The idea of MMORPG aspects are things I think were intended in the original Diablo 3 game. I recall reading about similar ideas of towns being these major areas where players could hang out. I’m not sure if they wanted an open world at that point but one article by David Brevik himself mentioned how some of the original Diablo 3 aspects were influenced by Ultima Online. The big idea in that article points to the social interaction between hundreds of people in a town hub. Apparently, you still would have instanced areas but I have to imagine certain aspects made its way into Diablo 4 as it was compared in that article with that vision. In addition, the original Diablo 3 had begun development in 2001 with Blizzard North, which was pre-World of Warcraft release, although WoW started after Starcraft’s release in ’98.

Now, I focused on the MMORPG aspects of Diablo 3/4 because I feel both were somewhat linked in designing the open world. I really don’t know what the actual goal was in having an open world. At least the way it was initially implemented and presented, Diablo 4’s open world seemed as a nod towards World of Warcraft since Blizzard has heavy experience in creating that type of setting. I feel that part of the idea here was to provide an exploratory experience where players could discover things along the way such as the tiny Cellar mini dungeons or the old Altars of Lilith. Along with that aspect, the game was meant to be more atmospheric with slower play initially. I remember during the original campaign at how overwhelming the world map felt initially as it slowly opened itself up over the course of the campaign and you were able to gain access to these colorful regions.

However, once the campaign was done and you conquered each region, your Renown would progress to provide rewards such as paragon points, skill points, increase Obol storage, etc. Later, this system was phased out in favor of the seasonal system. But having this old Renown system in place made exploration a huge deal originally. Part of the problem though was the tedious nature of certain aspects such as Altars of Lilith (which I think wasn’t a bad idea but the designers probably had too many which made it a pain to hunt down)

Then as Seasons became a larger part of the game where each season represented roughly 2-3 months total of effectively a specialized larger patch, Renown gradually was reduced then completely removed. In addition, having this shorter lifecycle for playing a character meant increasing the optimization for that character’s growth (or characters for alt-a-holics like myself). Increased quality of life would show up in the form of being able to teleport to dungeons rather than ride to them (which was silly in the first place), improving the horrible jankiness of the mounts, even including the Whisper turn in during one season. With regards to the open world portion, the meme of the “green Helltide” zones ended up becoming the method for Blizzard to salvage dead regions and get players to return to older zones for a short period. I think once players started prodding Blizzard with this negative stigma, the alternate colored seasonal zone died down as key features, which also meant those zones died down again.

Some people on reddit in that linked comment section mentioned how more of the focus ended up going towards instanced content like Dungeons, the Pit, Boss Lairs, Inferno Hordes, etc. In turn, there wasn’t as much focus on the open world part it felt, although things like Helltides would incorporate seasonal mechanics such as Duriel’s bugs, Chaos Portals, etc. Yet the other zones that weren’t normally affected by Helltides almost served no purpose.

Another sharp observation made was how an open world concept is better served when there’s an interactive environment. I think there were threads of an idea in place such as mining and herbs but over time those too became moot especially as crafting materials changed. Or you had the ill fated dedicated PVP zones, which now are ghost zones except for people who want easy whispers. Legion events are almost empty while Strongholds have become distant artifacts that are more of a nuisance each season as opposed to having a real purpose.

Beyond that, I think the open world for me has generally made the game unstable. Transitioning from one zone to another especially on horseback would cause these weird delays or rubberbanding. Part of optimizing your game was effectively killing off cross play because having additional players in a region would generate a lot of lag from network issues. Heck, even opening your Stash in town still causes problems with slowdown that makes no sense to me. It makes this concept of a true open world almost moot because of technical flaws that still exist.

But there are a few key causes here where I think we can see how this open world idea has failed over time. First, I think promoting seasons as a first class feature has effectively made the open world less appealing because of the conflicts in design. The original Diablo 4 leveling and progression experience were far slower. At the same time, you only had the Eternal Realm (which honestly wasn’t even a thing at that point). But not having to re-create your characters every few months encouraged this design where you could step back and enjoy checking out every nook and cranny in this giant world. It’s kinda like how World of Warcraft felt incredible the first time through but passe each time you created an alt.

With seasons though, you’re rebooting your character every few months. So the loftier goals that the older team(s) may have had in mind would be eliminated as the emphasis was on short term goals both as a monetization effort (BattlePasses!) Having this short lifespan for a character meant less attachment and trying to get through as much as possible quicker. Redoing just the Altars of Lilith or blue quests every single season just weren’t going to be feasible for most players much less enjoyable especially when the value proposition just isn’t there.

The other major issue is more an internal one from my perspective where you have a kind of team rot. This is a far larger problem because of how scandals and just the revolving door situation have made the game less about someone or a key group really having a core vision of what the game ought to be and more about KPIs as I’ve accused Blizzard/M$ of pushing in terms of what we’ve seen. But the clear outcome at this stage seems completely dictated by KPIs based on the game’s current direction.

For instance, I think when Season 2 was highly praised as a major success for the game, it may have given the team/Blizzard the wrong signals about where to place the emphasis on the game. I don’t have actual internal evidence but you can see where the game would make detours such as not pushing the old seasonal powers as much after some backlash from the players. I think in the case of seasonal powers Blizzard really shot themselves in the foot with subsequent seasons because they only used seasons to test out future features rather than determining how to reincorporate them back into the core game once the current season was done. Now, there is a clear difference to me when it comes to this idea because I view it as similar to how GGG would figure out how to pull a League back into the core of the game. I feel that many players expected and/or wanted this but Blizzard never has been able to find a sweet spot in terms of figuring out balance (and I argue that they never should have needed it which would eventually go into my standard rant against the esports culture inside of Blizzard, which for an ARPG doesn’t make a lot of sense to me).

Beyond that, the other problem is that a lot of the open world features pretty much were left to rot or that there were constant revamps to existing systems that seemed to eat away at better fleshing out the game. Now, some of those systems did need an improvement especially itemization and crafting. Yet what I’m talking about are things like Dungeons 2.0 or Infernal Hordes 2.0. Some of these revamps didn’t feel like much either to be honest. Like the Dungeon revamp with Escalating Nightmare Dungeons was honestly lame and Inferno Hordes was just boring content staying the same outside of a few updates like Soulspires or Aether Masses because neither were all that great in the first place. And even after those updates, a few like Soulspires remain soul draining (to real people).

While those things have been the focus of most of their core updates (especially now that there’s attention on War Plans to highlight the key activities in the game), the older parts have suffered especially in the open world have suffered. I’ve done my own blogs on offering advice to fixing them (and hopefully this weekend we can see Blizzard addressing these issues). But at least for now, these things aren’t high on the priority list and pretty much have been shoveled under the carpet.

When I think back about the open world problems, I think some of it is the result of having an extraneously long campaign/story mode. Most of the actual exploration occurs during the campaign (this includes the expansions). But once you’re done with the campaign, there’s not a lot of reason to return unless there’s a seasonal element. Also, depending on the season, you may get a reasonable story line to accompany that season such as 2, 3 and 7, which may require you to trek around the world. But I think trying to shoehorn more back stories into those older zones isn’t necessarily the best way to really get the most bang for your buck.

Really though the key point is the lack of interaction in the open world that probably is the number one issue where the concept has fallen short. At this stage, the open world is more of a hindrance than something that feels appealing. The only times I really see much value at this point are World Bosses and summoned bosses in Helltides. The only novel interaction I’ve had is when I used one of those Corrupted Roots in my backpack to kill some person just standing around waiting for a world boss to spawn. Otherwise, I really can’t see why the open world was conceived as a great idea.

Maybe part of it was an older idea inherent in Blizzard where they valued the early success of World of Warcraft. I think that early success was more serendipitous because of the scale and freshness of the game as opposed to the actual mechanics. Then you had the rise of social networks that coincided in timing with World of Warcraft. Those ideas may have influenced one another. However, as with my recent post on the decline in dating apps, I would argue that many of these social integrations are beginning to wear thin on people’s patience.

If we look at the utter failure of the Dark Citadel/Raid feature from Vessel of Hatred, we can see a futile/feeble attempt at Blizzard trying to recapture their early glory days from World of Warcraft’s raiding system. But I think most ARPG genre fans simply don’t want to be forced into grouping. I’ve made this argument in the past and luckily, we haven’t seen any more of this nonsense being updated (and hopefully it stays that way). But that was another case where social/group content was made into a huge feature but just withered away.

I think this idea of the open world and MMORPGs/social aspects are tied together and why neither really work well in an ARPG setting. I’m not arguing against including friends in playing a game like this but it should be more organic in how that type of environment occurs. Like Diablo 3 to me is a far better social game than Diablo 4 because it was done in a pretty straightforward manner. The only change was increasing the damage and life for enemies along with rewards to scale against the player’s team.

The other thing is that the speed in which ARPG players want in these games don’t really fit the exploratory/artistic nature that I think Blizzard had initially envisioned for this game. In turn, that vision and style simply have caused this major clash in what we have today in Diablo 4. I really hope that the team over at Blizzard understand why this game has so many problems though. The open world definitely is one of them at this stage, although I don’t think there’s much they can really do to fix the problems outside of routine maintenance to ensure older content doesn’t become completely deprecated.

The post Diablo 4: Was the Open World Wasted Potential? appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.

First, I want to review previous seasons exclusive content to setup my thesis on implementation (note: the items listed here are where I participated in a season; so far I’ve skipped three whole seasons).

• Season 2 – Vampire Seasons. Vampire Zones that provided special mobs, blood altars and the introduction of a special boss. Rewards included special Vampiric Powers, many of which were incorporated into Season 3 through legendary Aspects. Vampiric Powers were applied by using three types of pacts while the Vampiric Powers themselves could be upgraded by the Pact currency. A total of five Powers could be applied.
• Season 3 – Season of the Construct. Arcane Tremors were special zones containing specialized beast that rewarded Shattered Stones and Pearls of Warding. Vaults provided a special dungeon type of challenge with two difficult bosses that randomly appeared (including the Butcher) while traps thwarted players. An end room containing various dangers upon completion would lead to a massive treasure room. Main seasonal reward was a special companion/pet that had its own upgrade system. In addition, a very special end game dungeon provided a high level boss that could drop special unique Governing and Tuning Stones for your Construct pet.
• Season 6 – Hatred Rising.  The biggest seasonal aspect here was introducing the Realmwalker. Upon killing the Realmwalker a portal to dungeon called the Seething Realm would open. Completing the Seething Realm provided a currency called Seething Opals that bolstered rewards (most of the season was geared towards the Vessel of Hatred expansion, which made the season specific content lighter)
• Season 7 – Season of Witchcraft. To me Season 7 probably was the largest pure season based of content released. Headhunt zones were dotted the open world with a large pool of new Whisper quests. The seasonal powers were five equip-able Witchcraft Powers that could be upgraded from Restless Rot found by killing Headrotten. In addition, Occult Gems can be crafted that contain resistance and armor in addition to more powers. These gems are meant to further work with the Witchcraft powers. Lastly, a special dungeon called a Rootholds that have Headrotten bosses that provide materials for the Occult Gems.
• Season 8 – Season of Belial’s Return – Mostly was a rework for end game bosses as well as the introduction of Belial. The season borrowed power were acquired after players killed major bosses (including world bosses). This was another season I skipped.
• Season 9 – Sins of the Horadrim – Mostly, Nightmare Dungeons were revamped with the introduction of Escalating Nightmare Dungeons. Borrowed powers were Horadric Spells that could be leveled up and fell into three categories. Along with these were three new gems called Horadric Gems that were similar to Occult Gems.
• Season 10 – Season of Infernal Chaos – The biggest updates were to Infernal Hordes with the introduction of the new Bartuc boss as well as the idea of Chaos Waves. Chaos Waves were also introduced in Helltides and Nightmare Dungeons. Currently, Chaos Waves continue to exist in Infernal Hordes and Helltides (via a node on the activity tree). They’re only missing from Nightmare Dungeons. The chief reward here was the introduction of Chaos Armor, which was maxed out a powerful version of a unique piece of gear but can be found on nontraditional slots. Also, Chaos Perks were given some of which ended up getting converted in direct skill upgrades.
• Season 11 – Season of Divine Intervention – Mostly, monsters received a giant update, especially rares and elites by adding a larger pool of affixes. Also, we saw the return of the revamped Capstone Dungeons as part of the new Season Rank system, which replaced the older Season Journey. Main power change Sanctification.
• Season 12 – Season of Slaughter – Short season that introduced the Killstreak system from Diablo 3. Bloodied Items and a few new Uniques where the Uniques are now a permanent part of the game. Also, there was a novelty of becoming the Butcher temporarily. I believe there was a special dungeon too.

Those mostly cover the major seasons. I skipped out on S1, S8 and S12. S1 was skipped because I think most people generally agreed it was the lowest point in Diablo 4’s history. S4/5 were more core system revamps while the season specific concept of Mind Cages were provided. If I’m not mistaken, Mind Cages show up as part of a node on the Helltide activity tree (I have yet to encounter one of these). With these seasons provided, I think we can attempt to classify the type of content they might belong to within the War Plan activity tree.

Dungeons – S3 (Vaults), S6 (Seething Realms), S7 (Rootholds), S12 (don’t know the specific name)

Whisper Activities – S2, S3, S6, S7

Bosses – S3 (special dungeon boss with the unique construct stones), S8

Helltides, the Pit and Undercity Runs are excluded for obvious reasons. But the other pieces of content mostly point to areas that could receive special points on the activity trees these may fall under. I have to double check but Rootholds might still exist in under Whispers but I’m not entirely sure. In general, Whisper Activities are the main candidates where we might be able to reintegrate some of this content. Alternatively, I want to suggest a new tree called the Seasonal Tree.

The Seasonal Tree Concept/Proposal

The Seasonal Tree would offer a few key paths that allow the player to choose past season content that not only re-enables that type of content but the powers as well. Players can choose say three types of paths with some modifiers for those past seasons. But only three types of seasons can be selected (or however many Blizzard decides to enable for a player but I think three is a good starting point). For instance, a player can mix and match Season 7 with Season 3 and Season 6, giving the player Realmwalkers, Rootholds/Headrots and Vaults along with Witchcraft Powers, the Construct and Seething Opals. A season like 8 might augment boss powers further to provide the boss borrowed powers (either that or make it a node on the Boss tree). Seasons with extra items like S7 and S9 might have some sort of penalty to offset the power gains. Lighter seasons like S6 might be considered minor nodes. Since we have a massive power increase from the new Torments, the allowance of previous borrowed powers are things that I don’t see will tip the balance too badly in any direction. Also, players can respec their trees, level.up other powers and flesh out their trees in experimenting with whatever season fits their build better. Alternatively, some of these past seasons might fit better on other trees like Helltides or Boss trees (as in the case of S8).

But consider this idea. Imagine S10 where Sorcerers received Mana Shield as a perk. Taking something like that would help boost up lower performing builds like Hydra. The penalty in that situation mostly is not having as much content to work with. However, a very intense power and content heavy season like 7 might have fewer nodes due to the number of powers made available. And by allowing the players to respec these trees, they can experience any past season to determine which powers best suit their style, situation and build, which really creates a high ceiling in terms of build and combination potential as well as allowing players to alternate their game play. For instance, imagine a Companion Druid build that chooses the S3 Construct to get another bonus to their summons damage from the Shepherd aspect. Or Spiritborn might use S10’s Chaos Armor to diversify how they gear. And if we want to enable Killstreaks for low level XP gain, we have that option.

For me at least, having a concept like the Seasonal Tree would be really exciting and prolong my game play in being able to re-experience all old content but at the same time choosing the path in mixing and matching powers and content with the latest stuff. Beyond the borrowed power interface changes, the updates needed for older values that no longer align as neatly with the latest changes to the core game and how these abilities will play alongside the newer systems, the idea of a more complex, customizable seasonal system would be fun and something that I think most players will find engaging.

Lastly, I would have the Seasonal Tree be connected with its own version of Whispers and utilize mostly the open world outside of Helltides to allow players other areas to explore and handle Whisper related content. That should help bring back to life non-Helltide zones and spread the players into more areas as well as incentivize more common Whispers that probably don’t see a lot of activity currently.

Adding Activities to War Plans

I touched briefly on my ideas for adding activities to War Plans. I think I want to formalize more activities beyond the concept of a seasonal tree activity.

• Legion Events – The changes I think that are necessary to incorporate Legion Events into War Plan activities are providing players with a way to activate them rather than waiting for the countdown timer. Like the Blood Maiden, I think there needs to be a special currency to invoke a Legion. Then the Legion Event would have its own skill tree and will utilize the player’s tree who invokes the event. I think these events should be considered as a first class type of activity and enhanced through its own activity tree. Imagine upgrading these Legion events with environmental effects, portal with bosses and more elites and goblin popping up. They could be very intense for a multiplayer type of activity.
• World Boss Events – Another obvious choice that deserves having its own activity tree. As I mentioned, World Bosses need a major change using the Azmodan model from S11 where players can summon each World Boss from an altar. In addition, the season perks (as they altered the name) allowed players to modify the content such as adding falling meteorites during world boss fights. By introducing an activity tree for World Bosses, we can continue to use the Season Perk idea from S11 and extend it. Nemesis portals in dungeons offer a similar experience except those are instanced. That said I do think a double World Boss type of encounter could be enticing especially if the summoner has additional mods that beef up the encounter with adds and other effects.
• Strongholds – I keep harping on the revamping of Strongholds. I honestly have no idea what the original intent for Strongholds was supposed to be. Right now, Strongholds are an impediment for accessing dungeons, waypoints and Legion events. Once you complete them on a character, these spots open up but must be repeated on new characters for a season. Most people at this stage want Strongholds to be account wide for completion, at least during a season. For myself, the real issues for Strongholds is that the content itself doesn’t feel attached to anything and occasional has bugs that prevent people from completing a Stronghold (such as heavily scripted encounters that don’t get activated properly to start the next action). Originally, one of the points of Strongholds was to provide slightly more challenging content by increasing the difficulty level in having a slightly higher monster level than the player’s actual level. That system has been deprecated by all the changes in various system to the point where Strongholds are more of an annoyance than anything useful beyond early easy guaranteed levels. Even Tempering recipes hardly drop. Worse yet the expansion added new Strongholds. The encounters are okay-ish, but seem more annoying to do. At some point though, the developers will need to update the content to be more relevant rather than an open world, albeit instanced mini dungeon. I think some of the problems can be mitigated by removing the locked content (like portals and Dungeon access) but turn these spots into rare activities associated to a Whisper. Along with that, I would make Strongholds more flavorful by having their own activity tree to enhance the encounters. In that manner, the bare minimum of keeping Strongholds somewhat relevant can be done without changing the existing content too much.
• Side Quests, Gathering and Item Hunts – I really wish they hadn’t added anymore blue quests in the expansion but they did. The problem I have with them in general is that they reset each season but have almost no incentive to do. The only way dedicated blue quest could be modified is through connecting them once again to a region’s reputation and specialized vendors to provide useful rewards. That was my original idea. The other method would be to generate a ton of daily quests with the added hook of having an activity tree to change the style of quests. I know Legion for WoW had a reasonably robust daily quest system so that could be an area that the developers could look to for inspiration in making daily quests a thing. Also, I would like to update the idea of mining and herbs where certain vendors might request players travel around the open world to farm nodes. I do wish that the Alchemist will some day become useful again but not in the way they were being used with buffs that needed to get reloaded on a timer. Lastly, I would love to see specific item hunt type of quests that provide a new reward system in trading certain items for random upgrades. So rather than shredding all your inventory after an activity, you might be forced to use your Loot Filter to ensure that certain items are picked up and retained for this style of a quest. I like this idea as a new form of content since it doesn’t involve a stupid timer and still provides some sort of reward system that alters how one treats their inventory.

Final Thoughts

I’m really pushing for the idea of recycling more older seasons by moving them into their own activity trees where a player has the ability to activate a few seasons at a time while receiving their benefits. I think that mechanism would be a huge win in increasing the available content and giving the players some agency in how they want to use it to build out their characters and freshen up their activities. Also, I really hope at minimal world bosses and legion events become integrated into the War Plans activities by removing them as timed events, giving them special trees and having them activated by special currencies. Then Strongholds should get a pass at some point. In this case, I offered one easier implementation that I think will satisfy players without a complete overhaul for the existing Strongholds but freshening them up enough to make them worth doing by including them in an activity tree and converting their accomplishment into a periodic Whisper. Lastly, to finish off the old content examination, I want to have another look at the idea of quests (non-campaign), farming nodes and a new activity type I call item hunts (treasure hunts?) to further broaden the various types of content a player can participate in to keep their interest up while giving solid reasons in updating.

The post Diablo 4: Lord of Hatred Future Season Idea with War Plans appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.

Part of my previous blog talked about the idea of wiping out the Greater Rift leaderboard during seasons each week. The only barometer of fairness and actual stimulation of leaderboards for a season in my opinion is during the first weekend that a season premiers since everyone starts from ground zero. The season stagnates over time and even the most hardcore players just end up getting burnt out from the repetitive nature of the game. However, there’s a lot of activities within the game that can allow for a more stimulating and competitive nature beyond Greater Rifts, which has been the only “end game” content at this stage.

First, borrowing from Path of Exile, I want to propose the idea of races. Path of Exile races seem to be mostly about leveling and the occasional PVP portion in decimating others and grabbing their gear. But the main point about races is that they’re more frequent. So what if only in seasons we have the concept of a short term race? The idea would be that you have constant races/events that allow anyone to participate and perhaps gain some reward. It could be on weekends or even weekdays. Say major races happen during the weekends or at night to allow the broadest possible game play while short races can happen at anytime. The difference between races will be in the rewards provided. Perhaps, a long/major race will provide a major reward and a minor race will provide something smaller. Time could be a factor between these two where a major one might be an all day event while a short one could last an hour.

To enter a race, a person might go to their loading screen before they select a seasonal hero then a new button will appear that explains the rules of the race and allows them to accept with certain parameters. Now, to make races interesting, we can add all types of categories and here’s where the real fun starts. The following are just some ideas of me brainstorming:

• Weekend Highest Greater Rift Race: Pretty obvious, but this is pretty much taken from my prior blog. But this race simply allows a participant to try and hit the highest possible Greater Rift or even a defined level of difficulty. The first person (or even first ten) who wins this gets a prize
• Most amount of gold. A participant has their gold wiped for this event and must accumulate as much gold as possible. Turns gold into a very interesting commodity and meaningful under these conditions.
• Most number of goblins killed. Changes the game play into a massive goblin farming situation. What’s the best scenario to do this under? Normal rifts? Adventure mode? What build should you use for this? A fast build? An AoE build?
• Zero to Hero. Your inventory is wiped out but you retain being level 70. How fast can you get back your gear? Might involve climax in doing a mastery dungeon. So you still have to refarm your gear then prove that you have what it takes by completing that set’s mastery dungeon.
• Highest Augmented Gear. Since a lot of players just augment their best gear, this puts a new spin on farming for ancients, hitting high Greater Rifts and seeing who has the best shinies. Probably a good week long race.
• Most number of bounty rewards completed at the highest difficulty level. Oh and you can’t just do act 1 bounties. You have to finish them ALL to win this race. T13 Mathael anyone?
• Story Mode race. Yes, there’s a conquest for finishing story mode within a certain time frame. But there’s no competitive race for this. It’s still interesting to see how many people have mastered Story Mode. Also, makes Story Mode worth doing again. Give it a couple of hours.
• Largest number of consecutive kills. Very short race but it takes the action combat mode and turns it a step up.
• Paragon race. Your paragons in seasons are dropped to zero. You still can be level 70 but your goal is to hit the highest paragon level within a day. Will XP gear make a comeback in this? Can we see new meta evolve in this style of play?
• Legendary gem leveling. How many legendary gems can you level up to the highest level possible? Does this mean you do lots of lower level GRs for speed or just high numbers?

The reward system can vary. For instance, short races must give someone Blood Shards, XP, some gold, maybe even a random legendary. A major race might allow someone to upgrade an item to an ancient, boost a legendary gem by 10 levels, guaranteed paragon level boost, massive amount of bounty materials for crafting, etc. But it should be interesting and useful but not entirely overbalancing.

As you can see, none of these ideas are that drastic from what’s currently in the game but it takes the existing game play and pushes it up a few notches. I think these ideas would be very fun and give everyone a shot. Perhaps, at the end of the season, we can see a leaderboard showing those who managed to win all these various races. I think this will allow content to stay relevant, fresh, exciting and still provide incentives to redo.

The post Diablo 3: More Ideas on Improving Competitive Leaderboards appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.