Suggestions for the Devs

switch_foot4 · 01-31-2007, 01:32 AM

Now I know a lot of my suggestions will probably never be put to light by the devs. The reason is this game is pretty much already done. Its already released in a few countries and they are making an international version as we speak. That means they probably won’t drastically change the game. However I find that the game in its current state is only another game to hold us off until the real Diablo 3 comes out, or a game that becomes the Diablo 3 we’ve all been waiting for. In any case, my below suggestions would turn this game into the Diablo 3 we’ve been waiting for. At least I think so. Also please don’t quote my entire post….just quote parts of it or if you are replying to the entire thing there’s no need to quote it at all.

The hack’n’slash community is waiting for Diablo 3. While there have been many games since Diablo 2 that have some good points, none of them are what the community has been waiting for. Diablo defined the genre and it’s a mystery to me why so many developers stray so far from a proven formula. If you make a game that is similar to Diablo 2 people will play it. I don’t believe it is wrong to copy some of the things Diablo 2 did because they were genre-defining features; ones that should be in every hack’n’slash game.

Items! I’m not a fan of the way the items are color coded and most are random. I loved (and everyone I talked to also agrees) the Diablo 2 style of item codes. You have normal items, basic magic items with random properties, rare items with random properties, set items (something that is sorely missed in this game), and unique items (another thing that will be sorely missed. This is something that defined Diablo 2. There was no reason to kill those billions and billions of mobs if there wasn’t that feeling when you saw a gold unique, a yellow rare or a green set item drop. Copying this style isn’t copying Diablo 2, its something that should be a standard of the genre.

Gold seems pretty worthless in hack’n’slash games. Even Diablo 2 failed to have a use for it other than gambling for items. Silverfall took the route of Titan Quest and has an NPC you can talk to, to refund your skill points for an increasing amount of gold. While it’s not a bad idea as it does give gold a use; I have a suggestion for another use. You should give vendors high level items that cost a lot of gold. Don’t have every group of mobs drop a ton of items either. Make magic items less frequent and make rare items really rare. That’s something Diablo 2 did well. The item drops in this game are very frequent and you can fill up your inventory in a matter of minutes with worthless magic items and make a hefty sum of gold off of them. Also the skill refunding is nice, but you can’t really change your entire build, even if you had a ton of gold and could refund every skill point. Why? Because you can’t refund attribute points. So you can really only change from an elementalist mage to a necromancer, not from a mage to an archer or fighter. This is probably a design decision, and there’s nothing wrong with it. But it does limit the gold sync and leaves the average player with a ton of gold and nothing to do with it. So if you magic/rare items drop less frequently and then give the vendors some very nice items for a hefty sum of gold, it will create a better gold sync and actually give gold some value.

I find the current technology/nature percentage system a little confining. You either have to go nature or technology, there’s no in-between. This is due to the way the item systems work. They may require 10% technology or 10% nature, but there’s no way to be a little of both. If my character is 50% nature…isn’t his other 50% technology? Instead of a slider that shows your commitment to one side or the other, it should be a fraction out of 100. Simple explanation: You can be 30% nature and 70% technology. Make more powerful items on either side require a larger percentage, even 90-100%. For instance you could make a really powerful rocket launcher require 95% technology, or an extremely powerful amulet require 100% nature. That way the lesser items can be worn by people who choose to walk the fence.

Some one line suggestions:

Item names that show up when pressing alt should only be one line; get rid of the descriptions.

The arrow depicting your character on the minimap should point in the direction the character is facing, not the camera.

Make vendors a different color dot than quest givers and NPC’s so they are more easily found.

Andrew the Legi · 02-14-2007, 11:46 AM

(BTW, I completely agree with everything switch_foot4 said above.)

I just downloaded and installed the demo last night.
I found it ridiculously large, and runs poorly on my system,
even with all graphical options set to Off or Low.

My system: Athlon XP 3200+, 1 GB RAM, GeForce 6800GT AGP video card.
(I benchmark Doom 3 at 59 fps at 1024x768 with all graphical options
set to High.)

Is this what we have come to -- that games now REQUIRE 2+ GB RAM to
run well?!?

01-31-2007, 01:32 AM	#1
switch_foot4 Registered User Join Date: Jan 2007 Posts: 19	Suggestions for the Devs Now I know a lot of my suggestions will probably never be put to light by the devs. The reason is this game is pretty much already done. Its already released in a few countries and they are making an international version as we speak. That means they probably won’t drastically change the game. However I find that the game in its current state is only another game to hold us off until the real Diablo 3 comes out, or a game that becomes the Diablo 3 we’ve all been waiting for. In any case, my below suggestions would turn this game into the Diablo 3 we’ve been waiting for. At least I think so. Also please don’t quote my entire post….just quote parts of it or if you are replying to the entire thing there’s no need to quote it at all. The hack’n’slash community is waiting for Diablo 3. While there have been many games since Diablo 2 that have some good points, none of them are what the community has been waiting for. Diablo defined the genre and it’s a mystery to me why so many developers stray so far from a proven formula. If you make a game that is similar to Diablo 2 people will play it. I don’t believe it is wrong to copy some of the things Diablo 2 did because they were genre-defining features; ones that should be in every hack’n’slash game. Items! I’m not a fan of the way the items are color coded and most are random. I loved (and everyone I talked to also agrees) the Diablo 2 style of item codes. You have normal items, basic magic items with random properties, rare items with random properties, set items (something that is sorely missed in this game), and unique items (another thing that will be sorely missed. This is something that defined Diablo 2. There was no reason to kill those billions and billions of mobs if there wasn’t that feeling when you saw a gold unique, a yellow rare or a green set item drop. Copying this style isn’t copying Diablo 2, its something that should be a standard of the genre. Gold seems pretty worthless in hack’n’slash games. Even Diablo 2 failed to have a use for it other than gambling for items. Silverfall took the route of Titan Quest and has an NPC you can talk to, to refund your skill points for an increasing amount of gold. While it’s not a bad idea as it does give gold a use; I have a suggestion for another use. You should give vendors high level items that cost a lot of gold. Don’t have every group of mobs drop a ton of items either. Make magic items less frequent and make rare items really rare. That’s something Diablo 2 did well. The item drops in this game are very frequent and you can fill up your inventory in a matter of minutes with worthless magic items and make a hefty sum of gold off of them. Also the skill refunding is nice, but you can’t really change your entire build, even if you had a ton of gold and could refund every skill point. Why? Because you can’t refund attribute points. So you can really only change from an elementalist mage to a necromancer, not from a mage to an archer or fighter. This is probably a design decision, and there’s nothing wrong with it. But it does limit the gold sync and leaves the average player with a ton of gold and nothing to do with it. So if you magic/rare items drop less frequently and then give the vendors some very nice items for a hefty sum of gold, it will create a better gold sync and actually give gold some value. I find the current technology/nature percentage system a little confining. You either have to go nature or technology, there’s no in-between. This is due to the way the item systems work. They may require 10% technology or 10% nature, but there’s no way to be a little of both. If my character is 50% nature…isn’t his other 50% technology? Instead of a slider that shows your commitment to one side or the other, it should be a fraction out of 100. Simple explanation: You can be 30% nature and 70% technology. Make more powerful items on either side require a larger percentage, even 90-100%. For instance you could make a really powerful rocket launcher require 95% technology, or an extremely powerful amulet require 100% nature. That way the lesser items can be worn by people who choose to walk the fence. Some one line suggestions: Item names that show up when pressing alt should only be one line; get rid of the descriptions. The arrow depicting your character on the minimap should point in the direction the character is facing, not the camera. Make vendors a different color dot than quest givers and NPC’s so they are more easily found.

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02-14-2007, 11:46 AM	#2
Andrew the Legi Gamer at Large Join Date: Feb 2007 Posts: 1	(BTW, I completely agree with everything switch_foot4 said above.) I just downloaded and installed the demo last night. I found it ridiculously large, and runs poorly on my system, even with all graphical options set to Off or Low. My system: Athlon XP 3200+, 1 GB RAM, GeForce 6800GT AGP video card. (I benchmark Doom 3 at 59 fps at 1024x768 with all graphical options set to High.) Is this what we have come to -- that games now REQUIRE 2+ GB RAM to run well?!?