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.