Poster: Pipbis at 5/31/2006 12:57:07 PM PDT
Subject: Item bonuses: WoW vs. Diablo 2 |
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I know some of you are going to say THIS ISN'T DIABLO 2! but there are some principles in common between the two games.
And because of that, I think it's somewhat fair to compare Diablo 2 item bonuses to WoW item bonuses -- not directly, of course, but in principle.
For instance, check out the bonuses found on Tier 3 epics. Almost everything is just +Hit, +Crit, +Damage/Healing, and +Stats. There are a few nifty set bonuses, but that's it.
Ho hum. Boring. Just another upgrade from Tier 2 for the most part... better stats, that's all.
Compare this to a sampling of armor bonuses from Diablo 2:
Replenish Life +10-18
4-8% Mana Stolen Per Hit
5-11 Fire Absorb
Half Freeze Duration
8-10% Life Stolen Per Hit
Fire Resist -30%, Poison Resist +70%
Indestructible
Regenerate Mana 10-15%
Cannot Be Frozen
Damage Reduced By 10-15
Repairs 1 Durability in 20 Seconds
Slain Monsters Rest in Peace
Attacker Takes Damage of 1-136 (Based On Character Level)
Slows Target By 20%
100% Chance To Cast Level 44 Nova When You Die
+5-7 Life After Each Kill
+300-350 Defense vs. Missile
-50 To Monster Defense Per Hit
10% Chance of Crushing Blow
+20% Faster Run/Walk
Level 33 Bone Prison (13 Charges)
+20% Faster Cast Rate
10% Increased Attack Speed
+2-4 To Mana After Each Kill
80-100% Extra Gold From Monsters
Magic Damage Reduced By 7-11
35% Chance of Open Wounds
+30% Faster Block Rate
+20% Increased Chance of Blocking
15% Damage Taken Goes To Mana
Hit Blinds Target
Hit Causes Monster To Flee 25%
25% Slower Stamina Drain
+50% Damage To Undead, +100 To Attack Rating Against Undead
Maximum Mana 40%
+2 To Bow And Crossbow Skills (Amazon Only)
Fires Explosive Arrows Or Bolts [Level 13]
Fire Absorb 10-20%
+5-10% To Experience Gained
Reduces All Vendor Prices 10-15%
-15% To Enemy Fire Resistance
50% Chance To Cast Level 20 Poison Nova When You Kill An Enemy
-25% Target Defense
Prevent Monster Heal
+15 Life After Each Demon Kill
Obviously a few of these are infeasible in an MMORPG like WoW, and numbers would have to be tweaked and names would have to be changed... but things like this add a lot more flavor to items. A helluva lot more than "Oooh! My tier 3 pants have 3 more stamina and 24 more damage than my tier 2 ones!"
I mean... grinding for boring incremental increases to gear abilities is a lot lamer and more boring than the exciting items offered in D2.
Items here seem too un-ambitious.[ post edited by Pipbis ]
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Poster: Drysc at 5/31/2006 8:09:32 PM PDT
Subject: Re: Item bonuses: WoW vs. Diablo 2 |
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This is not Diablo 2. This exact same post is also made once every month or so.
Diablo 2 is a single player game, with a small multiplayer potential of 8 people. With a single player or 'small player' potential the floodgates are literally opened with possibilities and freedom for not only weapon attributes, but the type or delivery of content. When you move to an MMO a lot of doors close, and that isn't because of a lack of caring or development time, it's because there are a lot of freaking people! It's a vastly different playing field, and I'm not too sure the developers sit around all day and ask themselves, "How can we really make this game infinitely more complex and difficult to balance and control?"
While you could log in to World of Warcraft and then try to draw similarities between it and other games, and use that for a basis of comparison for the 'features', it would be a flawed approach.
It's apples and oranges. I'm not saying that an MMO can't take on more single player features, including varied weapon attributes, but that would have to be their goal to take on those specific features. You could make an MMO and make your prime goal 'cool weapon attributes' and you could clearly design the entire game with that in-mind. However, there are a lot of things that World of Warcraft focuses on that I believe are far more important and rewarding than varied item stats.
I think we can all agree that Diablo 2 was dah bomb though.
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Poster: Drysc at 5/31/2006 8:17:10 PM PDT
Subject: Re: Item bonuses: WoW vs. Diablo 2 |
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Q u o t e:
You attest that game comparisons are against general forum policies, yet it is fine when discussing one of blizzard's games?
Of course, you just never asked us to elaborate.
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| | http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-general&t=8536539&p=#post8541458 |
Poster: Drysc at 5/31/2006 8:52:48 PM PDT
Subject: Re: Item bonuses: WoW vs. Diablo 2 |
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Pipbis, please don't take my reply as an attempt to shut you down or keep you from replying, I don't mind having an open conversation. I realize it was probably worded a tad harsh.
There may be some core design decision that armor will remain a protective and base-stat boosting mechanism. That only weapons, trinkets, and misc. will be given the more obscure or interesting bonuses.
Q u o t e:
Maybe it'd be cool to make rare non-set armor have cool features such as these.
Maybe, but then you have to think about what those cool features mean to the game. How will that armor interact with or change the content in the game? Will they actually add something to the itemization already in the game? Will players choose those shoulders over the tier 3 shoulders because the cool feature is just too cool and is substantially more beneficial?
The one thing that can be heart breaking to any designer is implementing a cool feature and then having to remove it or drastically change it because it found to be 'too beneficial' in specific situations, used to exploit game mechanics, or cause distress to other players. Going hog-wild with game features is probably going to make for a really intense and fun game for a week or two, before everyone figures out that Item A and Item B mixed together make you unstoppable. Those types of situations happen in every game, the trick is to keep them at a minimum.
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Poster: Drysc at 5/31/2006 8:56:34 PM PDT
Subject: Re: Item bonuses: WoW vs. Diablo 2 |
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Q u o t e:
Sorry Drysc...I would have agreed with you prior to the knowledge the expansion with have "Socketable" items and allow Smiths/Jewelcrafters to make sockets in items.
You cannot socket an item, and only specific items will have sockets. This creates an infinitely more controllable atmosphere for this type of customization.
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| | http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-general&t=8536539&p=#post8541847 |
Poster: Drysc at 5/31/2006 8:17:10 PM PDT
Subject: Re: Item bonuses: WoW vs. Diablo 2 *edited post* |
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Q u o t e:
You attest that game comparisons are against general forum policies, yet it is fine when discussing one of blizzard's games?
Of course, you just never asked us to elaborate.
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| | http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-general&t=8536539&p=#post8541458 |
Poster: Drysc at 5/31/2006 10:19:19 PM PDT
Subject: Re: Item bonuses: WoW vs. Diablo 2 |
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Q u o t e:
actually.. you are wrong..
this IS diablo 2 with a warcraft flavor and taste
let me put this way there never been item called of the whale, tiger, gorrila,boar.monkey in the wow universe.. there was never skill trees in wow with exception to the heros that got points into certain powers and stats from tft.. there was never socket certain items in wow.
d2 has tiger, boar,monkey,wale,greens yellows and gold items, set items,skill trees, socket almost every item
sorry Drysc but your all dried up and i think you fail to see that this is DIABLO 2 or is that you dont see that this game is combination of both games that you dont want to admit it to your self..
and fyi d2 wasnt limted 8 people it was 10people in room that could go and leave in to other rooms
zOMG you're right! They share a basic RPG element and common item naming and categorization! How could I have been so blind.
That was a troll, right? If not let me know and I will rebut each of your points in a serious manner. Seriously though, troll, right? :)
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Poster: Drysc at 5/31/2006 10:21:17 PM PDT
Subject: Re: Item bonuses: WoW vs. Diablo 2 |
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Q u o t e:
Cop. Out.
Really? I was proposing some ideas and thoughts, if you have an actual argument I would be more than willing to discuss the issue further.
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| | http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-general&t=8536539&p=#post8542493 |
Poster: Drysc at 5/31/2006 10:33:10 PM PDT
Subject: Re: Item bonuses: WoW vs. Diablo 2 |
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Q u o t e:
/points to his first post
Casting something upon death sounds interesting, but I could see it having to be made so weak it couldn't be used as a buff. If it could be restricted to PvP I would agree, but I can just imagine players complaining that their GL is forcing them to kamikaze in a raid or some such.
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Poster: Drysc at 5/31/2006 10:43:02 PM PDT
Subject: Re: Item bonuses: WoW vs. Diablo 2 |
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Q u o t e:
you tell me where is the tomes of agi,str, knowledge,int.. and far be from the books that are sold on the ah.. you do remeber those i was simply stating from non rpg side that there are no names of certain animals in the wow game whatsoever.. and before you even bring up "They share a basic RPG element and common item naming and categorization".. gee i wasnt using this as a crutch as you have.. but yes i do understand it just thinking that you could have seen that do use certain elements from both games. but you have my point made even more sharper then before.
I believe you're using 'wow' interchangably with the name Warcraft and the entire franchise up to Warcraft III, which is fairly confusing.
Warcraft III moved toward including a large amount of RPG content with its addition of heroes, and the entire range of abilities and progression included with them.
I will agree World of Warcraft and Diablo 2 are similar, but only as much as any two RPGs are. There are influences passed on to be sure, but I believe that the majority of them are throwbacks to a past Blizzard product, and not necessarily large chunks of the game copy and pasted onto a new engine.
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Poster: Drysc at 6/1/2006 6:33:47 PM PDT
Subject: Re: Item bonuses: WoW vs. Diablo 2 |
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Elrondel, thanks for replying! It was pretty surprising considering your original post.
I'm going to quote specific pieces of your text, I hope you don't mind, it just makes it easier to respond and read in some cases when I want to make a lot of replies to very specific statements. I know it is used commonly in debate circumstances, or to flame others, but please don't take it as such.
Q u o t e:
Well, in that case, I respect you for reading and responding to the thread, I fear I have become jaded in reference to online forums.
Sing it sister!
Q u o t e:
This rubbed me the wrong way, it gave me the impression that you were implying that because the additions were hard they weren't worthwhile.
Well first please keep in mind that I am a community manager and not a designer, while I certainly enjoy having general game design related conversations, Im not speaking of a Blizzard design philosophy or as a designer per se.
My intent was not to say that anything difficult is not worthwhile, but if you are going to take on something difficult, will it add something to the game? Or more importantly, is it something that fits within the game philosophy? While those item stats may be interesting, would they necessarily actually add additional fun to the game? If you see the item or get the item you may say cool! but in the end would they actually provide you with any benefit that a more basic stat couldnt provide on its own? Making things complicated for the sake of making them complicated does not make for good design. Diablo 2 specifically was a relatively simplistic game but had some major focus points; one of them was items and the diverse stats they had really made that game what it was.
Now to say that World of Warcraft has no defining points and needs new and varied item stats to make the game fun, I believe, would be incorrect or at least personal opinion.
Im also avoiding that half of those stats would be completely insane to just randomly add to items regardless of how balanced you attempted to make them, I dont see the game being able to cope with their inclusion without major redesigns and harsh new limitations.
Q u o t e:
Now, I spend alot of time dealing with programming and game development
*looks at guild name*
Really? I might not have guessed.
Q u o t e:
I am also an idealist - I believe that things should be done first and foremost because they are good, innovation doesn't come from cutting corners and a lack of innovation is never good for a market in the long run. While presenting the gameplay and customization aspects that the OP suggested in an MMORPG setting would be more complicated and time consuming that the current system, I'm sure that if done well it would also be better that the current system.
I dont see a path to innovation by implementing Diablo 2 style stats onto World of Warcraft items.
Q u o t e:
it would seem that exploration into innovation would seem to be the logical path to take.
Or would it forsake the original intentions in attempts to give in to demand?
Q u o t e:
Had it occured to anyone that adding in accessible customization might alleviate some of the balancing problems that it might supposedly create? This isn't hard science - it's game design. I find it hard to believe that a company in as lucrative a position as this would try to follow all the "rules" to a tee.
I think youre making this statement with an assumption that I am a designer and am refuting this suggestion as unwanted. Im offering some insightful conversation, nothing more.
Q u o t e:
So, overall, my complain is this: given the situation of Blizzard and the comparison made, the focus should be on opening up the "closed doors" of MMO's instead of working within their boundaries.
I think World of Warcraft has opened an enormous door of accessibility. Who is to say that innovation cant be defined by simplifying game systems and refining them to a mirror finish in a business as abstract as this? ;)
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Poster: Drysc at 6/3/2006 12:29:12 PM PDT
Subject: Re: Item bonuses: WoW vs. Diablo 2 |
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Elrondel never came back I guess? How disappointing...
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| | http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-general&t=8536539&p=#post8575836 |
