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Savious Premium Member join:2012-03-05 Billings, MT 1 edit |
Savious
Premium Member
2012-Aug-21 5:46 pm
[D3] Why the Paragon System is good for D3Done. | | Mentat Premium Member join:2001-02-25 Houston, TX |
Mentat
Premium Member
2012-Aug-21 6:00 pm
said by Savious:This is written by me, planning on submitting to some fan sites/posting on the official forums. Please critique!
Why the Paragon System is good for Diablo 3.
With the patch coming out today, many people have been complaining that Blizzard is nerfing MF due to a hard cap of 300% MF without NV buffs. Some players are upset that they have invested large portions of either game or real currency in acquiring gear with both powerful DPS/survivability stats and good MF. This opinion article is written to explain why the Paragon and MF nerf is good for all players.
First off, the Paragon system was instituted because of the easily attainable level 60 cap. Once there, playing D3 is boiled down to nothing but an extremely difficult grind to obtain better items. Patches provided the opportunity for players to reliably get an iLVL 63 item in Act 1, but it was still a long time in between drops that were usable to your character, and trying to play through Act 2 was a miserable experience for a large portion of the players.
To put it bluntly, the game was not fun but for the most dedicated players. To progress past Act 1 Inferno required a very heavy investment of time, patience and gold/real money. Players weren't playing Diablo games to prove how good they are at video games, they wanted to play for fun and enjoyment. Being presented with a challenge is ok, being presented with monsters that kill the player in the blink of an eye was not.
Some people threw their hands in the air and quit, looking to other games for entertainment rather than begin a long grind to gearing a character to get past Act 2. Some returned to Act 1 and attempted to find better items, only to find that the majority of the items they were finding were vastly underpowered and felt unrewarding and gave up.
In Diablo 2, players were willing to farm Mephisto and Baal over and over again because it only took 30-60 seconds to find Mephisto and less time than that to kill him. Out of 10 runs, players would find nothing useful to them at all on 9 of those runs (depending on their MF), but that 10th run turned up something interesting. The player felt rewarded and their interest in doing these runs was renewed, and maybe in 20 runs they find something really good. So the cycle continued, until they had acquired a pile of cool and fun items that they could switch around from character to character, trying different builds, attempting to hit level 99 or PvPing in the Blood Moor for hours.
Diablo 3's MF runs take more time. Going through a typical farming run of Act 1 could take nearly 20 minutes for an average player. Hitting the tombs in the Festering Wood, bouncing to Leoric's Manor, then to the Halls of Agony 2, then down to the Butcher. In that amount of time it was entirely possible, and actually highly likely, that the player would find nothing useful at all. Now factor in if the player died, they might actually be losing gold as well.
Consider that in Diablo 2, 20 minutes equated to somewhere in the area of 10 Mephisto runs, which probably led to finding something cool or useful and there was little chance of dying or losing any net worth what so ever.
So now players have a sour taste in their mouth. Their MF runs are trivial and feel like a waste of time. Their character is max level. They can't justify attempting to progress through Act 2, its too difficult at this point and would put a significant drain on their already limited gold funds. What are they going to do?
Quit.
And that's exactly what a lot of players did. They felt trapped and in a rut. Why continue to play if the majority of my play time is spent with a negative end result? It has long been known that video games are designed around a reward system. This keeps a player intrigued and interested in the game, and motivates the player to stay up far too late trying to get that last level, BiS item or unlock the next chapter in the story.
The changes to legendary's fall directly in line with this issue as well. Legendary items are a known quantity. Meaning, you can go online and look at a legendary item and have a very good idea of what you are going to be getting. Rare items are an unknown quantity. There is excitement behind finding a rare; however, you have no idea what you are going to get. If a player goes online and looks at the legendary bow Windforce, its imprinted into their brain. It's something they will actively try and get. But when legendary's were discovered to be way behind the power curve, there was no incentive to search for them. Another piece of what makes Diablo great was missing.
So, Blizzard was faced with a huge dilemma. How can they keep players playing with their current client.
Enter the Paragon System. Designed to create a game after level 60, it incentives players to continue playing Diablo 3. Each Paragon level, starting at level 1, provides a permanent 3% gold and magic find boost, as well as base stats akin to gaining a traditional level from 1-60. So at Paragon Level 50, a player will receive 150% permanent gold and magic find boost, as well as a moderate boost to their core stats (strength, vitality, dexterity and intelligence).
But another issue arose out of this. A small portion of the community already has extremely powerful gear concerning DPS and survivability, but also a large focus on magic find. These players were the most dedicated or well funded individuals that can easily farm acts 3 and 4 and have a strangle hold on the economy. Gold and items hold limited value to them, as they have attained a state of economic strength akin to JD Rockefeller.
So these players, who are already the cream of the crop, would be gaining a significant boost to their already high values of magic find. A well geared character at Paragon level 100 with a full stack of NV could potentially reach MF levels of 700% or higher. It would be a case of the rich getting richer and create a significant gap that would be a disaster for the economy of the game. Think of a real world 50 room mansion. Now think of a perfectly rolled 1.04 Skorn. Only a few could afford something so awesome.
So Blizzard implemented a MF hard cap of 300% (375% with NV) to level the playing field. Now players aren't cornered into min/maxing their DPS/survivability/MF, and can focus on enjoying and playing the game.
As players continue to gain Paragon Levels, they can start pulling off gear with MF and focus on increasing their build synergy or DPS.
Granted, Diablo 2 was such a long lasting game due to the item hunt. Finding that perfectly rolled 3 socket ghost armor for your enigma or a 50% pair of War Travelers. Players are fearing that the MF cap will take away their ability to look for those items they so love finding. This is obviously not a real scenario. The current cream of the crop players are already playing with 300-400% MF, and finding plenty of items for themselves and their alts. The issue is that they do not like being forced into a "socialized" economy. Players that are that high up on the food chain, rightly so, feel they shouldn't be pushed into a middle/grey area. These are the players that have worked hard, getting every last drop out of every turnip they find in order to propel themselves to the top. (Side Note: Players like Athene who are celebrities and handed items left and right are an exception to this scenario).
The unfortunate issue is that the middle and lower class players are playing Diablo 3 to escape from their middle and lower class real lives. They don't want to play a game and be reminded that they are "just another guy/gal" in a society. They play games to become powerful Wizards and Barbarians that can crush the system so hell bent on beating them. The current system was designed to make Diablo "hard", which was never really what players wanted. They wanted to play Diablo 2 with better graphics and new items and classes.
The Paragon System has been referred to as "the WoWinization of Diablo" and "dumbing it down". For reference, WoW has gone through several changes since its release to make end game content more accessible to players. For example, in the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, players were given emblems for completing 5 man dungeons. These emblems could then be turned in to NPC vendors in major cities in exchange for high level gear. This allowed players who had just recently achieved level 80 to skip a vast portion of content in Wrath of the Lich King and start playing end game or near end game content with minimal time investment.
In WoWs original incarnation, players were required to go through all previous content in order to play with friends or guild mates who had already unlocked/met the requirements for end game content. Realizing that this created a huge rift between players that had been playing for a year and those just getting started, Blizzard implemented a system that helped newer players find a path to reach whatever the current end game raid was.
To break this down a little further, Wrath of the Lich King had 4 "phases" throughout its existence as the current expansion in WoW. (This is all from memory, please do not bother correcting me, the point of this section will not be changed). Phases meaning time between patches where new end game content was added. First was Naxarramas, which was actually content that was available during WoW classic. Unfortunately, Naxarramas was so difficult and the bar to entry so high, only a very small fraction of the WoW community ever saw the inside of it. In order to enter Naxarrams in WoW classic, you had to have completed the previous end game content, and to enter that the content prior to that, etc... See the trend?
After the Wrath of the Lich King Naxarramas content came Ulduar, then Trial of the Champion and finally Ice Crown Citadel where you were at last able to "beat" the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. Now, if a player hit level 80 when Ice Crown Citadel was the current end game content, they were not required to go through all of the content prior to ICC just to enter ICC. It would help for them to get a few items from Trial of the Champion, but it was not necessary.
This allowed a friend of a player who was interested in joining to start playing end game content like everyone else in a relatively short period of time, and everyone could enjoy the game together.
This is where a lot of players got angry. They claimed that everyone was just being handed Epic Gear left and right and there was no challenge to playing WoW anymore. What these players fail to realize is that the challenge for newer players wasn't in being good enough to acquire gear, it was being able to find other players to beat older content. Players that started the expansion together had worked together with other players to obtain the gear they needed to progress. Everyone was on the same footing. But a player joining during ICC would have been so far behind, they may never get to experience what ICC had to offer. Sure, maybe once a month or so they could round up 24 people bored in Dalaran and go cruise through Naxaramaas, but as any WoW raider can tell you, that doesn't mean you'll get a good drop for yourself, you'll win the roll or the group will even succeed before people get bored or frustrated and go do something else.
The truth is, WoW and Diablo and everything else has never really been a hard except when they first came out. The dedicated few were the only ones that could enjoy everything the game had to offer, which is a failing system now. Implementing a system that is more forgiving for newer players and more rewarding for veterans does not make the game dumbed down. Without WoW providing newer players a "short cut" to gearing for current content, it would never be as successful as it was.
The Paragon System is designed to let all players enjoy Diablo end game content. It allows people to focus on enjoying the game, get cool items and maybe kill Diablo in Inferno without exploiting or spending countless millions in gold or several hundred dollars on the RMAH.
The Paragon System is not "dumbing down" Diablo. Its lowering the bar of entry to those that care enough to try and get a 1.04 Windforce or Skorn, or whatever. Players just want to have fun. tl;dr Seriously though, as someone that grinded AA in EQ for years, I have little desire to do it again in a static environment. | | Savious Premium Member join:2012-03-05 Billings, MT |
Savious
Premium Member
2012-Aug-21 6:10 pm
Gee, thanks. | | KrisnatharokPC Builder, Gamer Premium Member join:2009-02-11 Earth Orbit |
to Savious
Apologist already (again)? | | ExodusYour Daddy Premium Member join:2001-11-26 Earth |
to Savious
tl;dr
D3 sucks | | puppy join:2010-01-28 San Diego, CA |
to Savious
I liked what you wrote (read/skimmed most of it since I'm bored at work) but honestly I think you should condense it a lot and still make the same points. | | | Koil Premium Member join:2002-09-10 Irmo, SC |
to Savious
Yeah, the first part can use some cutting...ppl know why D3 sucked, they lived it. | | drewRadiant Premium Member join:2002-07-10 Port Orchard, WA |
drew to Mentat
Premium Member
2012-Aug-22 10:38 am
to Mentat
said by Mentat:said by Savious:This is written by me, planning on submitting to some fan sites/posting on the official forums. Please critique!
Why the Paragon System is good for Diablo 3.
With the patch coming out today, many people have been complaining that Blizzard is nerfing MF due to a hard cap of 300% MF without NV buffs. Some players are upset that they have invested large portions of either game or real currency in acquiring gear with both powerful DPS/survivability stats and good MF. This opinion article is written to explain why the Paragon and MF nerf is good for all players.
First off, the Paragon system was instituted because of the easily attainable level 60 cap. Once there, playing D3 is boiled down to nothing but an extremely difficult grind to obtain better items. Patches provided the opportunity for players to reliably get an iLVL 63 item in Act 1, but it was still a long time in between drops that were usable to your character, and trying to play through Act 2 was a miserable experience for a large portion of the players.
To put it bluntly, the game was not fun but for the most dedicated players. To progress past Act 1 Inferno required a very heavy investment of time, patience and gold/real money. Players weren't playing Diablo games to prove how good they are at video games, they wanted to play for fun and enjoyment. Being presented with a challenge is ok, being presented with monsters that kill the player in the blink of an eye was not.
Some people threw their hands in the air and quit, looking to other games for entertainment rather than begin a long grind to gearing a character to get past Act 2. Some returned to Act 1 and attempted to find better items, only to find that the majority of the items they were finding were vastly underpowered and felt unrewarding and gave up.
In Diablo 2, players were willing to farm Mephisto and Baal over and over again because it only took 30-60 seconds to find Mephisto and less time than that to kill him. Out of 10 runs, players would find nothing useful to them at all on 9 of those runs (depending on their MF), but that 10th run turned up something interesting. The player felt rewarded and their interest in doing these runs was renewed, and maybe in 20 runs they find something really good. So the cycle continued, until they had acquired a pile of cool and fun items that they could switch around from character to character, trying different builds, attempting to hit level 99 or PvPing in the Blood Moor for hours.
Diablo 3's MF runs take more time. Going through a typical farming run of Act 1 could take nearly 20 minutes for an average player. Hitting the tombs in the Festering Wood, bouncing to Leoric's Manor, then to the Halls of Agony 2, then down to the Butcher. In that amount of time it was entirely possible, and actually highly likely, that the player would find nothing useful at all. Now factor in if the player died, they might actually be losing gold as well.
Consider that in Diablo 2, 20 minutes equated to somewhere in the area of 10 Mephisto runs, which probably led to finding something cool or useful and there was little chance of dying or losing any net worth what so ever.
So now players have a sour taste in their mouth. Their MF runs are trivial and feel like a waste of time. Their character is max level. They can't justify attempting to progress through Act 2, its too difficult at this point and would put a significant drain on their already limited gold funds. What are they going to do?
Quit.
And that's exactly what a lot of players did. They felt trapped and in a rut. Why continue to play if the majority of my play time is spent with a negative end result? It has long been known that video games are designed around a reward system. This keeps a player intrigued and interested in the game, and motivates the player to stay up far too late trying to get that last level, BiS item or unlock the next chapter in the story.
The changes to legendary's fall directly in line with this issue as well. Legendary items are a known quantity. Meaning, you can go online and look at a legendary item and have a very good idea of what you are going to be getting. Rare items are an unknown quantity. There is excitement behind finding a rare; however, you have no idea what you are going to get. If a player goes online and looks at the legendary bow Windforce, its imprinted into their brain. It's something they will actively try and get. But when legendary's were discovered to be way behind the power curve, there was no incentive to search for them. Another piece of what makes Diablo great was missing.
So, Blizzard was faced with a huge dilemma. How can they keep players playing with their current client.
Enter the Paragon System. Designed to create a game after level 60, it incentives players to continue playing Diablo 3. Each Paragon level, starting at level 1, provides a permanent 3% gold and magic find boost, as well as base stats akin to gaining a traditional level from 1-60. So at Paragon Level 50, a player will receive 150% permanent gold and magic find boost, as well as a moderate boost to their core stats (strength, vitality, dexterity and intelligence).
But another issue arose out of this. A small portion of the community already has extremely powerful gear concerning DPS and survivability, but also a large focus on magic find. These players were the most dedicated or well funded individuals that can easily farm acts 3 and 4 and have a strangle hold on the economy. Gold and items hold limited value to them, as they have attained a state of economic strength akin to JD Rockefeller.
So these players, who are already the cream of the crop, would be gaining a significant boost to their already high values of magic find. A well geared character at Paragon level 100 with a full stack of NV could potentially reach MF levels of 700% or higher. It would be a case of the rich getting richer and create a significant gap that would be a disaster for the economy of the game. Think of a real world 50 room mansion. Now think of a perfectly rolled 1.04 Skorn. Only a few could afford something so awesome.
So Blizzard implemented a MF hard cap of 300% (375% with NV) to level the playing field. Now players aren't cornered into min/maxing their DPS/survivability/MF, and can focus on enjoying and playing the game.
As players continue to gain Paragon Levels, they can start pulling off gear with MF and focus on increasing their build synergy or DPS.
Granted, Diablo 2 was such a long lasting game due to the item hunt. Finding that perfectly rolled 3 socket ghost armor for your enigma or a 50% pair of War Travelers. Players are fearing that the MF cap will take away their ability to look for those items they so love finding. This is obviously not a real scenario. The current cream of the crop players are already playing with 300-400% MF, and finding plenty of items for themselves and their alts. The issue is that they do not like being forced into a "socialized" economy. Players that are that high up on the food chain, rightly so, feel they shouldn't be pushed into a middle/grey area. These are the players that have worked hard, getting every last drop out of every turnip they find in order to propel themselves to the top. (Side Note: Players like Athene who are celebrities and handed items left and right are an exception to this scenario).
The unfortunate issue is that the middle and lower class players are playing Diablo 3 to escape from their middle and lower class real lives. They don't want to play a game and be reminded that they are "just another guy/gal" in a society. They play games to become powerful Wizards and Barbarians that can crush the system so hell bent on beating them. The current system was designed to make Diablo "hard", which was never really what players wanted. They wanted to play Diablo 2 with better graphics and new items and classes.
The Paragon System has been referred to as "the WoWinization of Diablo" and "dumbing it down". For reference, WoW has gone through several changes since its release to make end game content more accessible to players. For example, in the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, players were given emblems for completing 5 man dungeons. These emblems could then be turned in to NPC vendors in major cities in exchange for high level gear. This allowed players who had just recently achieved level 80 to skip a vast portion of content in Wrath of the Lich King and start playing end game or near end game content with minimal time investment.
In WoWs original incarnation, players were required to go through all previous content in order to play with friends or guild mates who had already unlocked/met the requirements for end game content. Realizing that this created a huge rift between players that had been playing for a year and those just getting started, Blizzard implemented a system that helped newer players find a path to reach whatever the current end game raid was.
To break this down a little further, Wrath of the Lich King had 4 "phases" throughout its existence as the current expansion in WoW. (This is all from memory, please do not bother correcting me, the point of this section will not be changed). Phases meaning time between patches where new end game content was added. First was Naxarramas, which was actually content that was available during WoW classic. Unfortunately, Naxarramas was so difficult and the bar to entry so high, only a very small fraction of the WoW community ever saw the inside of it. In order to enter Naxarrams in WoW classic, you had to have completed the previous end game content, and to enter that the content prior to that, etc... See the trend?
After the Wrath of the Lich King Naxarramas content came Ulduar, then Trial of the Champion and finally Ice Crown Citadel where you were at last able to "beat" the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. Now, if a player hit level 80 when Ice Crown Citadel was the current end game content, they were not required to go through all of the content prior to ICC just to enter ICC. It would help for them to get a few items from Trial of the Champion, but it was not necessary.
This allowed a friend of a player who was interested in joining to start playing end game content like everyone else in a relatively short period of time, and everyone could enjoy the game together.
This is where a lot of players got angry. They claimed that everyone was just being handed Epic Gear left and right and there was no challenge to playing WoW anymore. What these players fail to realize is that the challenge for newer players wasn't in being good enough to acquire gear, it was being able to find other players to beat older content. Players that started the expansion together had worked together with other players to obtain the gear they needed to progress. Everyone was on the same footing. But a player joining during ICC would have been so far behind, they may never get to experience what ICC had to offer. Sure, maybe once a month or so they could round up 24 people bored in Dalaran and go cruise through Naxaramaas, but as any WoW raider can tell you, that doesn't mean you'll get a good drop for yourself, you'll win the roll or the group will even succeed before people get bored or frustrated and go do something else.
The truth is, WoW and Diablo and everything else has never really been a hard except when they first came out. The dedicated few were the only ones that could enjoy everything the game had to offer, which is a failing system now. Implementing a system that is more forgiving for newer players and more rewarding for veterans does not make the game dumbed down. Without WoW providing newer players a "short cut" to gearing for current content, it would never be as successful as it was.
The Paragon System is designed to let all players enjoy Diablo end game content. It allows people to focus on enjoying the game, get cool items and maybe kill Diablo in Inferno without exploiting or spending countless millions in gold or several hundred dollars on the RMAH.
The Paragon System is not "dumbing down" Diablo. Its lowering the bar of entry to those that care enough to try and get a 1.04 Windforce or Skorn, or whatever. Players just want to have fun. tl;dr +1 | | Savious Premium Member join:2012-03-05 Billings, MT |
Savious
Premium Member
2012-Aug-22 12:21 pm
You guys are the worst. | | |
to Savious
I won't be an ass and auto quote you again :P Nice work though, Saviouss. It looks like you thought everything out well. I'm not sure I agree, but I can see your logic. I think you should probably pare it down a bit, though - people in this day and age have horrendous ADD and will never make it through that (I did, but I'm not the norm). | | Savious Premium Member join:2012-03-05 Billings, MT |
Savious
Premium Member
2012-Aug-22 12:33 pm
Thank you for the thoughtful response. Those guys above are just trolls begging for my attention. | | puppy join:2010-01-28 San Diego, CA |
to Savious
said by Savious:You guys are the worst. While the way they said it wasn't the best, I think they are making the same point I did. The huge wall of text makes it uninviting for anyone to read and process your points. If you condense it a lot you will get much better reception to your views. | | Jay_Formerly known as Carnage Premium Member join:2001-05-15 Pickering On |
to Savious
TL:DR but I have 1 opinion.. Paragon system is NOT the answer to fix Diablo 3..
They need some kind of randomly generated dungeon that gets progressively harder or something.. just needs something. Regrinding the same exact content over and over and over is NOT fun (and maybe this is why I was never huge on Diablo 1 or 2) but look at games like TL (has the randomly generated dungeon afaik) and Path of Exile which will have a version of that with custom maps and such.
The game needs variety. Doing the same content over and over is not going to keep people playing long, better gear or not. | | Savious Premium Member join:2012-03-05 Billings, MT |
Savious
Premium Member
2012-Aug-22 12:39 pm
Baal runs.
Cow runs.
Meph runs.
Anyways, randomly generated dungeons are a joke. Repainting a Honda civic still makes it a Honda civic. | | DrexBeer...The other white meat. Premium Member join:2000-02-24 Not There |
to Savious
As a low class/borderline middle class player, I expect the rich class to buy my gear. | | ohh join:2011-07-16 San Jose, CA |
to Savious
Did not read all of it.
D2 and D2: LOD was fun because I ran 4 or 5 bots 24/7 and I had all the items I could ever need. I also had one of a kind items (made myself and a few friends a few thousand bucks each off selling D2 items).
We also built a bazzilion PVPers which is the end game for D2 (other than getting level 99). PVP is fucking great in that game it is pretty much the only reason why I played for like ten years or whatever. I still have a handful of people that let me on their accounts with pretty much perfect characters to PVP... Why? because we've played for years and had fun together.
D3 basically needs to drop good shit consistently or people will bot and or cry.. its just how it is. I have maybe got 1 or 2 decent items awhile playing D3 for 180 hours? No thanks! If I cared enough I'd bot it, but there is no PVP.. so fuck it.
P.S. I just tried the paragon shit yesterday for five or six hours.. the item drop rate still blows.. In a party of four going from act 1 inferno to finishing the game including ponies.. we found fuck all. I told them I'm going on another hiatus from D3 and they cried because they need my barbs war cry to have proper all res to put up with inferno. The rewards do not justify the struggle. | | stvnbrs Premium Member join:2009-03-17 Cary, NC |
stvnbrs
Premium Member
2012-Aug-23 12:37 pm
said by ohh:Did not read all of it.
D2 and D2: LOD was fun because I ran 4 or 5 bots 24/7 and I had all the items I could ever need. I also had one of a kind items (made myself and a few friends a few thousand bucks each off selling D2 items).
We also built a bazzilion PVPers which is the end game for D2 (other than getting level 99). PVP is fucking great in that game it is pretty much the only reason why I played for like ten years or whatever. I still have a handful of people that let me on their accounts with pretty much perfect characters to PVP... Why? because we've played for years and had fun together.
D3 basically needs to drop good shit consistently or people will bot and or cry.. its just how it is. I have maybe got 1 or 2 decent items awhile playing D3 for 180 hours? No thanks! If I cared enough I'd bot it, but there is no PVP.. so fuck it.
P.S. I just tried the paragon shit yesterday for five or six hours.. the item drop rate still blows.. In a party of four going from act 1 inferno to finishing the game including ponies.. we found fuck all. I told them I'm going on another hiatus from D3 and they cried because they need my barbs war cry to have proper all res to put up with inferno. The rewards do not justify the struggle. +1 | | drewRadiant Premium Member join:2002-07-10 Port Orchard, WA |
to Savious
For posterity...
| | Savious Premium Member join:2012-03-05 Billings, MT |
Savious
Premium Member
2012-Aug-23 4:54 pm
Kick me while I'm down, huh. You would! | | |
to Savious
What was the time between those 2 posts?
it was Saviouss last attempt at salvaging a bad relationship with D3! we've all been there with women! | | Savious Premium Member join:2012-03-05 Billings, MT |
Savious
Premium Member
2012-Aug-23 4:58 pm
She just wouldn't put out. | |
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