One of the significant changes in World of Warcraft from its 2004 entity was in making multiple difficulty levels for raids. In the past, there was only one difficulty setting. Only a small portion of the game’s playerbase ever saw the raid content since raids required forty people and then twenty five. Even with ten man raids, it is difficult to get people to geared, gemmed, and mature enough to coordinate through the content. In Wrath of the Lich King, Blizzard added a ‘Heroic’ version of raiding. At the end of Cataclysm, they added ‘Raid Finder’ which is a 25 man raid, put together through a system like the dungeon finder, with much easier mechanics than Normal mode raiding.
Blizzard was facing a common problem. Raids demanded much development time. But is this worth it seeing how only a small percentage of the playerbase actually saw those raids? Blizzard’s mission was to get as many people into raiding as possible. Cataclysm’s increased dungeon difficulty at launch was more about transitioning players to raiding. Once the Raid Finder was introduced, it was only then that Blizzard began making easy dungeons as the Raid Finder was to become the ‘gateway drug’ to get people into raiding.
Our hardcore friends had many problems with this. They did not like how it was easier for people to see the content. I don’t see how it is a problem. People can solo old raids today yet, you don’t see the hardcore complain about that. And why not have multiple difficulty levels? Many classic games do. Some games like Super Mario Brothers offered warp zones so players could choose whatever content they wanted.
This coincides with a change in how WoW difficulty is done. The early MMOs billed by the hour and so to progress in the game you had to put in many hours. When WoW came out, it took many hours to do simple things. Over the years, Blizzard has streamlined and made it easier and faster to do those things. Before, raiding took a significant amount of time. Today, raiding can take only an hour or two with decent people. Some say this is ‘casualizing’ WoW, but I say it is removing the stupid from WoW. One of these changes was that instead of awarding a daily Heroic Dungeon run, a player gets awarded for doing up to seven Heroic Dungeon runs in a week. This way, the player can do his dungeon runs all on the weekend if he chooses. He doesn’t have to log on everyday to do his Heroic Dungeon. I think that is a huge quality of life improvement where the game can fit my life instead of me being forced to rewrite my life to fit the game.
The ‘It’s not enough that should succeed- others should fail,’ is the mantra of the Hardcore Gamer. WoW is full of these people. I don’t think I need to describe these people in any detail.
So what happens when you take that hardcore personality and apply them to Diablo 3? Hehehe. Meltdowns galore.
What is Diablo 3? It is a game that revolves around loot. When I hear people currently upset about Diablo 3, I find that they are trying to play the game like World of Warcraft.
“What do you mean by that?” asks the sly reader.
World of Warcraft is a progression game. You ‘progress’ via getting better levels, gear, but mostly define progression by how many raid bosses you kill. A Diablo 3 player who wears the lens of WoW progression will define his progression in the context of how far he is in Infero with how many bosses he has killed. But that is not what Diablo is about. Diablo is about the gear, not the bosses. A correct context would be ‘Check out my sweet gear’. Loot. Loot. Loot. In three words, I describe Diablo 3.
One major difference between Diablo 3 and World of Warcraft is that there is no main city where people stand around and ‘show off’ (I hear Diablo 3 devs say they might be putting in a hub for that which I hope they don’t). Suddenly, the hardcore who is more interested in seeing people fail cannot do that.
The most common reason why people fail in games is because they don’t know how the game is played. With patch 1.03, Blizzard made some significant changes which enforced gear checks on Inferno bosses. Players could not progress by being a glass cannon (stacking only offensive stats, which are cheap, and death-zerging). Dying became expensive (but never as expensive as Hardcore Mode where one death permanently kills your character).
Players who thought they understood Diablo 3 got slapped with patch 1.03. Suddenly, they were losing money (they were dying too much). Now, they had to go to earlier acts to farm up gear or gold (they had glass cannoned or death-zerged their progression).
In Blizzard’s defense, these changes had to be done because there is no way to test the Auction House on a mass scale with internal testing. Remember when Blizzard kept hyping up the difficulty of Inferno? When the first players cleared Normal, Blizzard said, “Nyah, nyah! Just wait until those players hit Hell or Inferno! Then you guys can complain about the game being too easy.” But people were clearing Inferno at a much faster clip than Blizzard anticipated. Much of it was due to the Auction House making it easier to get good gear. Blizzard also had major botting problems which is likely why things like items dropping from vases was removed.
No one wants to admit they suck especially our hardcore friends. “This game sucks! I’m out of here!” they scream as they take their ball and go home. Then they put on tin foil hats saying, “This game was designed around the Real Money Auction House” (actually, the opposite is true). Players felt as if Blizzard came by and picked up the goal posts and moved them.
“It’s like I can’t win!” That’s because you’re playing the game wrong, Mr. Hardcore. Diablo 3 is not a progression game. It is a gear/loot game. “But what about the Real Money Auction House? I can just write checks for $10,000 and get all the best items.” And how is that different from Diablo 2? People act like trading and selling didn’t go on in Diablo 2.
I have all five classes. Four are in Inferno, one is still in Hell (haven’t fully leveled up my Monk yet). My ‘main’ is a Demon Hunter who got hit pretty hard by the 1.03 patch. I didn’t have an issue about it because I know the game is about gear, not progression. In order to keep this game viable for years, it should not be extremely easy to get gear. You slaughter a dungeon and play the Random Number Generator for loot and do it as fast as possible. That’s the game. “But the AH, Malstrom!” OK. Then an addition is instead of Random Number Generator, you have the Random Idiot Generator who occasionally places a good item at a price too low. I absolutely love the Auction House.
“But I don’t want to play the market!” You don’t have to. You never have to go to the Auction House. You can play Diablo 3 without it. “But… it’s still there!” So what? “But I don’t like how there is a market going on in the game.” There always WAS a market going on with the game. “But now Blizzard is doing it.” Toddler minds do not like the concept of markets. “But if I find a good item, I see ones much better on the Auction House, and I feel like crap.”
All the crying and moaning by our friends, the Hardcore Gamers, revolves around their precious egos getting hurt. These people aren’t interested in playing the game. They are interested in playing their ego. If their ego is not stroked, then the game is wrong and Blizzard doesn’t know how to design anything! But that guy on the Gaming Message Forum, boy, he is a Game Design genius!
“I hate how I have no choice in skills and playstyle when it comes to Inferno.”
Then you are just a bad gamer. I can kite all day or tank on any of the range characters depending on how I gear and the skill choice. On my Witch Doctor, I don’t even use that flaming bear skill. Now, not all these skills seem perfectly balanced. But there definitely different viable options.
I’m still having a blast with Diablo 3. Do you know why? It is because the game is different. It is different from the ‘Hardcore games’. I like how the game revolves around more than ‘just getting to the next level’. It revolves around gear. Even if you beat all the levels, there is always gear that can be dropped (and can be sold for real money if you want). It’s unique. Not even the Diablo clones have really figured out the addiction.
“No!” screams the Hardcore Gamer. “All games must be the same!”
Not very imaginative, are you? You even insist all three consoles be exactly the same.
“But look at how many people have stopped playing the game! Maybe if we keep doing a mass-vomit on the Gaming Message Forums, Blizzard will change their ways!”
Before Diablo 3 was launched, Bashiok said Blizzard expected most players to stop playing after finishing Normal mode (and maybe a few other modes). It was fully expected only a portion of the players would want to continue the gear hunt. Gear hunt isn’t for everyone which is fine.
Everyone knows how Blizzard patrols Gaming Message Forums for feedback and incorporates it into their game. It has gotten to the point where I think the self-declared victims are intentionally trying to tip the cart. Their reactions are turning into petitions to each other which they hope Blizzard overhears.
What I find ironic is that these players want Diablo 3 to be like WoW. They want the game to revolve around progression, not gear. They want to play the game like a MMORPG (which the game is not).
The best way to describe WoW is that it is $15 a month to go on Ego Odyssey. The person logs into WoW to fluff his ego in some manner (be it arena, pvp, raiding, griefing, whatever). The reason why things get nerfed and gear gets distributed more evenly is so the Ego Odyssey can commence for all people. If someone’s ego is not sufficiently stroked (such as the beginning of Cataclysm dungeons), the players just unsubscribe.
When a player rage quits in WoW, it matters. When a player rage quits in Diablo 3, it doesn’t matter. In fact, the server performance will improve since less people are being online. It’s humorous seeing posts of the Hardcore Gamer declaring, “I quit Diablo 3!” as if anyone cares.
The people who were upset that WoW was ‘infecting’ Diablo 3 are distressed that Diablo 3 is not WoW. Meanwhile, they resubscribe to WoW as they await Panda Land…