Number Aesthetics

Number Aesthetics

              Every game deals with numbers.  Whether its in the code that no one sees, or its nothing more than a arbitrary score, to numbers that have a huge affect on game play in the case of RPG's or RTS's.   The right numbers can make or break a game.  Outside of their actual affect on game play, the aesthetics of numbers are important too.
              Numbers have a visual affect on the mindset of players.  While it's easier for programmers to think in terms of 0 and 5, having all your numbers as multiples of these just comes off awkward to players in most games (there are some exceptions though).  So, programmers must design their numbers in such a way that they seem "random" across the board.  In a game in which numbers reach a sufficiently large number and quantity, it should seem possible that any number could show its face.
             In truth however, most of this is completely arbitrary.  Balance is often times figured in in the easy 0/5 multiples and then the actual number is somewhere close; it's the rare care case that +/- 1 or two points causes a huge impact in large numbers, it does however, visually please players more .
            On the same note, the difference between 10, 100, 1000, 10000, and beyond is also completely arbitrary.  Numbers are only important in relation to each other when it comes to games.  It does not matter if you hit for 100 or 1,000 if the enemy is correspondingly at 1,000/10,000 hp.  You still deal 10% damage.  However, larger numbers give a player the feeling of being strong even when it is not the case.  Well designed numbers will continue to grow while often times still having the same end result against enemies.  This allows the player to think that they are growing stronger and honestly feel it when they hit those bigger and bigger numbers.  Designers can compound this feeling by increasing the number of mobs a player has to face w/o increasing the hit points of the actual mob.   Being able to kill two, even if its at the same pace you could kill one, is more pleasurable to the player.
           In short and to summarize my random thought, numbers are more than just balance.  Using them correctly invokes certain feelings within the players.  You can create the feelings of struggle, growth, and power through the use of the right numbers.  Giving numbers some "randomness" in their appearance also comes off natural and pleases players, while numbers that feel very set, come off as awkward and give players a small note of hesitation.

Designing Endgame Content in the Diablo Universe - Part 2 of 2

Designing Endgame Content in the Diablo Universe

            In this post, I will first be taking a look at what is considered to be endgame content by the majority of Diablo players versus what the developers have seemingly designed as Diabo 3's current endgame content, and why the two do not coiencede with eachother.  After that I will dicussing various game design factors that are limiting to the end game content and then moving on to design choices that promote end game content and the longevity of Diablo 3.  Finally I will be speculating on redesigning Diablo 3's end content and showing ways in which future content could be created without negatively influencing any current or future content.

Diablo Fan's Endgame Content - It's Over Nine Thousand!!!!!!

            For the majority of Diablo players and for 99.9% of the diehard fans the endgame content of any Diablo game is not defeating the hardest boss, or clearing the story on the hardest difficulty.  The endgame goal of players is all about the power, the gear, creating the strongest, most perfect character possible and resting smugly knowing that yours is better than everyone else's.  That drive to perfection, to create the ultimate min/maxed character is what kept Diablo 2 alive for years and years.  It’s what kept players farming for endless hours and it is what made that farming fun.  Getting that peice of gear that was even just +1 stat closer to perfection made all the difference in the world to hardcore Diablo players while getting a legendary at all was what caused the more casual crowd to get excited.  Gear, was the true endgame content for Diablo players.

What Seems to Be Diablo 3's Endgame Content - Moar Numbers = Moar Content

            Currently in Diablo 3, it seems that the developers have intened for Inferno difficulty to be the endgame content of the game.  At a single player pace, the difficulty of it lends itself to taking the average player weeks, maybe even months of farming to make it through a few hours worth of content.   The developers want you to be playing their game for a long period of time to be able to see all of the work and content (beautiful content in my opinion) that they have dedicated so much of their time to and to enjoy your time spent doing so.  In the case of Diablo 3, their solution to this was the Inferno difficulty and they tuned the numbers (and only the numbers) as such to be the endgame content of their game, lasting for a long while.

Player Desires Conflictig with Designer's Goals - PvD

            From the designer stand point, the endgame begins when players hit level 60 and the endgame content is Inferno.  From the player standpoint, the endgame begins when they are able to start making thier character as powerful as can be and the content for that is gear, specifically the being able to obtain the best gear possible.  See the conflict?  The game designers want players to beat something while players want to be able to create something. There is nothing wrong with different goals; sometimes they even happen to fall in sync with each other creating a better experience all around, so what went wrong with Diablo 3?  The difficulty of Inferno has actually barred players from reaching their goal.  The design goal of the developers has prevented players from being able to accomplish there desires.  It is this brick wall dropped in front of players that is at the core of their displeasure.  Not only has Inferno blocked players, but it has forced them onto paths that few enjoy, compounding their frustration.

Patch 1.03 - Bandaid Fixes

            As the new patch is scheduled to be coming out soon, I'd like to take a few moments and sidetrack to go over a couple of the changes.  One change that I highly approve of is champion packs guarenteed to drop a rare with full Nephalim Valor stacks.  Rares are simply more exciting than blues and there is no guarentee they will be any good.  Even if Blizzard were to lower the chance for great modifiers on them, the overall player experience would still improve.  Finding a rare and the possibilities when identify them tickles the players pleasure senses way more than blue quality of loot does and I feel that this is a very positive change.

            The next two changes I will discuss feel as if a bandaid is placed on the problems rather than actually being addressed.  The first of these, the lowering of health and damage of Inferno monsters is a step in the right direction.  The tuning of Inferno is siply way too high and the numbers, without a doubt, need to be lowered.  However, I call this a bandaid fix because it does not addressed the underlying problems of Inferno, that, while the numbers make it difficult, Inferno is very boring and lacks challenge.  The last change, changing the item level drop rates so that Act III/IV gear can drop in Act I and more often in Act II, is a huge step in the wrong direction to me.  It promotes the idea that overgearing the content is the way to go and that it was never intended to be beaten with gear relavent to the content.  Also, while it does allow players to reach their goal of obtaining the best gear possible, it feels cheapened when it is avaiable at such an early act, almost of if it’s being handed out.  It also removes alot of the need players feel to progress through Inferno difficulty.  It is much easier and much more efficient to farm Act I than it  is to try to progress through Act II and beyond, and without incentive, players will endlessly farm Act I until they overgear the rest of the Acts and are able to completely stomp it.

Creating Enjoyable End Game Content - I'm Not Addicted, I Can Quit Anytime

            In any game, the main focus is (or at least should be) creating enjoyable content for players.  In an online game, the focus will shift slightly putting more of an emphasis on creating enjoyable end game content.  Designers accomplish this by first deciding on a goal for their players then move on to determine the ways players will go about this.  With games that are sequels however (especially online games), the players already have their own goals for the game in mind and expect them to be the same as the previous game.  When designers change this goal in between games, it forces players not only to understand a new goal, but to throw away the goals that had been solidifying in their minds for years.  While it is possible that a game could be designed so well that the change comes as a welcome shock, more often than not this is not the case.  Unfortunately, this is the camp that Diablo 3 has fallen into.

            So how do you create enjoyable end game content for Diablo 3?  First you have to understand the goals of the players who have been playing and in love with Diablo 2 for years and years.  Then designers must decided if this goal should remain the same or if a new goal should take over, in the case of Diablo, the goal in the player mindset is so strong and in this case so enjoyable to players, that it should have been left untouched.  Once designers understand the goal their game should be aiming for, the questions become what works and what does not work in creating a postive, enjoyable experience as players progress to this goal.

            From this point on I will begin to talk specifically about Diablo 3 and its elements.  First about what elements are limiting the end game, then what elements need to be limited, and finally how positive end game content can be created.

Story Limitations - One Beautiful World Thrown Out the Door

            On most players first time through Diablo they will sit and listen to the story.  Each new quest, cutscene, and bit of diablogue pulls them deeper into the world and by the end of normal they are happy with the experience they were a part of.  After that first time through though, the story ceases to become important having turned simply into people to click and and esc buttons to press.  The story has become irrelavent to the game and in essence needs to be thrown in the trash and pushed out of developer’s minds.  Sticking to the flow the story has set out, can cause potential design paths for the end game to be ignored.

            *Quick note, story progression is fine for Normal through Hell, but I feel that in Inferno it should have been removed.

Limiting the Difficulty - Fences, Walls, and Gates, Oh My!

            Most players enjoy a difficult game and don't think much of easy ones.  In fact one of the major things players asked for was for the difficulty of Diablo to be significantly increased.  However, the difficulty of Inferno took things a bit too far.  Suddenly the difficulty of Diablo 3 had become a wall, blocking players from their goal, and nobody likes running into a brick wall.  In Diablo 3, difficulty must be designed in a way that is challenging and fun to the player while still allowing steady progression at a decent pace toward their ultimate goal.  It cannot be designed in such a way to halt progress; therefore limits must be placed on how "tough" monsters can actually be designed to be

Limiting the Auction House - The Gear that Keeps on Giving

            Diablo 3 is the type of game that lends itself to having an auction house, however when left unchecked (as it currently is) things will get out of control.  At the moment it is quite possible that the save peice of gear has been bought and sold on the auction house over 100 times.  Gear is constantly being bough, used, and resold.  This recycling of gear needs to be stopped.  The auction house is becoming flooded by powerful items that will never dissappear and there is no system in place to keep this in check.  Without some kind of limiting control the auction house will quickly get out of control, holding ever growing quantities of every item possible.  As the auction house grows and grows the value of the endgame gear and thereby the endgame content will continue to diminish.  Something has to change.  Honestly, I think it will talk several steps each new one's effects evaluated before a solid solution surfaces, but I think that a good first step is to make anything bought off the auction house bound to your account.  This would make purchases more meaningful and cause each one to effectively remove that item from the market permantly, reducing flooding.

Redesigning Inferno - We Can Rebuild It, We Have the Technology

            In my previous post (link at bottom) I spent a decent portion of time talking about the current difficulty of Inferno and its flaws.  To recap, Inferno is barring the way to the player's goals for Diablo 3's endgame.  The difficulty is purely in numbers, creating walls that do not provide any challenge, only frustration.  This has caused players to be forced to farm the lower tiers of gear, something that is considered by most players to be work and not play.  For the next several sections I will be taking a look at how to redesign Inferno in such a way that it is fun, challengeing, and fresh.

Creating an Enjoyable Challenge - Working Up a Sweat

                        For the past 3 difficulties and last 60 levels, players have worked their way through Diablo 3's Acts.  The content has been seen multiple times and very little of it has changed.  However, players were accompanied by a sense of ever increasing strength and a constant stream of new variations of skills to play with.  So while the content stayed the same, players were kept entertained and this made the process enjoyable.  At the end of Hell, the path to level 60 had been reached and the prospect of Inferno loomed before them.  This is a grand milestone, the start of the real game for most players and it should be treated at such.  Inferno should redefine the game experience that players had currently been having.  No longer entertained by leveling up while moving through old content, the gameplay and content must change, giving players a variety of options to keep things feeling fresh and providing a level of difficulty that challenges players to find ways to overcome and deal with without feeling shoved against a wall.  Players should be able to work at and think through the challenges, like solving a puzzle and not feel that they are trying to beat a brick wall with a stick, making no progress at all.  Players need things to learn.

            Dealing with Numbers - What I Learned from Sesame Street

                        We all learned our numbers in grade school, 2 is bigger than 1, 5 than 10, 9374202384 than 25, and applying that knowledge to games is childs play.  Bigger numbers beat smaller numbers.  When it comes to difficulty, difficulty by numbers is extremly boring and provides no challenge to players.  Challenge and enjoyment comes when we are able to use smaller numbers to overcome larger ones.  Yes there needs to be a threshold, you shouldn't be able to clear content in all white level 20 gear, but it should not be so high that you can't make do with what gear you've picked up along the way.  Allowing players to overcome challenges by learning them, or by coming up with creative solutions is what appeals to players about diffculty.  Using there brain to come up with techniques to overcome whats been put in their way.  Lack of gear should almost never limit progression, but rather an abudance of gear should create ease of play.

                        In Diablo 3 there are some types of number difficulty that players find appropriate and add to the user experience and there are some types that players hate and should almost never happen.  Getting one-shot is an example of this.  Diablo 3 should have abilities that kill players in a single hit, but how that is done is very important.  Nobody wants to be killed by a small handful of white damage from generic auto attacks, let alone be killed in a single one of these hits, there is nothing fun or exciting about it.  On the flip side, players do enjoy when there are elements that can and will kill them in a single hit.  A few examples, Dark Berserker's charge up swing, arcane orbs, or Mallet Lords, all of these are acceptable forms of being one-shot in players’ minds.  They are very dodgeable attacks and abilities and getting hit by them is silly.  When modifiers come into play though (in this case especially waller, jailer, and vortex) these things that were once easy to handle, all of a sudden become a challenge.  A well timed vortex into a charge swing will end your life so will over estimating your time to get away from an arcane orb and then getting jailed next to it.  These things can surprise the player and even after experiencing a time or two and figuring out ways to prevent it from happening or to get out of them when they do, they still force players to stay on their toes and watch out for them.  When you start to add more than one type of this challenge to a fight for players to deal as well as the constant threat of taking too many normal hits that wittle down their health, things become hectic in a good way and the player is forced to grow and become better at the game to overcome them.  This provides a positve user experience.

                        So what kind of numbers provide for a solid and reasonable challenge?  The answer is all kinds!  First off, ping-ponging health is bad.  Taking hits should decrease health at a steady rate while healing should raise health at a slow one.  Getting hit by 1 or 2 hits should be able to be countered by healing, but allowing yourself to get hit constantly should begin to wear down you health, steadily bringing you closer and closer to death.  Your health versus monster damage should be crafted in such a way that the scare of a quick death from regular hits should never be there, but neither should you be able to ignore them.

                        The next teir of numbers should be those that are dangerous yet mostly avoidable.  A good example of this is the wasps in Act 2, it’s easy to dodge the slow moving bullets they fire, but when the screen becomes cluttered by them and other ablities come into play, the odds of dodgeing every one of them becomes quite low.  These bullets should be a significantly higher danger to you than a generic hit, but they should not massively chunk your health pool or kill you outright.  Getting hit by 1, 2, or even 3 shouldn't end the fight for you, but it should set you back in a way that you have to work to recover from it over a decent amount of time (say multiple uses of a CD healing ability).  Taking a few tics of plauged, a tic of desecrator, or a few hits of electrified are also good examples of this.

                        The last tier of numbers is those that are outright deadly to you.  They are numbers that should be extreme, maybe even to the point that no amount of gear would let you get hit by them.  These are the one-shot abilities or one-two combos such as jailer desecrator.  They keep players on their toes and keep up a constant level of excitement.  These types of numbers should always revolve around a player’s ability to easily avoid them and ways other than the abilties themselves should be found to increase the likelyhood of a player getting hit by them.

                        Creating numbers in this way does two things for a player.  The first thing it does is give players something to overcome, and allows them to learn how to.  The challenges are something players have to figure out how to deal with, be it through a careful eye or the use of an ability to negate or escape the danger.  Multiple levels of danger give them multiple things to deal with, and give them priorities on what to avoid.  They have to make choices on what is an acceptable risk or on what damage to take if things become unavoidable.  There is a costant, yet not overwhelming stream of information that players must process, and this keeps things exciting.

                        The second thing that these numbers do is give the player choices.  There is an absolutely amazing and beautiful amount of choice in class customization in Diablo 3 and by giving players some leeway in the numbers department; it allows them to pick a playstyle that suits them.  Maybe they want to go deeply into something heal based that and allows them survive more mistakes over time.  They could also decide to go the glass cannon build hoping to be able to defeat the enemies before they end up makeing 1 too many mistakes.  Perpahps they choose to go defensive so that they can surive making too many mistakes at once.  Kiting, close range, AoE, minion, cooldown, mobility, all kinds of builds begin to become viable and players have the freedom to choose how they want to play their character, even if it is not the most efficient way.

            Champion Challenges - And the Die Roll Says

                        Champion modifications are most likely Diablo 3's best way of creating a challenging experience.  Based on what you get they can be frustrating, easy, or downright impossible and this is a great thing.  It adds spice and variety to the gameplay and creates a heap of new situations for players to learn and overcome.  I also believe that there is no need for every combination to be balanced.  It's a good thing when the die rolls in your favor and you get an easy champ pack, and it’s just as good as well as flavorful when a pack's abilties work so well together to make it almost impossible, it gives players a goal for gear to overcome without forcing them to face that challenge.

                        The one problem with champion modifications in Inferno is that simply increasing the number champions can have from 3 to 4 is not enough (often times one of those modifications is ignorable anyways).  Inferno needs to offer something new that wasn't shown in the previous difficulties.  Players need a new challenge.  I believe that Inferno should have made the player face a larger variety of modifications; new ones should have been introduced.  Rather than cluttering things here, I will put an appendix at the end of my post where I will put ideas for new champion modifications that could be added to the Inferno difficulty

                        *As a last note, I feel that ALL unique (purple) enemies should be treated as champion packs in terms of number of abilities and randomness of them.

            Boss Battles - Dragon's Should be Epic

                        One of the most dissapointing things to me in Inferno was the bosses.  They didn't change one bit.  I went into the King Leoric fight eyes peeled, waiting for some new mechanic to appear and add new challenge to the fight.  Instead all I got was the same fight I had done many times before.  When the same thing happened on the Butcher I realized they weren't going to change and let my hope die.  It made me sad.

                        These are bosses in the hardest difficult in Di-freaking-ablo.  They should be epic!  They should challenge players.  Offer them a new challenge that causes them to come up with new strategies to defeat them.  The first time I fight any boss (not just the Act end ones) on Inferno difficulty I should not feel that they are easier than any champion pack I have faced, let alone many many times easier.  There needs to more.  There needs to be new.  Inferno bosses need to change.

            Tiered Multi-Act Progression - I Can Travel in Nine Dimensions

                        I don't remember why now but until a few weeks before Diablo 3's release, I believed that in Inferno difficulty all Acts would be set to the same difficulty.  Maybe it’s because I explained how I felt and still feel Diablo 3's final difficulty shoud work to a friend and they told me that was Blizzard's plan already and I believed him.  Whatever the reason, it did not turn out the way I had hoped so let me explain the way I envisioned the Acts would work Inferno.

                        Upon reaching Inferno, the progression by story design should have been thrown out of the window.  Players have gone through it several times already.  They have also reached the level cap so there is no longer a need for monsters level to increase with you over a controlled span of time and area of play.  With these things able to be tossed aside, designers have the opportunity to rework the progression flow of Inferno specifically for max level characters.  While there are many possiblities for this, one of the best designs (and how I would redesign Inferno) is what I like to call, Tiered Multi-Act Progression.

                        Considering how the Acts are designed, upon reaching Inferno players would be allowed to choose to progress through any Act.  The mobs in each Act would start at level 61 and as players progressed through the Act, most likely after each boss, the monster level would grow.  Not only would this give players the freedom of choice, but if they ever got stuck they would have the option to try to progress through a different Act rather than beat their heads against the only progression route avaiable to them.  Even once players had "beaten" the game, designing Inferno this way would seem to create more endgame content because players would have more than one Act choice to farm from.

                        *This design would also allow for more varied farming options like the one decribed in the Rewards for Exploration and Completion Section.

            Completely Random Enemies - Hey, You Weren't There Before

                        The title of this section really says it all.  Each zone in Inferno should be populated by a random set of enemies rather than the same ones all the time.  This would add an element of unpredicability that generates excitement in players and keeps them on their toes.  It adds variety, challenge, and freshness to Infero by creating moster set combinations that were not possible before and are new to deal with.  These are good things that add spice to the endgame content of Diablo 3.

            Inferno Redesign Summarized - TLDR

                        While difficulty is a good thing, it needs to be done in such a way as to not brick wall player progression, especially when a player’s true goal begins when progression ends.  A difficulty purely because of numbers is frustrating as well as boring and farming for gear that is not top-tier is more work than play so the difficulty of Inferno must be one of skill.  It must require players to think, to react, and challenge the player to overcome it, not their gear.  In the Diablo universe, gear must also be strong so whatever challenge created gear must allow you to overcome with greater ease.  Variety must be added to Inferno.  New champion modifications and random enemy sets populating zones instead of set ones would spice Inferno up and keep things feeling fresh and exciting.  Boss fights should be epic and so new mechanics should be introduced to them.  And last but not least, the choice on how to progress and through what should be given to the player, allowing them more choices and a tiered multi-act progression system works perfectly for this.

Creating Varied Endgame Content - You Mean I Can do Two Things?

            To begin to create endgame content for Diablo 3 we must first understand what the endgame goal of players is.  We already know this to be creating the ultimate character through gear and we know that the primary method of accomplishing this is farming (and that is what it should be Diablo games).  Knowing this, the question designers should ask themselves is this.  How to best make farming enjoyable?  In what ways can they design multple farming paths, multiple styles of farming, and a varitey of play experience while farming?  Figuring out multiple ways to answer this question will give players the ability to choose how to farm, and will keep a certain level of unpredictability, freshness, and excitement to a process that will be repeated thousands of times over by the average Diablo 3 player.

            Positive Incentives - Because Good is Always Better than Bad

                        When farming, players tend to gravitate towards the easiest and most efficient paths possible.  Case and point for this was ash pot farming in Act I, treasure goblin farming in Act II, and Resplendent Chest farming in Act III.  Though these things did need to be nerfed (not killing mobs should never been more rewarding than killing them), positive incentives should be given to players to encourage various ways of farming.  Nephalim Valor is a good example of this.  It discourages the old Diablo 2 magic find runs against a single mob and promotes the creation of paths leading up to boss kills through postive benefits and without nerfing the effciency of those mf runs.  Positive incentives like this open up more options and push players to involve themselves in more of Diablo 3's content.  I believe that more incentives could be created, turning even more of Diablo 3's content into endgame content.

            Rewards for Exploration and Completion - Discovering Vast New Lands

                        The immensity of Diablo 3's content is a beautiful thing.  There are still dungeons and events that I have not seen.  Npc's that I have not met.  There is so much out there for players to discover, but players will only encounter it when they decide to take a break from farming and endgame content.  I feel however, that it could be made to be part of it.  By creating a positive incentive for players to spend time exploring zones and finding all they have to offer, the endgame content of Diablo 3 could improve.  Another option of play and farming can be made.

                        Currently, the rewards for completeing events or exploring dungeons versus the time put into them are often just not worth it.  So what can we design that would give players more incentive to seek them out?  I believe the answer is fairly simple.  Every zone is spawned with X amount of champions, events, treasure goblins, and resplendent chests.

If we tallied up a zone, we would get the total number of "exploration items" and could use that number as a way to track a players completion of a zone.  Upon fully completing a zone, players would be able to recieve a blue quality item of their slot choice (maybe not weapons).  Upon completeing a defined section of an Act, or perhaps just a percentage of the whole Act, players would recieve a rare quality item of their slot choice.  The item level chances would be determined by what section of an Act you completed, or by what percentage mark of the Act you had reached.  This would open up a new type of farming, one where you can "hunt" to fill a specific equipment slot.  I believe that this bonus would encourage players to seek out and experience the immense amount of content put into Diablo 3 while still keeping things in the endgame mindset.  The incentive is not so high as to force out normal farming, but specific enough to catch the eye of players who know exactly what they want.

Preventing Farming Paths While Keeping Them Predictable - I Know It's a Box, but Whats Inside It?

                        Endgame content of a game getting static is not a good thing.  Creating ways for it to stay feeling fresh while keeping a certain level of predictability should be the goal.  Earlier in the Inferno section I mentioned that mob sets in zones should be completely random and this section is mostly about the same idea.  By allowing mobs to be randomized for zones and by creating a greater range of possible spawn points for champion packs, we accomplish the goal of preventing set in stone farm paths.  However, as a balance, players should be able to predict how many champion packs they are going to find in a zone (I believe it’s currently 2 - 3 in any zone).  By not knowing what they will find in terms of enemies, but knowing what they will find in terms of rewards in each zone, things are feeling fresh and new longer without having a negative impact on predicability.  As an added bonus, players would not restrict themeselves to X zone each run, but would feel able to choose any zone to do their farming in (yay for more player choice).

            Extreme Drop Chances - Unlimitted Power!

                        Gear is the primary source of endgame content for Diablo 3 as well as its longevity, so what better way to increase this than to add items beyond item level 63.  By throwing in some level 64 or 65 legendaries (and only legendaries in my opinion), and giving them extremely low drop chances, players would always have something to shoot for.  The thrill of just possibly finding them would drive players and the excitement of actually seeing one would be unmatched.  Players know that it is highely unlikely they will ever reach the absolute max potential of thier characters, but just that chance of getting that amazing item is enough to enthrall them.

            Perfectly Rolled Gear - Just One More Point Please!

                        This actually already exists in Diablo 3, but I felt I should just make a quick note of its postive impact.  The ability to find perfectly rolled gear (legendaries with max stats) comes with all the benefits listed in the above section.  It’s a great system and should continue to be used.

Challenges and Challenge Difficulties - Time for the Bonus Round

            Aside from just endgame content, bonus content is a good way to be able to add new content without causing a negative impact on existing content.  A good exmaple of bonus content is pretty much the current design of Inferno.  A difficulty where the numbers are tuned extremely high and progression through it is block frequently by things like gear checks.  However, this content would not drop loot; instead its purpose would be the challenge of completeing.  Perhaps maybe adding a set, one time, powerful, bound to account or character reward for completing it.  This difficulty could up hair-pulling hard because with no loot, it would not be considered a block to player's goals, only an extra challenge for players to tackle if they chose to.  There could even be several extra levels of difficulty as time goes on and players gear improves.  Other forms of bonus content could also be designed.  Special zones, be it serious or easter egg in nature.  Boss challenges (imagine fighting "Ultra Diablo" or multiple bosses at once) or survival modes could also be added as bonus content.  There are infinite ways to create content, and an easy way to keep it from negatively impacting current content is by offering it as a bonus with little or no reward save for the challenge itself.

In Closing – Yay, He’s Done Talking

            Once again my post has run very long, but I hope that you’ve enjoyed the read.  My goal was to provide some (preferably correct) insight into player’s goals and how to design content with them in mind.  I hope that I have accomplished this, provided food for thought, and come up with a few things that players would enjoy seeing.  If you read it all, I really thank you for your time!

Appendix A - Champion Modifications

            Strong – Makes normal attacks of monsters stronger.

            Blasting – Occasionally fires a medium speed projectile in the direction the mob is facing.  1 Shot for champions, 3 bullet spread shot for elites.

            Duelist – Upon entering combat with mob, creates a 100yd by 100yd arena, locking the player in with the pack.  (No way out but to kill or be killed)

            Erupting – Across a very large area centering on the monster, the ground will flash for a few seconds revealing a handful of safe zones.  After the time period ends, the ground will erupt for massive damage, forcing the player to reach one of the safe zones before it goes off.

            Pulsing – The champion will periodically pulse for low, unavoidable damage.

            Shifting – Periodically the mob will change its elemental weakness (denoted by color of the mob).  The mob will gain high resistances to anything other than this element but will also take increased damage from this element.  When hitting the champion, it will cause them to drop an orb (somewhat like health globes) that will temporarily change all damage you deal to that type.

            Rending – Getting hit by normal attacks from enemies with this modification will cause a stacking DoT to be placed on players.  As the damage grows, it will eventually become impossible to ignore, even deadly forcing players to back off for a bit and let it fall off.

Diablo 3 and the Current Frustration Issues, A Look from the User Experience Lens - Part 1 of 2

Diablo 3 and the Current Frustration Issues, A Look from the User Experience Lens

            Like, most of you, I have been playing Diablo 3 since the night of its release and for the most part have enjoyed.  D3 is a great game, but its not without a few flaws (imo most of these stem from launch issues that will settle over time and social issues conflicting with game design).  I've been thinking about it a bit lately and thought I would share my thoughts on the game from a design base from a user experience perspective.

Progression - Diablo has that now?

            As a quick note, for the sake of progression in this section, I will only be talking about normal through hell modes.  Inferno will be talked about more in depth later as its more endgame than progession and a subject that deserves a more in depth look at.

            Progression is concept that was, in reality, completely missing from Diablo 2.  I'm sure everyone at some point played through all the acts in normal mode at least once, however, this was really just to say that you did, to have seen that tiny fraction of the game.  I say fraction, because in all honesty, Diablo 2 was all about the gear, a giant treasure hunt where even the difference of +1 stat would be worth the time investment to find it.  Millions, probably even billions of hours were invested into MF runs, Baal runs, etc, by millions of users while maybe 1% of that time was actually spent exploring the rest of the game.  I remember going from level 1 to 85 in 1-2 hours, spending the rest of my D2 career farming.  Progression was not a factor in D2, it was 99% endgame.

            Diablo 3 however, is different, progression is a major factor in the game, normal through hell taking 20+ hours on average for your first run through, even more if you decided to explore the game.  This however, is not a bad thing.  It creates more game, more things to do and see, and when done well, as it was, the game is that much better for it.  Normal through Hell travelled at a very steady pace, you didn't really have to farm to make it through and the difficulty of each step along the way was spot on, getting progressively harder, but still allowing you to feel stronger in each new act.  I would wager to say that this process of progression was excuted flawlessly by blizzard, and most people enjoyed every step of the way.

            The catch however, is that this was not an expected turn of events for those used to Diablo 2.  Not having to deal with it in D2, it caught many people off guard, but I do believe in a pleasent way, at least for everyone's first time through.  Gamers enjoyed this new experience to the Diablo universe and chugged along the path contentedly.  For this, I would give Blizzard high marks for making a truly exquisite experience, and if the game had ended here complaints (minus the game obvously needing more, as it is Diablo) would be minimal.

            The next step though, Inferno, is where the idea of progression took at turn for the worst. I will talk more about that later, only to say now, that it is not just Inferno that has caused issues, but the social issues that inevitably arose from it.

Speed of Progression - Those Who get Ahead, Stay Ahead

            I want to make a quick comment here about the speed at which people progress through the game.  In most cases there is no issue with people progressing through a game at a faster (in this case faster being in terms of real world time) pace than you, especially if the reason is simply that they were able to put more hours into it earlier than you were.  Once you can put the same amount of time into it, you will catch up.  This is not the case however with Diablo 3.  Those who made it to Inferno and through the acts there were able to progress at a much higher pace, with less time spent, and with greater reward.  Those who got ahead, not only stayed ahead, but skyrocketed even farther and farther away with less and less effort.  The reason, the AH, but I will comment more on that later.

            Why is this an issue?  Because it frustrates gamers when timing becomes such a huge factor in their ability to play and progress through a game.  When skill and time investment are the same, but the payout is exponentially different simply because they put it in a later time (in this case being as little as a week to a few days later), players get upset.

           

End Game Content and Goals - So the Real Game Begins

            Let's face it, in any MMO game, especially those of an RPG nature, the progression and leveling content of that game are nice and most othe time enjoyable experiences.  But they are not the real game to most players.  That period of these types of games are really just the warmup.  It's not till all of this is out of the way that the real begins.

            So what is the real Diablo to most players and to all hardcore fans?  Creating that ultimate character.  Diablo is the biggest game of Min/Maxing there is, nothing else even really comes close to it.  And how do players accomplish this goal?  Farming (the AH wrench later).  But not just any kind of farming.  Farming for that amazing gear, those pieces of loot that truly make you pump your fist in the air knowing it will stay with your forever, or until you find that same piece with only +1 stat better.  This crave, that need, and most importantly the ability to be able to get those pieces of gear were what drove people to endlessly play Diablo 2, to be almost addicted to it.  Getting that gear was a mark of accomplisment, of pride, and it drove players.

            So what has gone wrong in D3?  The brick wall of difficulty we've come to know as Inferno.  All of sudden, to simply progress through the game, to reach that point where we are able to get that amazing gear, to begin to truly create our ultimate character, we are forced to farm, and this time around, it’s the very unfun kind of farming.  No longer are we gathering gear to perfect our character, we are spending hours and hours and hours gathering gear to simply make it through an Act, all of which will become obsolete in less time than it took us to find it.  Spending a days worth of time, to gain something that will last a few hours, is not worth the tradeoff for most players, and to be forced to do it, just to get to where we really want to be, well, that creates an unhappy gamer and a bad user experience.

Inferno Difficulty - And I was Doing so Well

            Ah, Inferno, how I both love and hate you.  Inferno difficulty is the point in which the fluid design of Diablo 3 comes to a grinding halt and the first of the three major factors   (Inferno difficulty, the Spirit of Competition, and the AH) of player frustration comes to light.  In short, Inferno is HARD, really hard.  Not only is stepping into Act I a huge wake up call to most players because of the huge difference from Hell, but that step from Act I to Act II is so great, that game litterally comes to standstill for players, forcing them to go back to Act I and farm for hours, maybe even days, something they did not have to do for any of the previous difficulties or Acts.  This was a huge wrench in the games beforehand, flawless pace.

            So the game gets difficult, what's the problem?  There are two problems with the vast change in difficulty from Hell to Inferno and from the various Acts to the the next within Inferno.  The first problem stems from two factors, the first factor is what I shall call the Resistance Barrier (I will go more in depth later).  All of a sudden a stat that previously either did not exist on gear or was given almost no consideration jumped to one of if not the most important stat that you could gear for.  Most gear on most players at this point had little to no resists, and few players took the idea of stacking them to mind.

            The second factor is one of numbers.  Monster damage skyrocketed and suddently the danger of being one or two shot became extremely prevalent.  Death was always around the corner, one slip up would cost you your life, and just as often you would be overwhelmed without any way of survival.  Champion packs became devastating and even some trash mobs became more terrifying than Inferno bosses (I was sad when none of the fights changed).  Survival became an extreme issue.  But that's not all, monster health skyrocketed as well, faced with having to regear to survived and drop tons of damage, the immense health increase caused the pace of the game, once you finally could progress, to move at a snail's pace.  What once took 1 or 2 hits to kill, now takes 10 to 20.  Champion packs that took 30 seconds to kill now take 5 to 10 minutes.

            What makes this bad?  The change in difficulty is completely gear based.  The gameplay hasn't changed.  Sure the Champ packs gained 1 more ability, but thats really minor, often times one of the four is neglible to your class anyways, and in light of the massive normal hits they do, even more neglible.  This makes for very boring difficulty, there's nothing to learn, and there's nothing for skill to overcome.  When skill takes a back seat to gear, players get bored and frustrated.  When you end up realizing that there's nothing you can do to move on but go back and farm weak mobs for better gear, most players will just sigh.  It's a tedious task and drives players off.  Some games such as Ikagura, thrive on challenge.  The mere difficulty of the game draws people in, even knowing they can't complete it just so that they can experience how hard it is and see how thier skill does against it.  With Inferno, it's not a challenge of skill, its a time sink.  A very boring one at that.

            The second problem with that difficulty of Inferno is that Diablo is not a single player game, even if it is often played alone, it is a social game, an mmo.  Forums, fansites, wiki's, streams, all kinds of things follow every development within the game and it is nearly impossible to cut off even the most basic player (especially because of the AH) from the rest of the player population.  Why does this have such a big impact on Inferno's difficulty?  Imagine this with me for a moment.  Imagine Diablo 3 had no online component, that it was simply a single player game.  You'd play through, enjoy it, normal, nightmare, hell, they all fall into place.  Then you reach Inferno and everything jumps up 9 levels of difficulty.  You might get upset, stop for awhile, rage, but eventually you would come back, try again, realize you need some gear and go back to farm it.  In time, at your own pace you would eventually complete Inferno and the experience would be fairly rewarding.  You completed something that was difficult, though be it mostly in terms of time not skill, and you would feel accomplished.  There would be no outside element to compare yourself or compete against, and there would be nothing to get upset over when others completed it before you.  There would be no competition and no sense of an unfair advantage.  Things would be good, your time would be meaningful and the end of the game would be Diablo's death.

            However, Diablo 3 is not a single player game, and Diablo's death is not the end of the game for 90% of the game's players (endgame being creating the perfect character as mentioned above).  The online community is competitive, even if its a friendly competition type such as Diablo 3.  Even though its player vs Monster, players will still think of the game in terms of player vs player (especially when the AH is involved).  Any sense of an unfair advantage (and there are several of them, some very large) will cause discontent and frustration among a player base, driving the user experience down, and driving some players away.

            So in a nutshell, what problems does Inferno have?  Inferno is too difficult so much so that it blocks progression.  Not only is it difficult, but it is the wrong kind of difficulty, a numbers difficulty, the kind that creates a time sink and offers very little to learn and very little for skill to be a part of.  Secondly, social issues such as class balance and the AH have given a handful of players vast advatages within the game far beyond the point of unfair.  These two things together have upset and frustrated most players and even driven some away.  The atmosphere created is not conducive to fun play and an enjoyable experience.

The Resistance Barrier - Wait What's that Stat Now?

            The place of the resistance stat within Diablo 3 is, in my opinion, currently flawed.  At first, it seems like a proper stat, one that allows you to survive longer against certain elements.  Few would argue that this is a bad thing, and most games have some kind of reistances to elements.  It's implementation however, is incredibly blotchy.  There are two reasons for this.

            The first reason for this is that the enemies of Diablo 3 are decidedly varied and the damage they do in terms of elements is well spread out.  Gearing for individual elements is impractical, both in terms of its viability for survival (don't have resistances to X element, that element will destroy you) and the fact that gear rarely, if ever, comes with more than one type of resistance (not including resist all) and the number they come in is far too small to be able to spread various resistances among gear pieces effectively.  This leads players to gearing for the only real choice, resist all.  Resist all, however, has a huge design problem.  It has the EXACT same function that armor does.  Both reduce damage from all sources (just in case anyone hasn't noticed, armor reduces damage from all sources including elemental, while resist all reduces damage from all elements, including physical).  And, when resist all becomes just as important as armor, it becomes a bulky stat.  Why have two stats performing the exact same function when you could have one stat with a better mathematical formula behind it.  It's just excessive for no reason at the moment.

            The second reason that the implementation of reistances is blotchy, is that it blindsides players.  As mentioned in the previous section, resistances is not a stat found on gear till the late Acts of Hell and even then its pretty low on the priority list for most players.  Once Inferno is reached, it becomes so necessary, its like a brick wall has been thrown up in front of players and is continued to be thrown in front of players each new Act.  There's no stairs, no hill, just a wall.  Resistances should have been introduced at a much lower level and at a much higher rate, if not just as standard as armor.

            The necessity of not just resitances, but resist all (aka armor stat #2), combined with sudden need for massive amounts of it have caused its implementation to feel unfinished and has left a negative impact on the user experience.

Gearing Up - The MMORPG Throwback

            I remember back in the days of vanillia and Burning Crusade WoW and the raid bosses that couldn't be killed for months and months.  How, no matter how skilled the players, their gear wasn't good enough and the only way to move on was to continually kill farm bosses for gear.  It was a time when numbers ruled the game far more than intelligence did.  Most players didn't enjoy this.  The feeling of accomplishing something through skill far outways that of winning by superior numbers, while failure by numbers no matter your skill is endlessly frustrating.  In time, WoW moved away from this and progression became more about player ability, not about the gear they were wearing.  Extremly skilled players could defeat raid bosses in greens and blue, or sub-par epics, while better gear allowed other players to still progress while making some mistakes.  And, for the majority of players, this system worked and was pleasing, skill trumped gear, but not so much that gear could not help alliviate the need for perfection.  It was a good balance, though not always perfect.

            My question is this, if WoW popularized (maybe even pioneered) this approach, why then have we been thrown back to the old standard in Diablo 3?  Gear far trumps skill when it comes to Inferno difficulty.  The gear requirement is so high, that even very skilled players are forced to back off and spend a solid chunk of time farming for what will essentially be throw away gear.  The numbers are tuned quite a bit too high, forcing back to an old game design philosphy on progression that is and was known to cause a negative user experience for the majority of people.

The Farming Game - Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It's Off to Work We Go

            There's two kinds of farming in video games.  Farming for the permanent, the kind most players enjoy and feel is worth thier time investment, and farming for the temporary, the kind most players hate and feel is a waste of their time.  Unfortunately, because of the difficulty of Inferno, the vast majority of Diablo 3's player base is stuck in the latter type of farming, and its causing a large number of them to become dissatisfied and disgruntled with both Blizzard and the game.  Much like preparing several hours a week for raids in vanilla and early Burning Crusade WoW (gathering potions, flasks, elixers, oils, and stones), this type of farming is really just work.  Few players get any enjoyment out of this farming task and feel forced to do it so that they are able to reach the part of the game that they enjoy.  Something fixed in WoW, but brought back in Diablo 3 has left players with a sour taste in thier mouth.

Class Design and Inferno Difficulty - Millions of Choices! Only 3 viable.

            I'm gonna take a slight rabbit trail away from what's causing frustrated players real quick and talk about class design and the effect that Inferno has had on it.  Diablo class design is truly beautiful.  Each lass has millions of potential builds, and hundreds of different playstyles, and thats just for a single class.  There's so much variety within the classes that I would find it nigh impossible for a player to be unable to find a style of play that they enjoy.  Not only that, but in from Normal through Hell, almost all if not all of those playstyles are viable (if not quite effective), leaving the choice of what skills to pick completely up to the player.  It is an elegant system that for at least the first three difficulties, was executed flawlessly.  Player preference ruled the class.

            Sadly, this did not last when Inferno rolled around.  All those choices got tossed to the side by the harsh difficulty of it.  Suddenly, those millions of possibilties and thousands of playstyles didn't just become subpar, they became completely unviable.  It is sad to see so much player choice gone, and users pigeonholed into a small handful of builds (sometimes even a single build).  It's like covering up a beautiful masterpeice and only leaving one small corner to be seen.  It's a tragedy.

            I remember in Diablo 2 builds that should have never worked, working.  Builds like Shout Barbs or Enchant Sorcs.  Silly things like that should be allowed to work (though not as effective as "real" builds) in Diablo 3.  Almost anything I choose should able to work and allow me to progress through Inferno.  The lack of player choice in building their character because of the difficulty of the game, is in my opinion, a design flaw.  Anything that removes choice from players that they were once given, detracts from the user experience of a game.

The Competitive Spirit - Going from Darn They Beat Me to **** This **** is Unfair

            Any multiplayer game, especially those that exist online, will always have some level of competition to it.  Even in a purely PvE environment, players will compete to see who can finish first, who can finish faster, who can finish flawlessly, and who can creat the ultimate character.  This Spirit of Competition is what drives a large majority of players to play games, and to attempt to play them at the highest potential possible.  Since the begginning of gaming, ultimately since the beginning of human existance, that desire, that need to compete has been inate within us.  In one sense, thats why games were created, not just for fun, but to pit us against eachother in a friendly manner to see who is better.

            This "Spirit of Competition" is what I believe to be the second major factor in the reason players are currently frustrated with Diablo 3.  Imagine if you will, a marathon race.  You know that you are not the person in the race in the best shape that it is unlikely that you will be the first to cross the line, but you are in good shape and even knowing how unlikely it is that you will finish first you still subconciously think that perhaps by will or desire, maybe even luck you can win and that if that isn't the case, at least you will finish reasonably close. Now imagine that 1 mile in, the person at the head of the race is given a bike, then at 4 miles a car, at 10 drag racer, and at 15 a rocket car.  Suddenly, because you weren't the first to some small milestone, the gap between you and the lead racer starts to grow even vaster, and for unfair reasons (you are running, they now have a bike or a car), and that at each new milestone their method for covering distance becomes better and better and the gap between you and them continues to grow exponentially with no way for you to catch up (obviously you cannot catch up to a bike while running, let alone a car).  Even though your outcome is the same, the unfair advantage given to the lead runner causes a huge amount of resentment.  All of sudden you are going from knowing you will lose, but still feeling as if you can compete, to having even the tiniest fraction of a notion that you will be able to compete ripped away.  This drives the response from competition from a slight darn and acknowledgement of what was already known, to a frothing rage over the unfairness of the situation.

            This is exactly what has happened in Diablo 3 and it has caused alot of frustration among players.  As mentioned earlier in the speed of progression section, those who got ahead not only stayed ahead, but skyrocketed even farther ahead.  This isn't the end of what has happened though, not only have certain players gotten far ahead of everyone else, but the speed of thier progress has actually slowed down the speed of the rest of Diablo 3's player base.  This unfair advantage simply from reaching a milestone (in this case Inferno and its different Acts) before another is the result of two issues, one minor, one major, and both amplified by Inferno's difficulty.  The minor cause of this phenomenom is class balance which is to a certain degree tolerable and understandable.  The major factor, however, is one that rests outside of the game itself (which makes it even more frustrating), the Auction House.

Class Balance - These Steel Boots are Heavy

            Most players understand class balance and its effects on a game, so I won't spend much time here.  Balance in Diablo games is generally less important than in other games.  As long as the players are feeling powerful in thier class choice, then they will be happy.  When that feeling of power is stripped away (Inferno difficulty) they will start to compare themselves to those around them and become disgruntled if imbalances become clear. Currently, their is a large and unfair discrepancy among classes, particularly between ranged and melee.  As this has been overly addressed and steps are being taken to fix it, I will not get into detail on it.  I merely wish to point out that the cause of this imbalance coming to light in such a negative fashion, is that the imbalance versus the difficulty of Inferno has caused some classe to be able to progress and others to hit a brick wall.  If all classes had been able to progress, the discrepancies would have still come to light, but in a much less negative fashion.

The Auction House - When **** Hits the Fan

            Let me start out by saying that this section might turn out very long and I will be breaking it down into sub-sections as I go.  The Auction House has had such an immense impact on Diablo 3 and the user experience that it cannot ignored.  In fact, I would wager to say its possible that the Auction House has had the largest negative impact on the player experience of anything in the game (that's not to say that it hasn't also had positive impact as well).

            Creating a Semi-Global Currency - More Users than Some Countries Currency

                        Before getting more into the Auction House, let me first state that Diablo 3 has in fact, created a semi-global currency (limited by regions).  Gold is used by more people than some countries have as population and used in massive marketplaces (all of the Americas).  It would take a team of economists working with a team of game devolopers to even have the foresight to see both the short and long term impact that an Auction House of this size would have on a game.  In hidsight its much easier, but in foresight I hope players will try to understand how massive and undertaking this is as well as that it is a new undertaking and give Blizzard some slack for how it has been used.

            The Auction Houses' Uneven Effect on Progression Speed - Running Against a Rocket Car

                        In the Speed of Progression section I talked about how those at the head of the pack not only stayed there, but continued to get exponentionally farther ahead.  The AH is the means by which this was accomplished.

                        Take this scenario. Let's say we have 100 players, and by the time they reach Inferno, each has gathered 500,000 gold.  If 10 players reach Inferno before the rest, they will begin to progress through it eventually gathering gear and even finding some to sell on the Auction House.  Let's say that as these 10 players are progressing, they happen to come upon an abundance of 900 DPS weapons, and begin to post them on the Auction House for 500,000 gold.  When the other 90 players reach Inferno at a later time, they are surprised by the difficulty of it and go to the AH to see if they can get an edge.  They see that there are 900 DPS weapons on sale.  Comparing it to thier current 200 DPS weapons, they decide that the 500k for them is well worth it and so all 90 players purchase a weapon and lets say its split evenly among the 10 players who are ahead.  All of a sudden, those 10 players not only are ahead of the pack, but have 5 million gold each.  These 10 players now take this gold and start purchasing entire gearsets allowing them to progress at an even faster rate than they were before, propelling them ahead of the other 90 at an even greater speed.  Not just that, but the gear that they buy is being purchased among those 10, essentially gold and loot is just being passed around and none of the 10 end up losing gold.  As time goes on, this pattern continues, the 10 will buy from eachother, the gold circulating among them and their gear continuing to grow and grow.  The 90 behind them will slowly obtain more gold, and use it to purchase the "hand me downs" of the 10 ahead of them, further increasing the the gap in gold power.  Furthermore, while the 10 will be able to sell their old gear at close to the same price for which they bought it, resulting in little loss (really gain as they will just be circulating gold among themselves), while the 90 below will either be unable to sell thier old gear, or forced to sell it at a massive loss, sometimes up to 10-15 times less.  That first inital round of purchases, has propelled the already ahead players to unreachable heights.

                        This is exactly what has happend with the AH in Diablo 3.  As an example, at one point 900 DPS weapons were selling for 300-500k, but days later they were selling for 5 to 10 times less, the market had become flooded.  Those that had been able to reach Inferno first and begin to sell these weapons gained an extremly large advantage in the way of gold power that the rest of the players could not compete with.  While most players do not get upset when more skilled players perform better than them, they get upset when the only, or at least the most major, factor of thier success is an earlier investment of time.  And when that advantage is gained from a source "outside" of the game, it just compounds peoples frustration.

                        As one last kick in the pants, this economic fact of how the AH has worked has had one last effect on the average player.  It has actually slowed thier ability to progress, not just increased the speed of those ahead.  As those ahead continue to sell better and better gear, it devaulues the gear that the average player is able to find and sell causing them to gain less gold and thereby being unable to progress (by buying more pieces of gear) as quickly as if everyone was progressing at the same pace.

                        This entire effect is truly frustrating to the average player even though they know they will not be able to keep up with the power gamers, they do like to feel that they are able to compete.  Instead the ability compete has been completely stripped away.

            The Difficulty of Inferno and the Auction House Steriods - Here, Let Me Beat That for You

                        Nothing pushes you to use the AH like the brick wall of Inferno.  They turn to it, looking to find help, and boy do they find it.  900 Dps weapons, massive primary stats, huge chunks of resists, the AH is filled with delights to pick and choose from, and players to.  All of a sudden, Act I/II are being completed in Act III/IV gear.  In a way, its like cheating and after the intial eccitement of being strong, players eventually realize this and things start to feel bland.  They realized, that even though they are using in game currency, that they are essentially paying other people to play the game for them, cause lets face it, as mentioned before, the difficulty of Inferno rests purely in numbers and gear, not in skill.  This causes a negative (or at least not as good as it could be) user experience.  Sure it's nice to be able to progress, but it would be nicer if we could do it on our own skill, rather than having to waste hours and days farming mind-numbing stuff just to beat some numbers if we want to go it alone.  Once this realization sets it, it really dampens the experience and excitment of the game, knowing the choice to progress is either farm, or pay someone else to do it.

            The Loss of Excitment - Yes, I'd Like to Trade Up My Prizes

                        When the choice is between hours or days of the type of farming few enjoy and browsing the AH for a few minutes and spending some gold, most players are going to choose to use the AH.  Pretty soon, 90% of a player's gear has come from the AH and they begin to realise that the real factor of power in the game is not the items gained by perserverance through farming with a bit of luck, its the amount of gold you have, no longer is the game itself as important as how much gold is in your pocket and how well you know how to use it.

                        So players start collect gold, selling hundreds of weak items so that they will be able to purchase 1 strong item.  Pretty soon, the value of strong items begins to dwindle, it always within your reach and you are constantly moving towards having it.  The feeling of searching for an item (one of Diablo's biggest pulls) is gone and now you are just working up to it.  The excitment of discovery of finding that super good item is no longer as exciting when you know that if you didn't find it, you would have bought it eventually.  This excitment of treasure hunting is what is so key to Diablo's longetivity and design, but sadly the Auction House has had a huge dampener on this.

                       

            The RMAH - When **** Hits the Fan

                        When the Real Money Auction House hit, all of the Auction Houses issues compounded. Suddenly, the (unfair) in game advantages became real world advantages while real world advantages became in game advantages.  This threw players into an uproar.

                        I think most players loved the idea of the RMAH.  I for one was excited, perhaps I could make a few dollars off of it and that would be nice.  I didn't hear many complaints, only postive feedback on it.  Beyond even that, I thought it was an ingenious way to deal with third party "gold farmers" and to pay for server upkeep.  I didn't see anything negative about it and in truth I still don't.  However, it has caused a massive amount of resent among players, which I completely understand and have felt myself, and here is why.

                        Players wanted to be able to participate in the RMAH, primarily to sell and make a few dollars, but also to be able to use what they made to buy items themselves without having to pull from their paychecks.  However, this is currently not the case.  Right now only those with an ingame advantage and able to either collect or purchase with gold the best gear are able to make a decent amount of money on the RMAH.  The rest of the players who are still trying to progress through Inferno, are unable to properly utilize the potential of the RMAH because they are unable to offer any gear of value.  On the flip side, those with real world advantages (money) have been able to buy ingame advantages through the RMAH and as always, when things outside of the game give players an advantage, the average player is likely to get upset.  Being unable to participate in the RMAH has both frustrated and disenheartend players who have had to watch those who can gain both real world and in game advantages over them.

Wrapping Things Up - Can it Fit in a Paragraph?

            Diablo 3, like any game, has it share of launch flaws.  None of them, however, are as jarring as the effect that Inferno's difficulty, people's competive nature, and the Auction House have had on creating a negative user experience for the average gamer.  The advantage that the Auction House has given to some players simply because of timing is viewed as immensely unfair and a factor outside of the game itself.  Players are frustrated and left with a feeling of being unable to compete just because they did not reach point X first.  Skill has taken a backseat to gear and those with the means (gold) to get the gear just keep making the gap bigger.  The treasure hunting portionn of Diablo has also taken a backseat to the Auction House, lowering the tense excitement of hope when farming.   All of this together has caused the launch (and possibly more) of Diablo 3 to have turned out a bit lackluster.  Don't get me wrong, the game is absolutely amazing, but the experience of the first month and the months beyond could have been and could be better.

What Could Have Been Done? - Hindsight is 20/20

            The only one o the three factors that is within a game designer’s realm of control is the difficulty of Inferno.  A game designer can attempt to influence but cannot control the economic market of a game nor can he control the completive nature of the players themselves.  Therefore we are left only with the choice of tinkering with the difficulty of Inferno.
            So what could have been done with the Inferno difficulty to prevent these problems?  For starters, Inferno is simply too hard in all the wrong ways.  If players had been able to progress at a decently paced, steady rate through Inferno and its Acts, Players would have been content.  They would have been able to reach the end of the game and begin the true end game content of Diablo games, perfecting their character.  They would not have had to use the Auction House for progression’s sake and therefore bitterness over the unfair advantage (perhaps even the advantage itself) it has created would not exist; using the Auction House would be a choice, and the purchases they made would have been because they wanted that item, not because they needed it to move on.  And in time, when the RMAH was released, the majority of players would have been farming the endgame Acts and been able to participate in it.  This one change could have alleviated a huge helping of the current frustration.

The Future of Diablo 3 – Off in the Horizon
            So what happens now?  It is quite possible and I believe probably that given enough time most of the resentment issues will sort themselves out.  In time the Auction House will be flooded with gear from Act III/IV and the price of them will go way down.  People will be able to progress fluidly through Inferno, pit stopping at the AH when they hit each wall to buy items meant for later Acts.  Power will overcome design and the average player will reach the endgame.  Players will no longer be focused on progressing, but rather on character perfection and AH purchases will become more meaningful.  Everyone will have access to the RMAH, so real world effects will be across the board rather than for a select few.
            However, the damage has been done and while letting things go the course should work, it would be the equivalent of letting wounds scar over to heal.  Much could be done to prevent the scarring, though it would take a good look at the design of Inferno and the end game content of Diablo 3 to figure out what.  Designers would have to be willing to potentially rework an entire design, and gamers would have to be willing to accept those potentially drastic changes.  Even with something this new though, change can be tough.
            Originally I was going to include my thoughts on the current end game design, and what could be done to change and improve it, creating an even better user experience, but I feel that this post is already long enough.  So I will be starting a new post – Designing Endgame Content for the Diablo Universe – and hope you will join me there as well.

In Closing – It’s Finally Over
            I’m sure I ended up rambling at some points and I apologize for that, but I hope that the read was insightful and brought to light some of the underlying reasons for the frustration going around.  It is extremely important, often times even more important than the design itself, to consider how things will affect the user experience and how much factors outside of the game can do so as well.  In my next post I’ll talk more about the endgame design of Diablo 3 and how some of these issues can be addressed while creating stimulating and replayable content.  I hope you will join me there.