Gameplay "Profit & Loss"

Grim Dawn Development Updates
41

@medierra: In regard to profit/loss, how would you describe the useless middle difficulty? Because I think if you use theoretical approaches like this one, it really shows that it’s merely a well-established design flaw.

I’ll do it for normal and Hell/Legendary:

On normal, you always get a fresh, new experience, either because you see the content for the first time, or because you use a new hero / combination of skills. The main “carrot” is leveling up your character to the point where he has access to all the skills you want.

On Hell/Legendary, you get a meaningful challenge - since it’s the toughest stuff the game has to offer, it means something if you beat it. The main carrot is that you are finally able to find the best loot, items that aren’t merely temporarily.

42

In the alpha (of GrimDawn ofcourse) the last bossfight is in a small room. It is exciting, however due to the current policy that your portal remains after your death, a great portion of the excitement is being taken away.

This is exactly what you talked about in your opening post. There is profit but also loss. In my opinion you should: remove the ability of the portal to remain after death (atleast in close range), or add something to the room which makes it more of a challenge.

About Diablo II :
Anyway what I liked about Diablo II was not only its excellent design but the endless re playability it provided with it’s random levels and loot that everyone could pick up. This generated a feeling of competitiveness and excitement I haven’t seen in a lot of other similar games.

It provided an edge on multilayer other then playing together with someone, you had to actually compete with someone.

EDIT: My vision on towns.

I don’t agree completly, large full towns can be a thing to behold and admire. However Diablo II had the efficient system of were the essentials are.

When you joined or died you would spawn in the most ideal location in the town close to the portals and waypoints and also the exit. This made the game a fast paced one. Towns can be large in my opinion but if the essentials like main quest npc’s, portal locations, way points and spawn location are in close vicinity it will be alright.

43

Pull him into the bigger room that is before his room. That works nicely!

44

One thing I’d like to mention in regard to Diablo is that for me and my friends, the most addictive Diablo game so far was Diablo I, not Diablo II.

We played Diablo for several months, even though there was nothing to do but to play through the first few levels of Hell, up to that room with Lazarus and the two other special monsters and repeat, always hoping to find some nice items.

When Diablo II came, we where quite impressed by all the improvements and new features it had, and by the sheer size of it. We liked the game a lot when we played it, but nonetheless we stopped playing rather quickly. I did one playthrough on normal, played around with a few other classes a bit and that’s it. I think one of my friends played through most of Nightmare difficulty, maybe he even finished it, but none of us ever finished a Hell playthrough. I bought the expansion, but the first time I actually played through it was a few years ago when I re-discovered the game as a title for coop play with my girlfriend.

I’ve always wondered why Diablo II turned out to be so much less addictive, even though it seemed like a much better game. I believe it’s pretty much related to the “carrot”, or profit & loss in the thread’s terminology.

In Diablo, the carrot was right there, as real and tangible as can be, right in front of us. At the time we played it, each of us would have been able to list the items he was looking for from memory - even today, I still recall the godly full-plate mail of the whale and the King’s Sword of Haste. Each time we went into Hell to fight Lazarus, we knew we had a tiny chance to find one of those. When I was able to upgrade my sacred whatever mail of something to an awesome something, I could clearly see the step towards my desired perfect set of gear. None of us ever found even one of those perfect pieces, but that didn’t matter.

In Diablo II, there where so many different items and types of items that none of us really saw through them and figured out what his personal perfect set was. And none of us ever had a chance to find such an item, anyways, because we’d have had to play all the way to the end of Hell difficulty for that, and none of us ever did that. The carrot always remained vague, foggy and far, far away.

I am aware, of course, that a lot of Diablo II fans have actually played all the way through all difficulties with several characters, but I’ve never known one of them. I guess those people are a certain type of hardcore players who focus on just one game for a very long time. However, that’s not an approach that works for me.

45

I myself and a supporter of D3. I think that the game is fun for that sort of instant gratification that you were talking about, its fun to jump into the game and kill some enemies with some really cool looking spells. But as for spending countless hours grinding for gear. the game didnt make it for me, the only reason i played it untill level 60 is because i like REALLY REALLY REALLY hard games. And when they released the monster power idea i practically cried in joy. I would always pump it up all of the way and play the crazy difficult levels. Thats just fun to me and the main thing i liked about it was that its not forced on you. Its actually something you dont notice until you look in the menu for it. So i would really hope if GD used something like that. Maybe even just a checkbox for a extra hard difficulty.

(sense someone is going to say this)
No the difficulty progression in TQ is not the same thing. If you play through a second time on the harder difficulty. its just like a continuance of the story at least thats how i feel. I want it to be extra hard from the very start.

46

Hi-

I have a number of notes re: alpha that i may just keep to myself after reading this. it is your alls game and it seems like you are moving to address ‘loss’ so…let’s see what you do.

a couple things did come to mind for me after reading. First is the combat animations (not skill animations), especially for melee characters. It would be nice to see new moves unlock as you progress. Too much to ask for perhaps, but for me, another form of repetition that gets stale.

the next is similar and that is static maps. i have to say that i do enjoy your maps but i know that at some point I will know them very well and i also know that simply redrawing them is not the solution. sub maps that don’t always spawn, monsters that don’t always spawn, even backgrounds/structures just to look at that don’t always spawn could help to keep it fresher, longer.

47

I agree with almost everything you just said, im kinda tipsy right now and dont really remember what i didnt agree on but it was some small part of one of the major things you said so in general i agreed 100% ha ha.

Love GD so far and as long as you keep the underdog dark thrashy, im fucked feeling about the game im with you always.

48

That’s very clever way of seem things !

Some features can be either profit or loss depending on the player. For some people people long NPC talks makes the game more immersive but for many it is just ‘less time killing stuff’. I think one thing developers should do is recognize the kind of people they want to please and base their decisions based on this abstract “average target player population”.

Personally I think the biggest profit source in D2 was the non-linear game play elements. They don’t care that every single element of the game meant the same for every kind of character. Some character ignore mana potions, others drink 10 per second. Some character use tons of gems, other search for NPC sold wands with +3 skills. Some bosses are ridiculous to some characters (Duriel vs. Sorc) and normal to others. Some classes needs more equipament then others, some do craft, some gamble for rares, etc…

I mean, the game is not made with some isometry between all classes in mind. They just made the mechanics in a way that made sense for then without looking into a universal “fairness”.

The result is that every class and build feels like a different game. In all ARPG past D2/TQ, playing and mastering one class means you’ve mastered the game. I never build a monk in D3, but the fact that i have learned barbs and WD means i can probably make one and finish the game on HC until Inferno on my next shot. Compare it to D2. If I grab a build i never did before (let’s say, Ghost Assassin), i have no freaking idea how to play it and probably gonna die on nightmare.

The mechanics in D2 and TQ are very dense. There so many nuances and because of that there’s many things to learn.

Most modern games tries to “standardize” things. The mechanics are so rational and symmetric that the game feels like the same for all characters you do (because it essentially is).

ARPG designers have to understand point and click gameplay IS SHADOLLOW and theres little to be done before changing the game into God of War. The game is not about playing it. It’s not super fun and people gets tired fast (of the gameplay element). ARPG is about puzzles in form of character sheet, enemies and all those variables. It’s about building character and the fact that every new build is a new challenge, were old variables have new meaning.

49

About that ARPG thing, I agree. What Diablo 3 did to lose it’s “edge” is when they removed the ability to customize your character further than assigning skills. Diablo 2 and this game give you the option to customize the way you want it. You can put everything in strength and be done with it. It’s your choice. And this I like very much.

50

@medierra:
Excellent thoughts there, and a lot of great insight!

Wanted to add my 2cents about one type of loss that bugs me majorly about some games:

Not being able to stop an intro video - be it with a setting to prevent it from coming up in the first place and/or hitting the mouse/space/ESC key to stop it.

That’s a thing I don’t understand about a lot of games - if we don’t want to watch it, why make us players annoyed by forcing us to watch?

hint I hope GD won’t have this problem :smiley:
(Unfortunately I’ll only find out when beta starts…)

51

I don’t like having to re-watch an intro video unless I want to either. I’ve noticed with a lot of games if you press the mouse button, or a keyboard key, the video will stop and let you into the game. Other ways, pressing ESC. TQ was like this, so I imagine that GD would be the same as well.

Also, some games have an option to disable intro videos. Usually this is accessed via ESC, or the main game menu as Options or Settings.

52

The answer most likely is “money”. They force you to watch logos of hardware partners (nVidia, AMD, Intel,…) and logos of the publisher etc… If they’re going to invest money in a game (in whatever form), they’d wanna make sure they at least get some logo placement in the intro that everybody has to watch? :wink:

53

I’m fine if they force you to watch everything the first time. Second time obviously should allow skipping.

D3 was really annoying in that their are constantly cut scenes going on that you have to constantly skip. At least GD won’t be like that.

54

This will probably sound as stupid to you as it always has to me but the main reason I’ve encountered is that the people who paid for / created the videos want to be sure that their investment / effort was worthwhile and that people are going to watch it. They want to make sure no one misses it, they think it is cool and don’t understand why someone wouldn’t want to keep watching it or what it is like to be on the other side, as the player, frantically hitting ESC every time you launch the game to skip it.

I actually had to specifically argue to make sure people would be able to hit a key to skip all that stuff on TQ after the first time. If we had time, I’d probably want to do something where it only played the first time and then never again but there would be some place in the game where you could elect to watch it again if you wanted.

55

Yeah, I like to watch the cinematics ONCE, and then I usually skip them. A simple tap on the ESC key works well (please, no prompt asking me if I “want” to skip the video… I hit the ESC key right?). Having an option to skip all cinematics after their first viewing would be great as well.

I’d not like to see it where all cinematics are automatically skipped though once viewed once… because there are some cinematics that I will watch every time I come across them :stuck_out_tongue:

56

Ah so like Diablo 2 act cinematic videos which you only see once if going to the next act yet still having the ability to check the cinematic again as an option.

Yea I’d be down for that. Might have to make it rather obvious if that option would have all cinematic clips of the game (if their will be many) as people might be a bit miffed if they only see the intro once and “can’t” see it again.

57

The words “escort quest” and “fun” are mutually exclusive in an action game shiver Having any kind of quests with exclamation points etc is unpleasant enough, as opposed to discovering quests as a reward for exploration. Just IMO.

58

When i play the power went off and when i start the game again the player is no more. I found the player in hard drive but he dont show in game…

59

I just found this thread today and found it interesting. It just goes to show that there are as many different wants in a game as there are people.
I have been playing games of about all genres, from the pencil and paper, side winders, and todays.
Played Diablo for years, have found that many times the mods are better than the original. Played about every mod there is. Played Zy El and Eastern Sun for years. I loved the cube and being able to make better equipment and things. I am a pack rat at heart. Still have Easter Sun on my computer.
At times I like to take a break from just killing things. A game like Myst and The Seventh Guest were in that category. I watch my grandchildren and great grandchildren play. Race through killing everything to say they played the game the fastest.
But to each his own.

60

As an old time gamer, first pc was a TRS-80, I agree with a lot of points made here. I skip cut scenes after the first play through, and I like “save points” to be fairly frequent. I left my D3 character dead in some field after being 1 shot from full health from an off-screen enemy for the 20th time. The auction house was also a major turn off in that game. D2 trades were at least a way to socialize a little. I like that I can do a boss, DS run in 15 minutes. I hate the artificiality of nerfing boss runs or chest runs. If I want to loot, let me loot.