Diablo 3 Developer Interview: Reaper of Souls and D3 Lessons Learned

[Steven Hazani]

I see you\'ve came around. Really though, the AH is just a means to an end, it\'s only a problem if it\'s the only means. This game still does need more targeted farming though, especially since builds are often locked behind specific items now.

 

[Nizaris]

Agree Disciple. People have been asking for a self found league in PoE for ages now. Even if it was a separate paid league. But the devs have been absolutely, annoyingly against it. I believe because their Microtransaction items are cosmetic and they don\'t want people to play \"on their own\". But self found league does not necessarily mean on your own. You can just have personalised loot. Grouping is also just a zerg fest, no skill required. Kinda annoying. Having said that PoE has been one of my favourite games over the last 5-10 years. Can\'t wait for the expansion tomorrow!!!!!!

But Path of Exile's beta was released in March of 2013... and development was only just announced in 2010. How has it been your favorite game for 5-10 years....?

 

[HardRock]

He\'s such a hipster that he liked PoE before it existed.

 

[Steven Hazani]

Math is hard, mmkay?

 

[Lanthanide]

Actually the drops in D3 are not the same as D2. There\'s one big difference: in D2, high-level affixes had ranges of stats like +50-100 strength, but in D3v1 almost all of the stats were 1 to x, where x got larger as the affix strength increased. But this meant that to get an item that had +60 strength or more, only 40% of rolls would have it, but in D2 80% of rolls would.

The fact that they have now gone back to tight affixes ranges in RoS shows how stupid this initial design decision was.

 

[Lanthanide]

I forgot to add: it\'s not so bad if you\'re only talking about 1 affix, but of course we aren\'t. You want to get 4 or 5 good rolls on items, and in D3 with good rolls only happening individually say 40% of the time, vs D2 those same good rolls happening 80% of the time, to get 5 good rolls your odds in D3 are 1 in 98 drops, vs 1 in 3 in D2. Obviously my numbers are far off reality, but the difference in the odds is phenomenal due to the compounding probabilities.

 

[vileguy]

Have to agree. The AH wasn\'t the problem, it was the combination of gold as currency rather than bartering, and terrible odds for finding good gear. In d2 you could find powerful uniques below hell act 5, and additionally, there was always the chance of a strong unique. The ranges on a unique weren\'t too big, and the affixes were set, so the worst Titan\'s Revenge was still a good weapon. It wouldn\'t be as good as a perfect ethereal Titans, but at least it was good.

In d3v1, you end up inundated with mediocre rares and garbage legendaries, because the legendary didn\'t roll good affixes. You sell the mediocre rares for small rewards until you save up a few million gold, then you buy an upgrade. If you get super lucky, you find a good legendary that\'s probably not for your class/build, so you sell it for a big profit. In the end, you\'re always buying upgrades. Add on the RMAH option, and there\'s little reward for actually playing. The AH game just isn\'t as fun as the looting game.

The AH would have worked out okay with a better item system, but the game is still better without it. I do think the loss of trading is disappointing, but spamming trade chat in d2 wasn\'t fun at all. If they compensate us with higher drop rates for the loss of trading, I\'m fine with that.

 

[Disciple of Erebos]

As much fun as it is to keep lambasting his poor wording, I think what he meant was that PoE is one of his favorite games that came out within the last 5-10 years. Frankly, I disagree with him: D3 and PoE are both flawed games, and I personally feel that PoE is more flawed than D3, simply because I have fun playing D3 and I don't when playing PoE. However, fun is highly subjective, and I am happy that he enjoys it even if I don't.

On the other hand, he really did word his sentence pretty badly. At which point I would be compelled to agree with HardRock below, with the additional possibility that he's a time-traveling hipster that liked PoE before it existed. Frankly, that would make me very happy: it would mean that at some point in the not-so-distant-future we developed time travel. Even if I never get to do it, I'd be ecstatic if someone got to live the dream of hunting down the Nazi high command with laser guns and photon cannons.

...forgive me. My mind wanders to odd places when I'm really tired.

 

[HardRock]

\"I think what he meant was that PoE is one of his favorite games that came out within the last 5-10 years.\"

To be clear, I was fairly certain he meant that, but the other possibilities were just too funny to pass up.