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Diablo Pitch Document (1994) [pdf]

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Re: Diablo Pitch Document (1994) [pdf]

#131

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

nottorp wrote: post #112
atdrummond wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I historically have not been a major fan of ARPGs and share with you the list of games that haven’t moved the needle for me. Path of Exile fundamentally changed my view on the genre and enabled me to retrospectively re-evaluate many of the ARPGs I had played to this point. The granular level of control you have over your playstyle and strategy is incredible; it is insane how rewarding it is to be the first person to…

> cerebral, long term planning That is, until you reach the end game and you realize how much you have to grind because of their completely random crafting system. PoE is the game that weaned me off "but the microtransactions are cosmetic". It's simply designed to keep you ingame for so long that you get bored and buy a few hideout skins and character skins. If you mean the skill tree, most people just follow a guide…

At the beginning? Sure. Eventually though a boredom does set it and a player seeks their own fun be it lore, own builds or something else like gauntlet. I am saying this as a person, who spent too much time on it already.

Re: Diablo Pitch Document (1994) [pdf]

#132

Post by enkid »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #97
kosei wrote: post #15

It was a different time: “Condor plans to spend one year in the development of Diablo. Personnel will consist of: one designer, one chief programmer, 2 junior programmer, 2 art director/artists, 1 illustrator/sculptor, 3 pixel artists, and 1 sound FX person” So, 11 people for a year for Diablo. Meanwhile Diablo 4 took 300+ people 6+ years. So over 150x the cost, not accounting for the fact that game developers are pa…

Counterpoint: indie games, they will often have similar sized teams or smaller and come out with great games. AAA games build on top of gameplay mechanics from either older games or indie games, but need the extra staff and investment due to higher quality (and quantity) assets. To generalize, indie games focus on the core gameplay loop, AAA games on high effort visuals.

This is why I've been playing indie ges almost exclusively lately. The core game play is just so much tighter in a small game vs. AAA games where they implement a huge amount of features.

Re: Diablo Pitch Document (1994) [pdf]

#133

Post by nottorp »

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #131
nottorp wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> cerebral, long term planning That is, until you reach the end game and you realize how much you have to grind because of their completely random crafting system. PoE is the game that weaned me off "but the microtransactions are cosmetic". It's simply designed to keep you ingame for so long that you get bored and buy a few hideout skins and character skins. If you mean the skill tree, most people just follow a guide…

At the beginning? Sure. Eventually though a boredom does set it and a player seeks their own fun be it lore, own builds or something else like gauntlet. I am saying this as a person, who spent too much time on it already.

I quit when I realized getting +2 to minions on my headgear meant farming 100k of to roll the helmet endlessly.

It's just like lootboxes but you farm them ingame. Still boring.

Re: Diablo Pitch Document (1994) [pdf]

#134

Post by bobsoap »

> If one of those arrows ends up killing the fighter, that character will be erased completely from the hard-drive and the player must start from scratch.

Love the choice of words here. This sounds so very retro today; it's reminiscent of the early days of computing on several levels.

Before savegames, before checkpoints, before cloud... there was simply the hard-drive, and you erased stuff from it. Fascinating.

Re: Diablo Pitch Document (1994) [pdf]

#135

Post by shultays »

cubefox wrote: post #105
AOsborn wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is pretty fair to say that Diablo 1 did effectively create the genre as far as the history of gaming is concerned. The commercial and mainstream impact of that game vs anything prior to that is on a different magnitude. A similar comparison is saying that Apple didn't invent touchscreen phones - sure, but the iPhone had such an overwhelming impact that it shook up the entire industry. Relevant phone compar…

> I think it is pretty fair to say that Diablo 1 did effectively create the genre as far as the history of gaming is concerned. Definitely not, there were many successful Japanese ARPGs long before that, like Dragon Slayer, Hydlide, The Legend of Zelda, Final Fantasy Adventure, Secret of Mana etc. Diablo may have created its own subgenre.

I mean I am not sure if I would even call diablo an RPG. What roleplaying is there to do?

Re: Diablo Pitch Document (1994) [pdf]

#136

Post by bob1029 »

eek2121 wrote: post #45
kosei wrote: post #15

It was a different time: “Condor plans to spend one year in the development of Diablo. Personnel will consist of: one designer, one chief programmer, 2 junior programmer, 2 art director/artists, 1 illustrator/sculptor, 3 pixel artists, and 1 sound FX person” So, 11 people for a year for Diablo. Meanwhile Diablo 4 took 300+ people 6+ years. So over 150x the cost, not accounting for the fact that game developers are pa…

Yet I have to say this: Diablo was more fun. Diablo 2 is pretty great. My only complaints about it surround harder difficulties. Those of us with accessibility issues (like me with a gimped hand) found hell to be super challenging. Diablo 3 sucked when it launched, however, right now, it is absolutely amazing. Blizzard has absolute gold with the tiered difficulty/rift/season design. Unsure why they didn't improve upo…

> A fixed level/difficulty system

This is the central aspect of fun for me in an ARPG. When I come back through that starting story area at level 40, I expect to absolutely melt the enemies I run into. If I get super fucking lucky on a roll and pick up a legendary (i.e. against the story/balance team's wishes), I should be able to have a goddamn romp through the world for quite a bit. This emergence of potentially-unintended gameplay outcomes in an ARPG results in the fun for me.

Maybe there's a way to do the multiplayer-friendly scaling thing that my dopamine loop would enjoy but I haven't seen it yet. Ultimately, it feels like Blizzard tried to solve a cursed problem and walked right into the predictable outcome.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uE6-vIi1rQ

Re: Diablo Pitch Document (1994) [pdf]

#137

Post by nemo44x »

logicchains wrote: post #79
nemo44x wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s what great I think. Levels give you skill and paragon points which eventually makes you stronger so you can go to higher tiers where better gear drops. They give you many ways to customize your gear (affix modifications, aspects, gems) with your build and paragon board. That’s what it’s all about.

> Levels give you skill and paragon points which eventually makes you stronger so you can go to higher tiers where better gear drops Paragon points are only granted around level 50, and skill points stop making much difference around level 20-30 when all the core skills are unlocked. I got so bored of combat I stopped playing at around level 40. Particularly annoying is after getting a few items with good aspects, it…

You can change the stats too. There’s a lot of room for customizing. Also you need to play on nightmare or higher and you’ll see legendary items far more frequently. The game opens up big time then. The story gets you into the endgame and the endgame opens it all up.

But different strokes for different folks. :)

Re: Diablo Pitch Document (1994) [pdf]

#138

Post by bob1029 »

logicchains wrote: post #65
eek2121 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet I have to say this: Diablo was more fun. Diablo 2 is pretty great. My only complaints about it surround harder difficulties. Those of us with accessibility issues (like me with a gimped hand) found hell to be super challenging. Diablo 3 sucked when it launched, however, right now, it is absolutely amazing. Blizzard has absolute gold with the tiered difficulty/rift/season design. Unsure why they didn't improve upo…

Diablo 4 has no sense of progression because enemies level up as you do. In fact they increase in power faster than you, under the assumption you'll be itemising optimally, so if you level up but don't update your items fast enough, you'll find that mobs actually get harder and harder to defeat as you increase in level.

This combined with a few other balance issues is what makes hardcore entirely pointless for D4 in my view. The second you find respite, the balancing mechanics will take it all away from you. Anything that moves will be able to kill you in approximately the same amount of time no matter what.

D4 HC mode might as well just be a waterboarding simulator with regard to the player's experience.

Re: Diablo Pitch Document (1994) [pdf]

#139

Post by egometry »

aidenn0 wrote: post #50
bexsella wrote: post #7

My favourite story of Diablo's development (as relayed by David Brevik in the Diablo Postmortem - see below) is the part where Diablo was made real-time. He passionately championed that it should be more like Rogue or Moria purely turn-based and permadeath. That was until he implemented real-time movement in an afternoon and attacked a skeleton. This was a directive from Blizzard, and it effectively created the ARPG…

I have no clue why, but the Diablo style dungeon-crawler ARPGs are literally the only subgenre of game that I have not found a single game from which I like. I keep trying examples because it's such a strange (and popular) hole in my tastes. Games I've tried: - Diablo - Diablo II - Nox - Dungeon Siege - Divinity - A few others I'm probably forgetting.

Have you tried Torchlight?

I dislike the entire Genre EXCEPT Torchlight 1&2

And I've never really been able to put my finger on why

Re: Diablo Pitch Document (1994) [pdf]

#140

Post by boffinAudio »

cubefox wrote: post #54
bexsella wrote: post #7

My favourite story of Diablo's development (as relayed by David Brevik in the Diablo Postmortem - see below) is the part where Diablo was made real-time. He passionately championed that it should be more like Rogue or Moria purely turn-based and permadeath. That was until he implemented real-time movement in an afternoon and attacked a skeleton. This was a directive from Blizzard, and it effectively created the ARPG…

Nitpick: ARPG games are much older than Diablo[1], though Diablo might be considered pioneering a special type of ARPG. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_role-playing_game#Histo...

Isn't Gauntlet considered an ARPG?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gauntlet_(1985_video_game)

I always chose the sexy role, myself ..

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