (let me emphasize, A LOT) of time combing forums, reddit, social media, and even hanging out in general chat to suss out community wants and desires. I have listening tools that help me compile that information. And I'm not the only one doing so. :)
We have a pretty good (though never perfect - see how the Crusaders were split on wanting Phalanx over Fist of Heavens) idea of what to add. I think a lot of folks making guesses right now are pretty spot on... But I ain't telling who's right and wrong. You'll have to wait and see.
You don’t balance things out in sports based on average performance why would you do so in a game. If you are not willing to put in the time that it requires to be the best you don’t deserve to be the best. And even if they did balance the game after the average player who today look at the leaderboards and say it isn’t worth it wouldn’t be thre either way. Because the players in the top put in 8 hour days the average player don’t.
Sports, more often that not, are built specifically to be spectated.
Some video games are also designed that way. But Diablo isn't one of them. We want the game to be compelling and fun for anyone who logs in to play, not just those who seek to compete while doing so.
I have to disagree sport is played at every level from little league to the majors. Sport is designed for competition which is the fun aspect and that it keeps you active. And diablo is certainly made to be competitive otherwise you wouldn’t have added a leaderboard. And to go back to my analogy with sport you would for example not force Olympic weight lifters to use one arm just so your average gym lifter could compete in the olympics. Furthermore in the end that Olympic weight lifter will outperform the average gym lifter as lifting is the Olympic weight lifters sole interest. To compare this to D3 if a player puts in 8 hours a day a player who puts in 2 will never be able to compete with or without paragon cap. The only thing the cap will achieve is that the player who plays 8 hours a day will lose the sense of progression much faster. A better solution would be the Starcraft version implement several leaderboards in different tiers so everyone can compete.
And diablo is certainly made to be competitive otherwise you wouldn’t have added a leaderboard.
We actually added the leaderboard specifically because players specifically requested it—not because we designed around it. That's why its inclusion didn't happen until Reaper of Souls.
Diablo (any Diablo) at its core is meant to be a game about killing demons and getting loot. Not about who does that the best, or fastest, or most efficient. That's a goal that players choose to create for themselves, which is satisfying in its own right, but not something we're trying to enforce on others as it's not for everyone.
It's not about forcing the upper competitors down to the average. It's about making sure the base game (or the weights, in your analogy) is accessible at all to the person with a more average or moderate interest in the hobby. If the weights are only available in 100 lb. increments, there's a lot of people who aren't even going to try (my noodlely-armed self included).
Nevalistis
This is where this discussion has always gotten interesting for me.
What currently stops someone who only wants to play alone from playing alone right now? Is it the leaderboards? The thing where you're actively playing against other people to compete? ;) (Forgive me, I'm a little cheeky today.)
The nature of competition means you aren't ever really playing alone, because you're still opting to measure your efforts against someone else's. If anything, the request is really for an SSF leaderboard rather than an actual mode. That's a wholly different request, and one that's difficult for different reasons (largely has to do with databases and long-term storage issues; I can't get into details, but there's a reason only the last several Seasons/Eras are tracked in-game).
It also comes down to supply/demand and resource management (i.e., us choosing our battles). Fulfilling this request is one that would take a lot of time and a ton of resources, and we don't have data suggesting that a majority of players would want or use this feature. Most of our data suggest players want more content, more items to chase, and more Seasons (with more new rewards).
Making the choice between the two, given limited resources, seems pretty evident.
Nevalistis
To be fair, that disclaimer wasn't there at publish. I re-added it since not everyone seems to be aware of this change. ;)
Nevalistis
Skills are a bit more finicky to balance and tinker with, whereas items are a lot safer from a design/quality risk perspective. It's really easy (and fast) to disable an errant item if something goes wrong. As I've discovered from tinkering in my own design projects, what's under the hood typically works a lot differently than you might initially anticipate.
As for a "squish," that's probably not going to happen. To provide context, the amount of work that went into doing the squish for WoW was ENORMOUS and took an incredible amount of back-end retrofitting (over the course of more than a year) to accomplish so that it could be done again in the future. D3 doesn't have that luxury or even close to the same infrastructure, nor does doing so make a ton of sense when a new game is on the horizon. We want to make the most of what we have, but also have to recognize we have limitations (resource and otherwise) in how far we can go.
Nevalistis
I mean, if you took nothing out of it... then this blog probably wasn't aimed at you as part of the target audience.
We knew going into writing this it wouldn't be for everyone. It's very specifically targeted at our community's theorycrafters, guide builders, and other folks who regularly engage in discussion around game balance and the changes we make.
If that's not you, then yeah, this probably isn't as meaningful for you. You're most likely looking for specific info on what changes we're making, or what the next class set's going to look like. And that's fine! We'll have patch notes for you when the PTR is preparing to launch. :)
Nevalistis
I wouldn't think of it that way. I generally average 600-800 a season before I stop to avoid burnout. But I do think the people who are regularly hitting 5000 paragon tend to forget that your or my accomplishments are more in line with the average player experiences.
It's still important we make our changes based on both types of players. But I do think it's easy for players (like you or me) who average 800-1k per season to believe they can and should be performing the same as someone at 8000 or higher because the build they're referencing was created by someone at that level. That context is insanely important, but really easy to miss or forget.
We do a lot of math to land somewhere in between so we can suit both audiences.
Nevalistis
The key to your statement is "high end groups."
This might be mind blowing, but most players don't actually play the way you see most streamers playing, or possibly even the way you play. Some play in their own group of friends, at their own pace. Some play entirely solo. Some do a mix in between. They might lose some efficiency for a few minutes because someone had to tend to their child, or take their dog for a walk. Or heaven forbid, take a bio break! ;)
Now that I'm done being facetious, I want to reiterate the point that not everyone plays to be 100% efficient all the time. It's called "high end" because that's the upper echelon of a group of players, and usually a minority.
Something I like about most ARPGs is that you can set your own goals and go for them, at your pace. For some, that's spending time doing research and in spreadsheets to figure out where to squeeze out your next 100 dps. For others, that's picking a play style you really like and doing the absolute best you can with it. I'm usually in the latter camp, and I know I'm not going to be topping any leaderboards for it. But that's okay, because that's not why I play. I suspect there are some players who hold themselves to the standards that would be necessary to climb leaderboards, but don't actually have the desire to do so. To those, I say: You don't need permission to play the way you want, efficiency-driven or otherwise! :)
Nevalistis
Not at all, no offense taken!
I know folks tend to get most heated about balance, and I want to emphasize that, at the end of the day, we're all here to have fun in a game. Blasphemy, I know, but we could all do with a little reminding, now and then, that the balance of a class or set isn't going to stop the world from turning.
Nevalistis
Re your questions:
Monk: It was less about the skills and more about the purpose it was intended to serve (though we also saw a lot of clamor for wanting a more usable Tempest Rush build). We wanted Monks to have a fun, fast way to farm while leveraging existing Legendaries that didn't see as much play (and needed a little boost themselves).
This doesn't mean we're ignoring Monk forever. If we find other opportunities to improve existing builds or add in a few new unique powers, we will! It's important you stay active, constructive and vocal in your community (either on the Monk forums or /r/d3monk ) if you want to see change.
Solo v. 4-man XP: Not something we're specifically targeting at this time, but certainly something we've been aware of and have discussed. This is kind of a beefy topic with a lot of history, but I'll try:
Many proposed solutions to solve this cause a lot of other issues, and we like those outcomes less than the current state. Introducing a new mode to separate out participants further segments the community (we already have four degrees of separation between Seasons and Hardcore mode; a new mode would, in theory, make 8). Reducing group bonuses discourages group play when our goal with the game from the start was always to encourage great, engaging (and yes, rewarding) multiplayer. Tipping solo too far in favor would just invert the problem, making solo farming more efficient to build for 4-man pushes.
Additionally, this issue really only exists for players who are looking to min/max their experience and push to the top of the leaderboards. Even if we fixed this particular issue, that group of players would find the next most efficient method and swap to doing that. We've seen this happen before with Alkaizer runs and chest farming. By addressing that, chests overall have become less rewarding and you're no longer terribly excited if you find one.
We don't want to fundamentally change this approach when it would likely cause a worse game experience for most players while shifting the problem to a new area for advanced/high-end players. It makes pursuing this issue an unappealing use of a limited pool of development resources, when that time could be better spent on broader QoL improvements or more Legendary powers for everyone to play with.
TLDR: It's not an easy problem to solve, and it's realistically a problem only for a very small, high-end group of players.
Nevalistis
Our comment section was disabled because it was tied to our old forum software, which was not GDPR compliant. This was communicated quite some time ago, but I'll continue adding the disclaimer to the bottom of posts because it's clear not everyone saw it.
I'm happy to continue doing my best to engage in areas like reddit and our official forums on the post made today.
Nevalistis
We usually don't use community polls because, well, they're not very scientific and tend to be terribly biased (especially if results are view-able in real time).
I spend a lot (let me emphasize, A LOT) of time combing forums, reddit, social media, and even hanging out in general chat to suss out community wants and desires. I have listening tools that help me compile that information. And I'm not the only one doing so. :)
We have a pretty good (though never perfect - see how the Crusaders were split on wanting Phalanx over Fist of Heavens) idea of what to add. I think a lot of folks making guesses right now are pretty spot on... But I ain't telling who's right and wrong. You'll have to wait and see.
Nevalistis
Sports, more often that not, are built specifically to be spectated.
Some video games are also designed that way. But Diablo isn't one of them. We want the game to be compelling and fun for anyone who logs in to play, not just those who seek to compete while doing so.
Nevalistis
We actually added the leaderboard specifically because players specifically requested it—not because we designed around it. That's why its inclusion didn't happen until Reaper of Souls.
Diablo (any Diablo) at its core is meant to be a game about killing demons and getting loot. Not about who does that the best, or fastest, or most efficient. That's a goal that players choose to create for themselves, which is satisfying in its own right, but not something we're trying to enforce on others as it's not for everyone.
It's not about forcing the upper competitors down to the average. It's about making sure the base game (or the weights, in your analogy) is accessible at all to the person with a more average or moderate interest in the hobby. If the weights are only available in 100 lb. increments, there's a lot of people who aren't even going to try (my noodlely-armed self included).