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Why Diablo 3 is less addictive than Diablo 2: a scientific explanation

222 points by alex_c 14y ago

alainbryden 14y ago
Great theory and great reference study to back it up.
muraiki 14y ago
The "enjoyment graphs" might explain why I like D3 more than D2, despite the fact that according to many in the D3 forums it is a horrible game. I played D2 back when I was a college student, so I had the time to spend in those long troughs between finding awesome items. Well, I didn't actually play D2 that much because I didn't find it fun -- and perhaps this article explains why. But for the people who want D3 to have the same addictive feel of D2, I speculate that part of it has to do with being able to commit a lot of time to get those rare spikes of joy upon getting a fantastic drop. All the serious D2 gamers knew all of the best items and finding them was a big part of the game for them (or perhaps it WAS the game?) For me, I'd rather have a game where the combat is fun, and that's where I think D3 is a huge improvement upon D2. Blizzard's own stats show that people are playing with a wide variety of skills. That's a lot different than D2, where many skills were useless, there were only a handful of worthwhile builds, and everybody lusted after the same items. At first I didn't understand why a randomly generated magic item could be better than a "legendary" item, but now it makes sense. If a person gets a legendary item, they know they've gotten something that will be good for most players, but it won't be the best. As such, people still have the ability to grow and get better items instead of thinking, "Well, I've gotten Sword of Awesome, no need to do anything more." To me, that makes the game more interesting, and it enhances replayability for when I sign on and play with friends. I guess things might be different for people who only play alone, though. I'm sure the Auction House plays a big role in all of this, and many want to ascribe "evil" motives to Blizzard. Certainly the item economy will take time for them to fully understand. But even if there wasn't an AH, I think that the way they went with items (and the way skills play off of them) was the right choice for creating a game that is consistently fun. At least until Inferno -- which was meant to be ridiculous anyways!
- runevault 14y ago
  The skill thing isn't a very fair comparison, since you were skill locked and couldn't respec which left you having to build to the small subset of builds that could work all the way through hell. Now you can consider what you expect to work with what you are about to encounter and build towards that, making niche skills viable.
  - cldrope 14y ago
    I think that D2 needed to better balance the niche skills, but D3 drops the ball with the rune system. It really doesn't go far to push samey builds, and despite Blizzard's deceptively generic statements from my experience I have a hard time believing that people are doing much of anything. It was posed that Inferno's secondary purpose was to find and see the broken builds as they arose via people rocketing through this near-cheaply difficult mode.
- alanfalcon 14y ago
  Interesting perspective! I agree that the article leaves out multiplayer which represents a huge source of fun. Plus, one thing you can more easily do with a group of friends is agree to skip the AH on those particular characters, relying on drops alone, which makes item drops rewarding again. With enough players you get a decent chance that one of you will find a nice fist weapon or Wizard hat and be able to share that with the monk or Wizard in your party and have it be an upgrade.
  - watty 14y ago
    Sounds like a great idea but what about solo players? I believe many are upset that blizzard stated drops were altered due to AH considerations. Basically, you need to use the AH or you'll die of boredom - and it was designed this way. The best solution would be a mode with higher drop rates and no access to the AH (only trading). This would have lowered AH usage and cost Blizz $$.
- alex_c 14y ago
  That's a good point. I was originally disappointed with the item system in Diablo 3, but I quickly realized it doesn't matter as much as I would have expected. The core gameplay feels a lot more solid and fun than in Diablo 2, and that's what makes me think the game will be successful in the long term. Itemization and difficulty can and will be tweaked after release, but it's much harder to fix the gameplay if it isn't fun. However, I stand by my argument about the game's addictiveness (in the literal sense) in its current form. Many will see this as a good thing :)
f0r 14y ago
How is this scientific? All I see is a lot of speculation with no experimentation/testing. Vague similarities to another study don't cut it - we are not monkeys, and the monkeys weren't playing D2/D3. He's just assumed the premise that D3 is less addictive than D2, and the rest is an argument made to fit this assumption. I'm not saying he's wrong, just saying that this is bad science.
- watty 14y ago
  Agreed. Good loot still drops (look at AH), I'm using 3 pieces found myself. I've also found multiple drops worth 1M+ gold, which is also exciting. Maybe the loop is slightly longer than D2 but that doesn't make it non-existent. Anyone can draw a graph.
- alex_c 14y ago
  But... but... it has graphs! The "scientific" part was pretty tongue-in-cheek given all the handwaving I do, I obviously didn't hook up electrodes to anyone's brain while they're playing (although that would be fascinating). I'll edit the blog title to put it in quotes, can't edit the submission title though.
  - scott_s 14y ago
    Give yourself some credit: you have a testable hypothesis. We could conceivably monitor the brain activity of Diablo 2 and 3 players and see if they match your predicted behavior. That we could either confirm or contradict your hypothesis means that we could actually provide support or falsify your theory.
    - slurgfest 14y ago
      OK, so suppose you measure metabolic activity in (say) nucleus accumbens, with pretty sensitive equipment, for a number of different players (experienced or naive? D2 vets or not?) as they somehow play this commercial computer game with their heads stabilized, for not very long periods of time. You aggregate the data across individuals, losing a ton of information. Now what is the hypothesis - that D2 will drive significantly more metabolic activity than D3, because some blogger thinks that it is a better game? This would tell us nothing of any scientific interest whatsoever. (Not to say you couldn't make a poster or even get grants for such rubbish, with the right connections) If there is a testable hypothesis in here, it is so bizarrely specific as to have no practical value nor any value in distinguishing among meaningful theories about how the brain works.
klodolph 14y ago
The complaint here is that inferno (highest) difficulty is not enjoyable in the traditional sense. From what I understand, inferno is not designed do be addictive per se, it's designed do be hard and it's aimed at people who want to play hard games. I believe (but have no good citations / evidence for) that there's another system in the brain for rewarding behavior, one that is based on the satisfaction of accomplishing tasks that are difficult. This other loop may be a little harder to study, I'd imagine that it would be difficult to get most animals to exhibit this loop. Just take a look at a sample of walkthroughs for various games, alongside traditional guides you'll find esoteric ones: guides marked as "low-level", "solo", "pacifist", "naked", etc. There are also play styles such as "ironman". Back in the day, I used to play Diablo ironman with friends. You're not allowed to talk to merchants in town. I played FF6 "low-level", where you don't allow the characters to gain levels: run from any fight you can, but you still have to fight the bosses with a woefully underpowered team. It's tapping into the same reward systems that reward programmers for refactoring code. So I guess my final point is that you can't call something less addictive by analyzing it, since you can only analyze the addiction mechanisms you know about. You have to determine how addictive it is by measuring the behavior of the actual people using it. From a scientific perspective, this article is really a hypothesis.
- weixiyen 14y ago
  Inferno is not hard. It's simply gear check. If you play Hell Mode with crap gear, it's basically the same as the Inferno encounter.
- slurgfest 14y ago
  I don't think anybody has ever shown any studies with animals being extra rewarded for achieving difficult tasks. To speculate, that may relate to our social wiring. Not even the dopamine system is exactly and entirely a "reward system," there are multiple pieces carrying out various signal-processing tasks without clean alignment to our intuitive categories. Despite the existence of localization and specialization in the brain, it is not common for any high-level behavior to weigh completely on just one distinct piece of the brain.
jtchang 14y ago
Insightful because I don't seem to enjoy Diablo 3 as much. I'm currently pretty bored with the inferno difficulty level. My options is to keep farming gold until I can afford something strong enough on the auction house to carry me further. Really frustrating. Before I could just farm and eventually get myself an awesome piece of gear and use that for progression.
- parfe 14y ago
  I think a lot of people dissatisfied with D3 are forgetting they were 12 years younger when Diablo 2 was released. That's a long time for your tastes to change. Everyone who played Diablo 2 as a child is now an adult.
  - waterlesscloud 14y ago
    Which is fine, except I still play through D2 every year or so.
    - freehunter 14y ago
      Nostalgia is an awful beast. I still play Perfect Dark quite often with my friends, friends who used to play the game as well. When I show it to new friend, they hate it. As well as they should, it's an awful game by todays standards. But we all still love it.
      - aw3c2 14y ago
        if it was a good game back then, it should still be a good game today. game mechanics really did not change much.
        freehunter 14y ago
        Controls, graphics, and UI are massively improved these days. Let's face it, the late 90's and early 00's were not the heyday of great 3D graphics, and the N64 controller was something you got used to dealing with rather than something you would pick from a lineup. [1] This looks pretty rough, and coupled with the N64's controller not being ideal for FPS, it's pretty much unplayable if you didn't play back then. [1] http://i.imgur.com/0QCcu.jpg http://i.imgur.com/0QCcu.jpg
archgrove 14y ago
Whilst I'm not qualified to comment on the science, I can certainly agree with the conclusion. In Diablo 2, the hunt for loot was part of feeling the "hero" - keep digging for treasure, keep dismembering those skeletons; somewhere, there's that Epic Item with which you can win the day! I've played Diablo 3 through to "Hell" difficulty, and I've not been using my own looted gear since the middle of the "Normal" mode - there's just no competition between drops, and what you can buy on the AH for very little money. The "sensible" play style is just to farm gold, and buy AH kit. Found an item? Sell it for gold (or, very occasionally, AH) - don't use it! It's hard to feel like a hero when you're popping off to Macy's every few hours to grab a new +1 Sword of Wounding. Your quest to save the world - sponsored by Nike?
- RegEx 14y ago
  I agree 100% in regards to the Auction House. Me and a buddy are in the middle of Nightmare difficulty, and we hadn't taken a look at the AH yet. Upon visiting the AH, we realized just how bad our gear was, and we managed to cheaply replace almost every piece of armor having stats magnitudes better. Also, the boss fights are extremely disappointing. I fear the only rush I'll get out of the game is rolling a Hardcore character.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
    - RegEx 14y ago
      That's good to know! I know the nature of Diablo3 is somewhat mindless, but I want to have to pay attention every now and then.
      - julsonl 14y ago
        I accidentally deleted my post, but what I was trying to say previously (in which the parent replied to), was that higher difficulties require thinking, like dodging an Arcane sentry, or moving away from molten/plague pools. Adding to that, I play a monk in Inferno, and I adopted a "guardian" role during group play: dashing and knocking back enemies attacking our glass cannons, healing our tank, breaking CC using serenity (when fighting "Frozen" bosses) and maintaining damage reduction debuffs and buffs, all while making sure that my spirit levels get replenished (or else I'm useless). There's a whole lot more into the game than just gearing up and bashing skulls.
darklajid 14y ago
I recently wanted to impulse buy Diablo 3. After seeing a price of 60 USD and clicking order I needed to login to my battle.net account. Which set my country to Germany and the price to 60 EUR. Updating my residence? I just need to send in a government issued id and, if that doesn't include an address, a recent utility bill.. Want to delete a battle.net account? It seems the only way is calling a hotline of some sorts. I'd bet they ask for similar bullshit. Yes, I enjoy Diablo 2 more. The braindead way Blizzard treats me excludes any new version as mere option. Ignoring all the always online idiocy.
atomical 14y ago
How would others rank the story line of Diable 3? I loved the story line of Dungeon Siege when I was younger but I haven't found a modern replacement.
- cldrope 14y ago
  It breaks the rest of the storyline. To be brief, the ending of D1 and D2 were ominous, at best. D2's ending left off with doing something so horrible and crazy that no one knew the full consequences. D3's story favors the archangel Tyreal over humans or the heroes really. The ending is some unicorn pooping rainbows where in Disney fashion as soon as the bigger baddy is defeated by the hero, the angel steps in for a "finishing" blow on the downed enemy, proclaims himself wise, the area is magically repaired of all damage. What follows (the falling) is the single stupidest way to end it, ignoring the consequences of it in favor of a symbolic ending.
  - intended 14y ago
    Honestly I am far happier with this ending, than the typical warcraft - Your heroes today will be your failed villains of tomorrow. Almost every character at some point in the timeline, has their moral compass turned 180. At least here there was hopefully an unambiguous disney ending for once. I'd give them time, they have lots of scope to improve on the story line (levels 60-70, 70-80 and 80-90 I'm sure.)
    - cldrope 14y ago
      That blood trickle from customers while they FIX the experience is a BAD thing. There was already far too much missing from the game as promised. But to deliver an obviously incomplete game (lvl 60 cap, no PVP, still no RMAH despite the strategy needed to make it viable ruining parts of the game).
      - intended 14y ago
        Blizzard 2.0 for you. Over optimized.
tastive 14y ago
tl;dr -- everything changes on Inferno, so scroll down and read only that part if you're in a tl;dr sort of mood. I apologize for any typos/grammatical mistakes; I should probably get back to work, and that guilt is enough to prevent me from proofreading this super carefully. -- So, I sort of agree with the linked post, but I feel it doesn't apply to the game as a whole, rather only to certain sections and to certain demographics. I'll explain by digging into the presence/shape of the reward and frustration loops (which can co-exist, imo!) for each difficulty level both with and without use of the Auction House. On Normal: The game is never very hard. As a result, the frustration loop is non-existent for both AHers and non-AHers. Players using the AH and players not using the AH are pretty much in the same boat, though decent items are inexpensive enough in this level range (1-30) that a player can pretty easily flatten the reward loop entirely (and thus never find anything truly useful to him/her) by purchasing new "good" gear every few levels that's very likely to blow away anything they're going to find. tl;dr: on Normal, the AH serves only to destroy the reward loop (and removes all challenge from the game as well). On Nightmare: The game begins to get more difficult; you realize things are a bit more serious the first time you see an elite pack with potently synergetic affixes. The increased challenge does not frustrate most players, and for these players the game (as well as the effects the Auction House has on rewards/frustration) is the same as on Normal. For inexperienced players, however, the effects explained in the OP's post begin to manifest themselves. The game gets tough in some places, and the AH can alleviate this pain at very affordable prices. Using the AH creates a frustration loop because buying cheap, relatively powerful gear is easier than learning to play better, and as such the idea becomes to "out-gear" rather than "out-think" challenges. This dampens the peaks of the reward loop significantly for AH users. Nightmare is very doable without using the AH, and as such many users are unaffected and the game still feels a lot like Diablo II. As of Hell, D3 becomes much, much harder. Elite packs with deadly affix sets become common and characters can be killed very quickly at times whether or not they're prepared for what's coming. Hell, I think, is the part of D3 that is most negatively impacted by the Auction House. Hell is completable without using the AH, but it's hard enough/some parts are frustrating enough that many people will use the AH to augment their gear before finishing it (and will likely do so several times). Hell difficulty, IMO, is where the linked post really shines, and I think everything in the OP's article really describes this very well. Lots of people will use the AH to complete Hell, and as a result will experience the frustration loop and lack of a reward loop described in the post. Since the gear necessary to complete Hell is very affordable still, players can buy their way out of difficult situations and power through without the addiction that comes along with finding awesome stuff every so often. If you've read this far, thanks! This is where the game changes. On Inferno, the linked post doesn't apply. Starting with Act II, Inferno becomes incredibly difficult to the point where characters just "playing through" and even characters who have been farming (collecting gold and new items) for awhile in Act I are eliminated by foes instantly and frequently. Inferno is nigh-impossible (yes, some people have finished it, but the vast majority won't for awhile if at all) as it is intended to be and the absolute best gear is needed to progress without major pain. This gear is very, very expensive, and most players won't be able to afford it. I don't have statistics to back this up (yet?), but imagine that gear quality follows a power law distribution in which there is a ton of crap and only very infrequently do the wonderful things pop up. The wonderful things are needed to progress on Inferno, so the demand for them is very high, higher even than it'd be if Inferno could be reasonably completed without them. The game is now different. Instead of being able to smoothly purchase the items you need as you go, there is a brick wall in front of you that says you must be THIS TALL to ride, and you're only half this tall. So how do you get THIS TALL? You farm. You farm and farm and farm. The game becomes about total equippable assets. Say a suitable item for a given slot costs 1 million gold; 2x rings, 1x amulet, 1x chest, 1x helm, 1x boots, 1x pants, 1x weapon (2h for sake of example), 1x belt, 1x gloves, 1x shoulders = 11 items = 11 million gold. You don't need to find or trade for 11 suitable items; you just need to be able to purchase them. You feed the power law curve of crap on the Auction House by selling everything you think will sell for a reasonable price so that you can buy the super-expensive items you need to progress. Here's the kicker: this means that the presence of the AH doesn't actually dilute the reward cycle! The inability to trivially purchase everything you need means that the items you find have full meaning. Even if you can't wear the good ones, you'll sell them or give them to friends who need them, building up gold and friend-goodwill s.t. they'll give you things they find as well. In short, the incredibly high bar set by Inferno combined with the rarity of the items needed to progress through Inferno balances with the effects of the AH in cheapening the reward loop, restoring the feel of Diablo IIness. For those wondering about the Inferno frustration loop, I argue that the presence of the AH doesn't change it. Were it not for the AH, Blizzard would still find a difficulty bar befitting their highest difficulty. (It would likely be easier to compensate for having no AH -- or perhaps good rare items would drop more frequently -- but the difficulty would likely not change substantially.) In both cases, the very rare amazing finds are what pushes the player toward progression; in the AH case, the few major item find successes give the player the gold he needs to move on; in the non-AH case, the few major item finds are what you actually use. The reward loops then are awfully similar if not the same (hence the feeling of Diablo IIness). -- To sum up: for players who use the Auction House whenever it's in their best interest to do so before Inferno, yes, I agree with the linked post. The game is cheapened, the reward loop doesn't feel as good or doesn't exist, and a lot of the challenge is removed. This does, however, allow Blizzard to make the game more difficult for players looking for a challenge (as not using the AH through Hell is pretty tough!) while still making it possible for less experienced players (via using the AH). Perhaps that's part of their design, and they should have made it more obvious (like a recommendation not to use it for experienced players until later, etc).
fragsworth 14y ago
> Diablo 3 has no real reward loop – there is only a frustration loop, which can be temporarily alleviated by using the Auction House. This is completely wrong, there is a very powerful reward loop. Whenever you find an item that you can sell at the auction house - that's a reward. It's arguably as good as it is in Diablo 2. I think the real reason why Diablo 3 is less addictive than Diablo 2 is simply because the folks who played Diablo 2 are now 12 years older. There's something about getting older that makes you less prone to being addicted to games.
- cldrope 14y ago
  I disagree with the reward loop you perceive, as #1 Finding loot that you sell doesn't directly increase your avatar strength. Case in point? Find an axe, equip it and now you're plowing through enemies with greater ease. Feels good. Find an axe, POST it on the AH and walk away. The loop doesn't include detached events. Someone's mentioned 12 years old or 12 years older now several times. I'm sorry but this simply does not apply. Diablo 2 is so incredibly popular NOT because people played it back then and are returning now, but because of the SHEER mass of people that continued to play it for 5+ years. So even by the norm of sales you're looking at people merely 5-6 years away, not including that some of the most vocal people STILL PLAY IT. I was playing through the last two ladder resets, one of them just a few weeks prior to D3 launch. The biggest problems aren't caught by people who have nostalgia goggles on, they're caught by the people who still played it regularly (off and on over the years.
  - crag 14y ago
    "I disagree with the reward loop you perceive, as #1 Finding loot that you sell doesn't directly increase your avatar strength" Not to mention most of the items you find (even rare items) are vendor trash not worth selling on the AH. And crafting is just terrible in this game.
  - zobzu 14y ago
    plus you gotta go price matching on AH before selling, all this takes 5-10min which is utterly annoying, specially that the item browser ain't the best.
MSM 14y ago
I think one of the big things that comes to mind is something I remember reading with competitive games like Counter Strike and Starcraft- the games where if you are doing poorly against the competition you're not enjoying yourself at all. The sentiment was "There is a large portion of gamers that do not enjoy playing games, they enjoy winning games." I think this translates to Diablo 3 very well- everyone was perfectly happy farming Diablo or Baal (previous "final" bosses), yet no one seems to enjoy farming Act 1 or Act 2 inferno. It's the exact same thing, but I believe people are not enjoying it because they are unable to beat the game. I see a lot of talk about how it's impossible to beat the game just by grinding, and you have to play the AH to get gear from the people that have already beaten the game but it's important to remember that there were people that beat the game for the first time. These people didn't have people to purchase the best stuff of off because they were the furthest of anyone in the world. Similarly, there are people progressing (albeit slowly) through inferno hardcore where there are probably less than ~100 people in the world. There's very little gear on the market and there are still people progressing by farming gear themselves.
okamiueru 14y ago
The original article put "scientific" in quotes. I suggest this title should've kept it, because there is nothing scientific about it. Stating a hypothesis doesn't make it science. It might make for an interesting read though.
b0rsuk 14y ago
A comment by Tei from Rock Paper Shotgun forums: Diablo3 is not PvE or PvP, it is PvAH. It's funny. Laugh.
Lewisham 14y ago
While I think you're getting there, I think there's a better explanation: variable reward schedules (eg. slot machines). More of Schultz's work looks at this [1]. Basically, a reward of 50% of the time is far more addictive for Julio and his pals than 100% (eg. the Staff of Beatings only drops 50% from The Butcher). Diablo 2 uses a traditional variable reward schedule for its loot system, as seen in most other RPGs. Diablo 3 uses gold (stick with me). You need gold to get the items the game requires you to have from the AH, and you're mostly burning the loot you find in-game for gold on the AH or other mats. This means that you're working on a small, 100% drip feed, which you eventually cash out in a predictable fashion. Not as addictive! I don't agree with your assertion of a frustration loop being different. Diablo 2 could be just as frustrating if loot you needed didn't drop in time. One thing I think Blizzard has done very poorly is that AH transactions do not provide instant gratification, but take up to 48 hours to process(!). This means if you are in a rut, you'll have two days stuck in it, and perhaps just break the habit and leave altogether. [1]: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/299/5614/1898.full http://www.sciencemag.org/content/299/5614/1898.full
- alex_c 14y ago
  That is a great explanation, thank you. I think it's what I was really aiming for, but didn't quite get there.
- apike 14y ago
  > AH transactions do not provide instant gratification, but take up to 48 hours to process(!) Because of this, most Auction House transactions completed are buyouts. Bidding on almost-expired items happens, but most people (especially under max level) are only buying items.
  - Lewisham 14y ago
    This is even for buyouts as far as I know: https://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5270832522 https://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5270832522 My buyout on Sunday still hasn't posted today.
    - 14y ago
pwthornton 14y ago
So, for those of us who haven't purchased Diablo 3 yet, is it worth it?
- julsonl 14y ago
  I think it still is, especially if you have friends to play it with. With all the vitriol with regards to Inferno being a grind-fest in order to progress, I do think it is a more of a thinking game compared to Diablo 2, with classes being able to adopt roles in a group with ease. The higher difficulties (especially true with Inferno) are much more fun in a group setting and there's a lot of strategy involved in coordinating roles and load-outs between your party members. There's a whole lot of strategy involved than most people think.
- d3throwaway 14y ago
  It is actually fun from 1 to 60 if you avoid the AH (though near the end of Hell you might need to). Replayability is totally down from Diablo 2 though.
  - cldrope 14y ago
    I found your other post to focus on the wrong aspects of D3, but this one is right on. It's pretty fun 1-60, especially with a friend. As soon as you play a bit longer you quickly realize that most people just quit trying to loot in regular intervals to use the AH. They only pick up gear to sell to merchants. Before I was even hacked I realized the replayability wasn't there and donated for a beta invite to Path of Exile.
    - d3throwaway 14y ago
      Yeah, I think D3 nailed the social aspect of leveling. I only had one friend playing the game, but I ended playing regularly with over 10 other people that I just met in game randomly.
- guard-of-terra 14y ago
  It is addictive if you do hardcore (multiplayer, with AH). Anyway, it's wonderful, check it out and see for yourself.
Arelius 14y ago
Ok, you can't put a bunch of graphs on something and call it a scientific explanation, While the reasoning is decent, there is no data backing up any of these assertions, it hardly seems "scientific" in nature.
guard-of-terra 14y ago
Diablo III is a wonderful game and anybody who claims otherwise is probably a combination of: - Whiner who likes whining more than playing games. - Bad genre match: go play your mindless Max Payne or Counter Strike, we won't possibly feel any worse without you. - Not really remembering Diablo II downsides that were fixed in Diablo III. Having idealized past and snarky today. Of course you have to play on hardcore. AH makes single player softcore much less fun; multiplayer softcore a bit less fun (it was possible to trade even in Diablo II); and hardcore becomes a lot more fun. Because seriously. Now, Diablo II had a lot of problems of its own that I'm glad are fixed in Diablo III. A clear improvement. Come on! Meph running without maphack is NOT fun! Throwing out every magic and rare item is NOT fun! Ignoring every non-mandatory dungeon because the only good drop is from bosses is NOT fun! Skipping acts 1 & 2 because good exp only comes in 4&5 is NOT fun! Running thru huge levels killing monsters with lots of health but little scare factor is NOT fun! First scene in act 5, where very good exp could be made but no scary monsters or interesting drop - a definition of boredom! We loved Diablo II, but now we love Diablo III, so please ignore the whiners and give it a try! Hardcore.
- Freestyler_3 14y ago
  GL on hardcore inferno act 3 So many mops that jump or do quick long range attacks. Not to mention elite packs. Takes just too much time to be a considerable challenge. I know its about farming gear on hardcore... but the chance of rolling perfect stats that you need.... slim.
  - guard-of-terra 14y ago
    You don't play hardcore to never die.
d3throwaway 14y ago
As both a scientist and avid Diablo 2 player, this blog post is laughable in its superficiality and its claims. TL;DR: Diablo 3 was WoWified: broke itemization and skill builds, and thus replayability. In D3, finding a rare item is "ID, does it have those stats? Yes: keep, No: salvage". Brainless. In D2, finding a rare item is "ID, weird combination of stats, but I don't think anyone wants this so I'll throw it away, go to d2jsp and find some absurdly rich player wanting that ridiculous combination and kicking yourself for vendoring it". -- Background: thousands of hours manually farming and botting Diablo 2 since vanilla release, equivalent time spent trading/on d2jsp (most of this will refer to 1.09 since that is most fresh in my mind). Also lvl 60 demon hunter in Diablo 3 Inferno Act 3. Please don't argue that D2 was just as broken on release. The D3 team had YEARS of experience to look back on. -- 1) D2 was all about plowing through monsters. If you were underleveled or undergeared, bosses should be somewhat difficult. If you were reasonably prepared, bosses should be fairly easy. If you even had decent gear, bosses should be a joke. D3, on the other hand, treats everything like a WoW raid. Hours of grinding to prepare for a fight, min-maxing forcing everyone into a single class or build (energy armor wizard or PMS demon hunter?), and even then, the fights are difficult( vs champions/elites). Why is this important? Because D2 was so "easy", many many skill builds were viable. Wanted to roll a melee sorc? Go ahead. Fishymancer ( = pet wd in d3)? Works. Throwing barb? Surprisingly strong. Thorns + fire aura pally? Too good. The proliferation of crazy builds is important, as it makes a MUCH larger proportion of items valuable. This will tie in with the next point. -- 2) D3 itemization is broken. First, there are very, very few item stats that are important. Weapon DPS, main stat, vitality, resist all. Maybe atk speed, crit, crit dmg, move speed. Everything else is garbage. Health globe radius, seriously? What made many D2 builds viable was the much larger variety of item effects, as well as lack of dependence on stats. Life tap wands made smiters useful, enigma was good for everyone, infinity runeward allowed lightning sorcs and javazons to fight lightning immune, etc. -- 3) Rare items. The above 2 problems, when taken together, kill the D3 end-game. D2 was all about making a MF build, getting some money, then making a bunch of crazy characters, either min-maxing MF or PVP or Baal runs or something, but there was a ton of variety in what you could do. End game economy revolved around rare items. In D3, finding a rare item is "ID, does it have those stats? Yes: keep, No: salvage". Brainless. In D2, finding a rare item is "ID, weird combination of stats, but I don't think anyone wants this so I'll throw it away, go to d2jsp and find some absurdly rich player wanting that ridiculous combination and kicking yourself for vendoring it". This means that botting was difficult, because the really big $$ items are ones you wouldn't even recognize, and stash size was a limitation. -- Anyways, that's why I stopped playing D3. I really don't think they can fix these problems without very large patches, which seems unlikely coming from actiblizzard.
loeschg 14y ago
Could a reason for disappointment/changed degree of addiction have something to do with varied expectations over a course of time? Diablo II launched back in 2000, right? Not to say that game wasn't played years after, but I'm just thinking my opinion of a game like Diablo would have been quite a bit different that many years ago.
sneak 14y ago
While we're on the topic of Blizzard and wasting time - are there any HNers that enjoy a game of StarCraft2 from time to time? Get in touch!
- muyyatin 14y ago
  Any chance you have a NA account?
- aerique 14y ago
  I do although I'm barely dipping into Silver. Also I'm on the EU server. Perhaps something for an "Ask HN" or an in-game channel? I'll go sit in a "HackerNews" channel when I'm online.
gridspy 14y ago
A friend of mine is making a competing game, Path of Exile. According to some, it's more of a D2 sequel in spirit than D3 is. Darker setting, more emphasis on skill and action play, etc. The goal when making PoE was to create a game where the item economy was really strong. There is no gold in PoE. Instead you have currency items (see http://www.pathofexile.com/news/dev-diary/ http://www.pathofexile.com/news/dev-diary/). All of the shops are horrible for trade, offering tiny amounts for even great items. If you really want something good, you have to trade for it directly with other players or find it yourself. It is a far more addictive game than either D2 or D3 because a greater range of interesting, random things happen. PoE also has some great mechanics, for instance flasks (health / mana) are items that last for a long time - they use charges when you drink them and recharge as you fight. They can be magical and unique. Also, the skill tree offers a far greater range of choice. Definitely worth checking out.
- intended 14y ago
  I played PoE on the beta weekends and its been on my radar for a while, along with firefall (the beta for that is pretty good too) PoE was great fun playing, and the fact that builds can go in any direction is definitely a huge plus point. After seeing some of the ideas from D3, I'm quite hopeful that PoE will be a solid competitor in this area. With Torchlight 2 coming out as well, its going to be very crowded in this niche of the gaming arena.
- dkersten 14y ago
  That game looks amazing! Can't wait to play it. Already been passing the website to friends :)
  - gridspy 14y ago
    You can donate to get access to the closed beta - https://www.pathofexile.com/purchase https://www.pathofexile.com/purchase
    - dkersten 14y ago
      I noticed - awesome. Definitely plan to pick up a copy next week. After reading through the site and the forums, it really does sound like a great game and the graphics are beautiful too. I especially like how they replaced gold with currency items that actually have value and the dev diary post[1] about the logic behind doing so shows that they've carefully thought it through. I think this game has a real chance to being what Diablo 2 fans (myself included) have been waiting for! Now to finish a ton of work so I have time to play... [1] http://www.pathofexile.com/news/dev-diary/ http://www.pathofexile.com/news/dev-diary/
chrischen 14y ago
I think the main problem is their flawed auction house design. Prices for weapons, armor, and gems will keep dropping to lower and lower prices as long as you aren't in the first wave of players. There's nothing to stop that price drop since demand for items will decrease over time AND supply will increase. An example of the bad design is in the fact that constructing a gem in the game (which takes mutiple lower quality gems you have to find) costs more money than to just buy it from another player. And it will only get cheaper.
- slurgfest 14y ago
  I don't know, it seems like the options for fixing this are limited. As more of anything spawns, the market supply increases. Everyone would cry if they couldn't farm monsters for good stuff like gems. So at higher levels, great gems are spawning, and then they are going on the market, increasing supply and driving the price toward zero. You could make gems decay in storage to take them out of circulation, but everyone will cry. You could make gems into very fragile/limited-use items, but everyone will cry. You could increase the work required to generate gems, now they will not be accessible to anyone except by buying from Chinese gold farmers or working Diablo like a job. All you can do is forbid any kind of selling of gems (or whatever). But then the entire market is the black market and again the game is run by people who are using automation to produce items to sell for cash. So you actually have to prevent transfer of ownership altogether... but nobody suggests that because it doesn't sound like any fun. And anyway, even if you do that you will still have people paying for someone else to level up their character and get goodies.
laserDinosaur 14y ago
I thought Diablo 2 was nowhere near as addictive as Diablo 1 shrugs.
- brazzy 14y ago
  And Diablo 1 was nowhere near as addictive as Angband. Which I'm playing right now on my Android phone...
  - laserDinosaur 14y ago
    And now I'm addicted to Angband. >:(
    - brazzy 14y ago
      Mission accomplished!
Jare 14y ago
I have only played D3 in normal, not touched the AH at all, and definitely felt the lack of addiction and excitement. Putting aside that me and my life are very different now than back in D2 times, there's a very visible issue for me: all loot is just a collection of variations on the same few numbers. A piece of gear can be good, it may have a great combination of the right stats for my char, but it's not special, it's not memorable, it's not unique. I like it but I don't love it.
lukev 14y ago
How I avoid this problem (and enjoy D3, very much): 1. Play hardcore. This instantly transforms the entire point of the game from "get the best gear" to "stay alive", though of course awesome gear is still fun because it helps you stay alive, and squish monsters faster. 2. Don't use the Auction House. Sure, this means I won't be competitive (level for level) with players who do, and I probably won't ever be able to play Inferno, but I play mostly single player or with friends who use similar rules. A lot of people do seem to love the gear grind of D2, and that's fine for them, but I'd much rather play it in the vein of a classic roguelike.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
ShardPhoenix 14y ago
Diablo 3 has some issues (mainly rareness and badness of legendary items and excessive difficulty/frustration in Inferno), but I've still found it the most fun game I've played in quite a while. The most important part of the game - skills and combat - is really excellent.
spullara 14y ago
As someone that never played Diablo 2, I find this to be very accurate. Skyrim was much more enjoyable and habit forming.
b0rsuk 14y ago
The game's user score on Metacritic wouldn't be so binary if it wasn't for the fact that the game is called 'Diablo'. The name invites certain expectation. If they had the sense (and confidence in their abilities) to call it something else, at worst they would be getting "Meh.", "I played it, finished it, and moved on. A decent game I guess.", "Nice, but nothing special." One thing that particularly annoys me is that Diablo 3 developers are in denial about the game even being different. They are either in denial or they're cynically lying. Check out this thread, a guy responds to Jay Wilson's sentences point by point. Highly recommended ! http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5638007856?page=1 http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5638007856?page=1
- zarify 14y ago
  I think the OP in that thread is a mix of rose coloured glasses and sour grapes (sour grape coloured glasses?). The rebuffs are mostly of the "D3 does just what D2 did despite what you said!" variety. About the only thing that I felt was pretty valid was the invasiveness of the story, partly through the fluff conversations of hirelings but mainly through all the boss cutscenes. If the cutscenes didn't play after the first time you'd seen them I'd be a lot happier. At the same time I like the story and it's one of the things I've enjoyed most in just about all of Blizzard's games, this being no exception. (While I like the fact I can find things to improve my character on the auction house, the fact that I need to because I find a very small number of upgrades makes me sad.)

222 points by alex_c 14y ago

Great theory and great reference study to back it up.

The "enjoyment graphs" might explain why I like D3 more than D2, despite the fact that according to many in the D3 forums it is a horrible game. I played D2 back when I was a college student, so I had the time to spend in those long troughs between finding awesome items. Well, I didn't actually play D2 that much because I didn't find it fun -- and perhaps this article explains why. But for the people who want D3 to have the same addictive feel of D2, I speculate that part of it has to do with being able to commit a lot of time to get those rare spikes of joy upon getting a fantastic drop. All the serious D2 gamers knew all of the best items and finding them was a big part of the game for them (or perhaps it WAS the game?) For me, I'd rather have a game where the combat is fun, and that's where I think D3 is a huge improvement upon D2. Blizzard's own stats show that people are playing with a wide variety of skills. That's a lot different than D2, where many skills were useless, there were only a handful of worthwhile builds, and everybody lusted after the same items. At first I didn't understand why a randomly generated magic item could be better than a "legendary" item, but now it makes sense. If a person gets a legendary item, they know they've gotten something that will be good for most players, but it won't be the best. As such, people still have the ability to grow and get better items instead of thinking, "Well, I've gotten Sword of Awesome, no need to do anything more." To me, that makes the game more interesting, and it enhances replayability for when I sign on and play with friends. I guess things might be different for people who only play alone, though. I'm sure the Auction House plays a big role in all of this, and many want to ascribe "evil" motives to Blizzard. Certainly the item economy will take time for them to fully understand. But even if there wasn't an AH, I think that the way they went with items (and the way skills play off of them) was the right choice for creating a game that is consistently fun. At least until Inferno -- which was meant to be ridiculous anyways!

runevault 14y ago
The skill thing isn't a very fair comparison, since you were skill locked and couldn't respec which left you having to build to the small subset of builds that could work all the way through hell. Now you can consider what you expect to work with what you are about to encounter and build towards that, making niche skills viable.
- cldrope 14y ago
  I think that D2 needed to better balance the niche skills, but D3 drops the ball with the rune system. It really doesn't go far to push samey builds, and despite Blizzard's deceptively generic statements from my experience I have a hard time believing that people are doing much of anything. It was posed that Inferno's secondary purpose was to find and see the broken builds as they arose via people rocketing through this near-cheaply difficult mode.
alanfalcon 14y ago
Interesting perspective! I agree that the article leaves out multiplayer which represents a huge source of fun. Plus, one thing you can more easily do with a group of friends is agree to skip the AH on those particular characters, relying on drops alone, which makes item drops rewarding again. With enough players you get a decent chance that one of you will find a nice fist weapon or Wizard hat and be able to share that with the monk or Wizard in your party and have it be an upgrade.
- watty 14y ago
  Sounds like a great idea but what about solo players? I believe many are upset that blizzard stated drops were altered due to AH considerations. Basically, you need to use the AH or you'll die of boredom - and it was designed this way. The best solution would be a mode with higher drop rates and no access to the AH (only trading). This would have lowered AH usage and cost Blizz $$.
alex_c 14y ago
That's a good point. I was originally disappointed with the item system in Diablo 3, but I quickly realized it doesn't matter as much as I would have expected. The core gameplay feels a lot more solid and fun than in Diablo 2, and that's what makes me think the game will be successful in the long term. Itemization and difficulty can and will be tweaked after release, but it's much harder to fix the gameplay if it isn't fun. However, I stand by my argument about the game's addictiveness (in the literal sense) in its current form. Many will see this as a good thing :)

f0r 14y ago

How is this scientific? All I see is a lot of speculation with no experimentation/testing. Vague similarities to another study don't cut it - we are not monkeys, and the monkeys weren't playing D2/D3. He's just assumed the premise that D3 is less addictive than D2, and the rest is an argument made to fit this assumption. I'm not saying he's wrong, just saying that this is bad science.

watty 14y ago
Agreed. Good loot still drops (look at AH), I'm using 3 pieces found myself. I've also found multiple drops worth 1M+ gold, which is also exciting. Maybe the loop is slightly longer than D2 but that doesn't make it non-existent. Anyone can draw a graph.
alex_c 14y ago
But... but... it has graphs! The "scientific" part was pretty tongue-in-cheek given all the handwaving I do, I obviously didn't hook up electrodes to anyone's brain while they're playing (although that would be fascinating). I'll edit the blog title to put it in quotes, can't edit the submission title though.
- scott_s 14y ago
  Give yourself some credit: you have a testable hypothesis. We could conceivably monitor the brain activity of Diablo 2 and 3 players and see if they match your predicted behavior. That we could either confirm or contradict your hypothesis means that we could actually provide support or falsify your theory.
  - slurgfest 14y ago
    OK, so suppose you measure metabolic activity in (say) nucleus accumbens, with pretty sensitive equipment, for a number of different players (experienced or naive? D2 vets or not?) as they somehow play this commercial computer game with their heads stabilized, for not very long periods of time. You aggregate the data across individuals, losing a ton of information. Now what is the hypothesis - that D2 will drive significantly more metabolic activity than D3, because some blogger thinks that it is a better game? This would tell us nothing of any scientific interest whatsoever. (Not to say you couldn't make a poster or even get grants for such rubbish, with the right connections) If there is a testable hypothesis in here, it is so bizarrely specific as to have no practical value nor any value in distinguishing among meaningful theories about how the brain works.

klodolph 14y ago

The complaint here is that inferno (highest) difficulty is not enjoyable in the traditional sense. From what I understand, inferno is not designed do be addictive per se, it's designed do be hard and it's aimed at people who want to play hard games. I believe (but have no good citations / evidence for) that there's another system in the brain for rewarding behavior, one that is based on the satisfaction of accomplishing tasks that are difficult. This other loop may be a little harder to study, I'd imagine that it would be difficult to get most animals to exhibit this loop. Just take a look at a sample of walkthroughs for various games, alongside traditional guides you'll find esoteric ones: guides marked as "low-level", "solo", "pacifist", "naked", etc. There are also play styles such as "ironman". Back in the day, I used to play Diablo ironman with friends. You're not allowed to talk to merchants in town. I played FF6 "low-level", where you don't allow the characters to gain levels: run from any fight you can, but you still have to fight the bosses with a woefully underpowered team. It's tapping into the same reward systems that reward programmers for refactoring code. So I guess my final point is that you can't call something less addictive by analyzing it, since you can only analyze the addiction mechanisms you know about. You have to determine how addictive it is by measuring the behavior of the actual people using it. From a scientific perspective, this article is really a hypothesis.

weixiyen 14y ago
Inferno is not hard. It's simply gear check. If you play Hell Mode with crap gear, it's basically the same as the Inferno encounter.
slurgfest 14y ago
I don't think anybody has ever shown any studies with animals being extra rewarded for achieving difficult tasks. To speculate, that may relate to our social wiring. Not even the dopamine system is exactly and entirely a "reward system," there are multiple pieces carrying out various signal-processing tasks without clean alignment to our intuitive categories. Despite the existence of localization and specialization in the brain, it is not common for any high-level behavior to weigh completely on just one distinct piece of the brain.

jtchang 14y ago

Insightful because I don't seem to enjoy Diablo 3 as much. I'm currently pretty bored with the inferno difficulty level. My options is to keep farming gold until I can afford something strong enough on the auction house to carry me further. Really frustrating. Before I could just farm and eventually get myself an awesome piece of gear and use that for progression.

parfe 14y ago
I think a lot of people dissatisfied with D3 are forgetting they were 12 years younger when Diablo 2 was released. That's a long time for your tastes to change. Everyone who played Diablo 2 as a child is now an adult.
- waterlesscloud 14y ago
  Which is fine, except I still play through D2 every year or so.
  - freehunter 14y ago
    Nostalgia is an awful beast. I still play Perfect Dark quite often with my friends, friends who used to play the game as well. When I show it to new friend, they hate it. As well as they should, it's an awful game by todays standards. But we all still love it.
    - aw3c2 14y ago
      if it was a good game back then, it should still be a good game today. game mechanics really did not change much.
      - freehunter 14y ago
        Controls, graphics, and UI are massively improved these days. Let's face it, the late 90's and early 00's were not the heyday of great 3D graphics, and the N64 controller was something you got used to dealing with rather than something you would pick from a lineup. [1] This looks pretty rough, and coupled with the N64's controller not being ideal for FPS, it's pretty much unplayable if you didn't play back then. [1] http://i.imgur.com/0QCcu.jpg http://i.imgur.com/0QCcu.jpg

archgrove 14y ago

Whilst I'm not qualified to comment on the science, I can certainly agree with the conclusion. In Diablo 2, the hunt for loot was part of feeling the "hero" - keep digging for treasure, keep dismembering those skeletons; somewhere, there's that Epic Item with which you can win the day! I've played Diablo 3 through to "Hell" difficulty, and I've not been using my own looted gear since the middle of the "Normal" mode - there's just no competition between drops, and what you can buy on the AH for very little money. The "sensible" play style is just to farm gold, and buy AH kit. Found an item? Sell it for gold (or, very occasionally, AH) - don't use it! It's hard to feel like a hero when you're popping off to Macy's every few hours to grab a new +1 Sword of Wounding. Your quest to save the world - sponsored by Nike?

RegEx 14y ago
I agree 100% in regards to the Auction House. Me and a buddy are in the middle of Nightmare difficulty, and we hadn't taken a look at the AH yet. Upon visiting the AH, we realized just how bad our gear was, and we managed to cheaply replace almost every piece of armor having stats magnitudes better. Also, the boss fights are extremely disappointing. I fear the only rush I'll get out of the game is rolling a Hardcore character.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
  - RegEx 14y ago
    That's good to know! I know the nature of Diablo3 is somewhat mindless, but I want to have to pay attention every now and then.
    - julsonl 14y ago
      I accidentally deleted my post, but what I was trying to say previously (in which the parent replied to), was that higher difficulties require thinking, like dodging an Arcane sentry, or moving away from molten/plague pools. Adding to that, I play a monk in Inferno, and I adopted a "guardian" role during group play: dashing and knocking back enemies attacking our glass cannons, healing our tank, breaking CC using serenity (when fighting "Frozen" bosses) and maintaining damage reduction debuffs and buffs, all while making sure that my spirit levels get replenished (or else I'm useless). There's a whole lot more into the game than just gearing up and bashing skulls.

darklajid 14y ago

I recently wanted to impulse buy Diablo 3. After seeing a price of 60 USD and clicking order I needed to login to my battle.net account. Which set my country to Germany and the price to 60 EUR. Updating my residence? I just need to send in a government issued id and, if that doesn't include an address, a recent utility bill.. Want to delete a battle.net account? It seems the only way is calling a hotline of some sorts. I'd bet they ask for similar bullshit. Yes, I enjoy Diablo 2 more. The braindead way Blizzard treats me excludes any new version as mere option. Ignoring all the always online idiocy.

atomical 14y ago

How would others rank the story line of Diable 3? I loved the story line of Dungeon Siege when I was younger but I haven't found a modern replacement.

cldrope 14y ago
It breaks the rest of the storyline. To be brief, the ending of D1 and D2 were ominous, at best. D2's ending left off with doing something so horrible and crazy that no one knew the full consequences. D3's story favors the archangel Tyreal over humans or the heroes really. The ending is some unicorn pooping rainbows where in Disney fashion as soon as the bigger baddy is defeated by the hero, the angel steps in for a "finishing" blow on the downed enemy, proclaims himself wise, the area is magically repaired of all damage. What follows (the falling) is the single stupidest way to end it, ignoring the consequences of it in favor of a symbolic ending.
- intended 14y ago
  Honestly I am far happier with this ending, than the typical warcraft - Your heroes today will be your failed villains of tomorrow. Almost every character at some point in the timeline, has their moral compass turned 180. At least here there was hopefully an unambiguous disney ending for once. I'd give them time, they have lots of scope to improve on the story line (levels 60-70, 70-80 and 80-90 I'm sure.)
  - cldrope 14y ago
    That blood trickle from customers while they FIX the experience is a BAD thing. There was already far too much missing from the game as promised. But to deliver an obviously incomplete game (lvl 60 cap, no PVP, still no RMAH despite the strategy needed to make it viable ruining parts of the game).
    - intended 14y ago
      Blizzard 2.0 for you. Over optimized.

tastive 14y ago

tl;dr -- everything changes on Inferno, so scroll down and read only that part if you're in a tl;dr sort of mood. I apologize for any typos/grammatical mistakes; I should probably get back to work, and that guilt is enough to prevent me from proofreading this super carefully. -- So, I sort of agree with the linked post, but I feel it doesn't apply to the game as a whole, rather only to certain sections and to certain demographics. I'll explain by digging into the presence/shape of the reward and frustration loops (which can co-exist, imo!) for each difficulty level both with and without use of the Auction House. On Normal: The game is never very hard. As a result, the frustration loop is non-existent for both AHers and non-AHers. Players using the AH and players not using the AH are pretty much in the same boat, though decent items are inexpensive enough in this level range (1-30) that a player can pretty easily flatten the reward loop entirely (and thus never find anything truly useful to him/her) by purchasing new "good" gear every few levels that's very likely to blow away anything they're going to find. tl;dr: on Normal, the AH serves only to destroy the reward loop (and removes all challenge from the game as well). On Nightmare: The game begins to get more difficult; you realize things are a bit more serious the first time you see an elite pack with potently synergetic affixes. The increased challenge does not frustrate most players, and for these players the game (as well as the effects the Auction House has on rewards/frustration) is the same as on Normal. For inexperienced players, however, the effects explained in the OP's post begin to manifest themselves. The game gets tough in some places, and the AH can alleviate this pain at very affordable prices. Using the AH creates a frustration loop because buying cheap, relatively powerful gear is easier than learning to play better, and as such the idea becomes to "out-gear" rather than "out-think" challenges. This dampens the peaks of the reward loop significantly for AH users. Nightmare is very doable without using the AH, and as such many users are unaffected and the game still feels a lot like Diablo II. As of Hell, D3 becomes much, much harder. Elite packs with deadly affix sets become common and characters can be killed very quickly at times whether or not they're prepared for what's coming. Hell, I think, is the part of D3 that is most negatively impacted by the Auction House. Hell is completable without using the AH, but it's hard enough/some parts are frustrating enough that many people will use the AH to augment their gear before finishing it (and will likely do so several times). Hell difficulty, IMO, is where the linked post really shines, and I think everything in the OP's article really describes this very well. Lots of people will use the AH to complete Hell, and as a result will experience the frustration loop and lack of a reward loop described in the post. Since the gear necessary to complete Hell is very affordable still, players can buy their way out of difficult situations and power through without the addiction that comes along with finding awesome stuff every so often. If you've read this far, thanks! This is where the game changes. On Inferno, the linked post doesn't apply. Starting with Act II, Inferno becomes incredibly difficult to the point where characters just "playing through" and even characters who have been farming (collecting gold and new items) for awhile in Act I are eliminated by foes instantly and frequently. Inferno is nigh-impossible (yes, some people have finished it, but the vast majority won't for awhile if at all) as it is intended to be and the absolute best gear is needed to progress without major pain. This gear is very, very expensive, and most players won't be able to afford it. I don't have statistics to back this up (yet?), but imagine that gear quality follows a power law distribution in which there is a ton of crap and only very infrequently do the wonderful things pop up. The wonderful things are needed to progress on Inferno, so the demand for them is very high, higher even than it'd be if Inferno could be reasonably completed without them. The game is now different. Instead of being able to smoothly purchase the items you need as you go, there is a brick wall in front of you that says you must be THIS TALL to ride, and you're only half this tall. So how do you get THIS TALL? You farm. You farm and farm and farm. The game becomes about total equippable assets. Say a suitable item for a given slot costs 1 million gold; 2x rings, 1x amulet, 1x chest, 1x helm, 1x boots, 1x pants, 1x weapon (2h for sake of example), 1x belt, 1x gloves, 1x shoulders = 11 items = 11 million gold. You don't need to find or trade for 11 suitable items; you just need to be able to purchase them. You feed the power law curve of crap on the Auction House by selling everything you think will sell for a reasonable price so that you can buy the super-expensive items you need to progress. Here's the kicker: this means that the presence of the AH doesn't actually dilute the reward cycle! The inability to trivially purchase everything you need means that the items you find have full meaning. Even if you can't wear the good ones, you'll sell them or give them to friends who need them, building up gold and friend-goodwill s.t. they'll give you things they find as well. In short, the incredibly high bar set by Inferno combined with the rarity of the items needed to progress through Inferno balances with the effects of the AH in cheapening the reward loop, restoring the feel of Diablo IIness. For those wondering about the Inferno frustration loop, I argue that the presence of the AH doesn't change it. Were it not for the AH, Blizzard would still find a difficulty bar befitting their highest difficulty. (It would likely be easier to compensate for having no AH -- or perhaps good rare items would drop more frequently -- but the difficulty would likely not change substantially.) In both cases, the very rare amazing finds are what pushes the player toward progression; in the AH case, the few major item find successes give the player the gold he needs to move on; in the non-AH case, the few major item finds are what you actually use. The reward loops then are awfully similar if not the same (hence the feeling of Diablo IIness). -- To sum up: for players who use the Auction House whenever it's in their best interest to do so before Inferno, yes, I agree with the linked post. The game is cheapened, the reward loop doesn't feel as good or doesn't exist, and a lot of the challenge is removed. This does, however, allow Blizzard to make the game more difficult for players looking for a challenge (as not using the AH through Hell is pretty tough!) while still making it possible for less experienced players (via using the AH). Perhaps that's part of their design, and they should have made it more obvious (like a recommendation not to use it for experienced players until later, etc).

fragsworth 14y ago

> Diablo 3 has no real reward loop – there is only a frustration loop, which can be temporarily alleviated by using the Auction House. This is completely wrong, there is a very powerful reward loop. Whenever you find an item that you can sell at the auction house - that's a reward. It's arguably as good as it is in Diablo 2. I think the real reason why Diablo 3 is less addictive than Diablo 2 is simply because the folks who played Diablo 2 are now 12 years older. There's something about getting older that makes you less prone to being addicted to games.

cldrope 14y ago
I disagree with the reward loop you perceive, as #1 Finding loot that you sell doesn't directly increase your avatar strength. Case in point? Find an axe, equip it and now you're plowing through enemies with greater ease. Feels good. Find an axe, POST it on the AH and walk away. The loop doesn't include detached events. Someone's mentioned 12 years old or 12 years older now several times. I'm sorry but this simply does not apply. Diablo 2 is so incredibly popular NOT because people played it back then and are returning now, but because of the SHEER mass of people that continued to play it for 5+ years. So even by the norm of sales you're looking at people merely 5-6 years away, not including that some of the most vocal people STILL PLAY IT. I was playing through the last two ladder resets, one of them just a few weeks prior to D3 launch. The biggest problems aren't caught by people who have nostalgia goggles on, they're caught by the people who still played it regularly (off and on over the years.
- crag 14y ago
  "I disagree with the reward loop you perceive, as #1 Finding loot that you sell doesn't directly increase your avatar strength" Not to mention most of the items you find (even rare items) are vendor trash not worth selling on the AH. And crafting is just terrible in this game.
- zobzu 14y ago
  plus you gotta go price matching on AH before selling, all this takes 5-10min which is utterly annoying, specially that the item browser ain't the best.

MSM 14y ago

I think one of the big things that comes to mind is something I remember reading with competitive games like Counter Strike and Starcraft- the games where if you are doing poorly against the competition you're not enjoying yourself at all. The sentiment was "There is a large portion of gamers that do not enjoy playing games, they enjoy winning games." I think this translates to Diablo 3 very well- everyone was perfectly happy farming Diablo or Baal (previous "final" bosses), yet no one seems to enjoy farming Act 1 or Act 2 inferno. It's the exact same thing, but I believe people are not enjoying it because they are unable to beat the game. I see a lot of talk about how it's impossible to beat the game just by grinding, and you have to play the AH to get gear from the people that have already beaten the game but it's important to remember that there were people that beat the game for the first time. These people didn't have people to purchase the best stuff of off because they were the furthest of anyone in the world. Similarly, there are people progressing (albeit slowly) through inferno hardcore where there are probably less than ~100 people in the world. There's very little gear on the market and there are still people progressing by farming gear themselves.

okamiueru 14y ago

The original article put "scientific" in quotes. I suggest this title should've kept it, because there is nothing scientific about it. Stating a hypothesis doesn't make it science. It might make for an interesting read though.

b0rsuk 14y ago

A comment by Tei from Rock Paper Shotgun forums: Diablo3 is not PvE or PvP, it is PvAH. It's funny. Laugh.

Lewisham 14y ago

While I think you're getting there, I think there's a better explanation: variable reward schedules (eg. slot machines). More of Schultz's work looks at this [1]. Basically, a reward of 50% of the time is far more addictive for Julio and his pals than 100% (eg. the Staff of Beatings only drops 50% from The Butcher). Diablo 2 uses a traditional variable reward schedule for its loot system, as seen in most other RPGs. Diablo 3 uses gold (stick with me). You need gold to get the items the game requires you to have from the AH, and you're mostly burning the loot you find in-game for gold on the AH or other mats. This means that you're working on a small, 100% drip feed, which you eventually cash out in a predictable fashion. Not as addictive! I don't agree with your assertion of a frustration loop being different. Diablo 2 could be just as frustrating if loot you needed didn't drop in time. One thing I think Blizzard has done very poorly is that AH transactions do not provide instant gratification, but take up to 48 hours to process(!). This means if you are in a rut, you'll have two days stuck in it, and perhaps just break the habit and leave altogether. [1]: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/299/5614/1898.full http://www.sciencemag.org/content/299/5614/1898.full

alex_c 14y ago
That is a great explanation, thank you. I think it's what I was really aiming for, but didn't quite get there.
apike 14y ago
> AH transactions do not provide instant gratification, but take up to 48 hours to process(!) Because of this, most Auction House transactions completed are buyouts. Bidding on almost-expired items happens, but most people (especially under max level) are only buying items.
- Lewisham 14y ago
  This is even for buyouts as far as I know: https://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5270832522 https://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5270832522 My buyout on Sunday still hasn't posted today.
  - 14y ago

pwthornton 14y ago

So, for those of us who haven't purchased Diablo 3 yet, is it worth it?

julsonl 14y ago
I think it still is, especially if you have friends to play it with. With all the vitriol with regards to Inferno being a grind-fest in order to progress, I do think it is a more of a thinking game compared to Diablo 2, with classes being able to adopt roles in a group with ease. The higher difficulties (especially true with Inferno) are much more fun in a group setting and there's a lot of strategy involved in coordinating roles and load-outs between your party members. There's a whole lot of strategy involved than most people think.
d3throwaway 14y ago
It is actually fun from 1 to 60 if you avoid the AH (though near the end of Hell you might need to). Replayability is totally down from Diablo 2 though.
- cldrope 14y ago
  I found your other post to focus on the wrong aspects of D3, but this one is right on. It's pretty fun 1-60, especially with a friend. As soon as you play a bit longer you quickly realize that most people just quit trying to loot in regular intervals to use the AH. They only pick up gear to sell to merchants. Before I was even hacked I realized the replayability wasn't there and donated for a beta invite to Path of Exile.
  - d3throwaway 14y ago
    Yeah, I think D3 nailed the social aspect of leveling. I only had one friend playing the game, but I ended playing regularly with over 10 other people that I just met in game randomly.
guard-of-terra 14y ago
It is addictive if you do hardcore (multiplayer, with AH). Anyway, it's wonderful, check it out and see for yourself.

Arelius 14y ago

Ok, you can't put a bunch of graphs on something and call it a scientific explanation, While the reasoning is decent, there is no data backing up any of these assertions, it hardly seems "scientific" in nature.

guard-of-terra 14y ago

Diablo III is a wonderful game and anybody who claims otherwise is probably a combination of: - Whiner who likes whining more than playing games. - Bad genre match: go play your mindless Max Payne or Counter Strike, we won't possibly feel any worse without you. - Not really remembering Diablo II downsides that were fixed in Diablo III. Having idealized past and snarky today. Of course you have to play on hardcore. AH makes single player softcore much less fun; multiplayer softcore a bit less fun (it was possible to trade even in Diablo II); and hardcore becomes a lot more fun. Because seriously. Now, Diablo II had a lot of problems of its own that I'm glad are fixed in Diablo III. A clear improvement. Come on! Meph running without maphack is NOT fun! Throwing out every magic and rare item is NOT fun! Ignoring every non-mandatory dungeon because the only good drop is from bosses is NOT fun! Skipping acts 1 & 2 because good exp only comes in 4&5 is NOT fun! Running thru huge levels killing monsters with lots of health but little scare factor is NOT fun! First scene in act 5, where very good exp could be made but no scary monsters or interesting drop - a definition of boredom! We loved Diablo II, but now we love Diablo III, so please ignore the whiners and give it a try! Hardcore.

Freestyler_3 14y ago
GL on hardcore inferno act 3 So many mops that jump or do quick long range attacks. Not to mention elite packs. Takes just too much time to be a considerable challenge. I know its about farming gear on hardcore... but the chance of rolling perfect stats that you need.... slim.
- guard-of-terra 14y ago
  You don't play hardcore to never die.

d3throwaway 14y ago

As both a scientist and avid Diablo 2 player, this blog post is laughable in its superficiality and its claims. TL;DR: Diablo 3 was WoWified: broke itemization and skill builds, and thus replayability. In D3, finding a rare item is "ID, does it have those stats? Yes: keep, No: salvage". Brainless. In D2, finding a rare item is "ID, weird combination of stats, but I don't think anyone wants this so I'll throw it away, go to d2jsp and find some absurdly rich player wanting that ridiculous combination and kicking yourself for vendoring it". -- Background: thousands of hours manually farming and botting Diablo 2 since vanilla release, equivalent time spent trading/on d2jsp (most of this will refer to 1.09 since that is most fresh in my mind). Also lvl 60 demon hunter in Diablo 3 Inferno Act 3. Please don't argue that D2 was just as broken on release. The D3 team had YEARS of experience to look back on. -- 1) D2 was all about plowing through monsters. If you were underleveled or undergeared, bosses should be somewhat difficult. If you were reasonably prepared, bosses should be fairly easy. If you even had decent gear, bosses should be a joke. D3, on the other hand, treats everything like a WoW raid. Hours of grinding to prepare for a fight, min-maxing forcing everyone into a single class or build (energy armor wizard or PMS demon hunter?), and even then, the fights are difficult( vs champions/elites). Why is this important? Because D2 was so "easy", many many skill builds were viable. Wanted to roll a melee sorc? Go ahead. Fishymancer ( = pet wd in d3)? Works. Throwing barb? Surprisingly strong. Thorns + fire aura pally? Too good. The proliferation of crazy builds is important, as it makes a MUCH larger proportion of items valuable. This will tie in with the next point. -- 2) D3 itemization is broken. First, there are very, very few item stats that are important. Weapon DPS, main stat, vitality, resist all. Maybe atk speed, crit, crit dmg, move speed. Everything else is garbage. Health globe radius, seriously? What made many D2 builds viable was the much larger variety of item effects, as well as lack of dependence on stats. Life tap wands made smiters useful, enigma was good for everyone, infinity runeward allowed lightning sorcs and javazons to fight lightning immune, etc. -- 3) Rare items. The above 2 problems, when taken together, kill the D3 end-game. D2 was all about making a MF build, getting some money, then making a bunch of crazy characters, either min-maxing MF or PVP or Baal runs or something, but there was a ton of variety in what you could do. End game economy revolved around rare items. In D3, finding a rare item is "ID, does it have those stats? Yes: keep, No: salvage". Brainless. In D2, finding a rare item is "ID, weird combination of stats, but I don't think anyone wants this so I'll throw it away, go to d2jsp and find some absurdly rich player wanting that ridiculous combination and kicking yourself for vendoring it". This means that botting was difficult, because the really big $$ items are ones you wouldn't even recognize, and stash size was a limitation. -- Anyways, that's why I stopped playing D3. I really don't think they can fix these problems without very large patches, which seems unlikely coming from actiblizzard.

loeschg 14y ago

Could a reason for disappointment/changed degree of addiction have something to do with varied expectations over a course of time? Diablo II launched back in 2000, right? Not to say that game wasn't played years after, but I'm just thinking my opinion of a game like Diablo would have been quite a bit different that many years ago.

sneak 14y ago

While we're on the topic of Blizzard and wasting time - are there any HNers that enjoy a game of StarCraft2 from time to time? Get in touch!

muyyatin 14y ago
Any chance you have a NA account?
aerique 14y ago
I do although I'm barely dipping into Silver. Also I'm on the EU server. Perhaps something for an "Ask HN" or an in-game channel? I'll go sit in a "HackerNews" channel when I'm online.

gridspy 14y ago

A friend of mine is making a competing game, Path of Exile. According to some, it's more of a D2 sequel in spirit than D3 is. Darker setting, more emphasis on skill and action play, etc. The goal when making PoE was to create a game where the item economy was really strong. There is no gold in PoE. Instead you have currency items (see http://www.pathofexile.com/news/dev-diary/ http://www.pathofexile.com/news/dev-diary/). All of the shops are horrible for trade, offering tiny amounts for even great items. If you really want something good, you have to trade for it directly with other players or find it yourself. It is a far more addictive game than either D2 or D3 because a greater range of interesting, random things happen. PoE also has some great mechanics, for instance flasks (health / mana) are items that last for a long time - they use charges when you drink them and recharge as you fight. They can be magical and unique. Also, the skill tree offers a far greater range of choice. Definitely worth checking out.

intended 14y ago
I played PoE on the beta weekends and its been on my radar for a while, along with firefall (the beta for that is pretty good too) PoE was great fun playing, and the fact that builds can go in any direction is definitely a huge plus point. After seeing some of the ideas from D3, I'm quite hopeful that PoE will be a solid competitor in this area. With Torchlight 2 coming out as well, its going to be very crowded in this niche of the gaming arena.
dkersten 14y ago
That game looks amazing! Can't wait to play it. Already been passing the website to friends :)
- gridspy 14y ago
  You can donate to get access to the closed beta - https://www.pathofexile.com/purchase https://www.pathofexile.com/purchase
  - dkersten 14y ago
    I noticed - awesome. Definitely plan to pick up a copy next week. After reading through the site and the forums, it really does sound like a great game and the graphics are beautiful too. I especially like how they replaced gold with currency items that actually have value and the dev diary post[1] about the logic behind doing so shows that they've carefully thought it through. I think this game has a real chance to being what Diablo 2 fans (myself included) have been waiting for! Now to finish a ton of work so I have time to play... [1] http://www.pathofexile.com/news/dev-diary/ http://www.pathofexile.com/news/dev-diary/

chrischen 14y ago

I think the main problem is their flawed auction house design. Prices for weapons, armor, and gems will keep dropping to lower and lower prices as long as you aren't in the first wave of players. There's nothing to stop that price drop since demand for items will decrease over time AND supply will increase. An example of the bad design is in the fact that constructing a gem in the game (which takes mutiple lower quality gems you have to find) costs more money than to just buy it from another player. And it will only get cheaper.

slurgfest 14y ago
I don't know, it seems like the options for fixing this are limited. As more of anything spawns, the market supply increases. Everyone would cry if they couldn't farm monsters for good stuff like gems. So at higher levels, great gems are spawning, and then they are going on the market, increasing supply and driving the price toward zero. You could make gems decay in storage to take them out of circulation, but everyone will cry. You could make gems into very fragile/limited-use items, but everyone will cry. You could increase the work required to generate gems, now they will not be accessible to anyone except by buying from Chinese gold farmers or working Diablo like a job. All you can do is forbid any kind of selling of gems (or whatever). But then the entire market is the black market and again the game is run by people who are using automation to produce items to sell for cash. So you actually have to prevent transfer of ownership altogether... but nobody suggests that because it doesn't sound like any fun. And anyway, even if you do that you will still have people paying for someone else to level up their character and get goodies.

laserDinosaur 14y ago

I thought Diablo 2 was nowhere near as addictive as Diablo 1 shrugs.

brazzy 14y ago
And Diablo 1 was nowhere near as addictive as Angband. Which I'm playing right now on my Android phone...
- laserDinosaur 14y ago
  And now I'm addicted to Angband. >:(
  - brazzy 14y ago
    Mission accomplished!

Jare 14y ago

I have only played D3 in normal, not touched the AH at all, and definitely felt the lack of addiction and excitement. Putting aside that me and my life are very different now than back in D2 times, there's a very visible issue for me: all loot is just a collection of variations on the same few numbers. A piece of gear can be good, it may have a great combination of the right stats for my char, but it's not special, it's not memorable, it's not unique. I like it but I don't love it.

lukev 14y ago

How I avoid this problem (and enjoy D3, very much): 1. Play hardcore. This instantly transforms the entire point of the game from "get the best gear" to "stay alive", though of course awesome gear is still fun because it helps you stay alive, and squish monsters faster. 2. Don't use the Auction House. Sure, this means I won't be competitive (level for level) with players who do, and I probably won't ever be able to play Inferno, but I play mostly single player or with friends who use similar rules. A lot of people do seem to love the gear grind of D2, and that's fine for them, but I'd much rather play it in the vein of a classic roguelike.

deleted 14y ago
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ShardPhoenix 14y ago

Diablo 3 has some issues (mainly rareness and badness of legendary items and excessive difficulty/frustration in Inferno), but I've still found it the most fun game I've played in quite a while. The most important part of the game - skills and combat - is really excellent.

spullara 14y ago

As someone that never played Diablo 2, I find this to be very accurate. Skyrim was much more enjoyable and habit forming.

b0rsuk 14y ago

The game's user score on Metacritic wouldn't be so binary if it wasn't for the fact that the game is called 'Diablo'. The name invites certain expectation. If they had the sense (and confidence in their abilities) to call it something else, at worst they would be getting "Meh.", "I played it, finished it, and moved on. A decent game I guess.", "Nice, but nothing special." One thing that particularly annoys me is that Diablo 3 developers are in denial about the game even being different. They are either in denial or they're cynically lying. Check out this thread, a guy responds to Jay Wilson's sentences point by point. Highly recommended ! http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5638007856?page=1 http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5638007856?page=1

zarify 14y ago
I think the OP in that thread is a mix of rose coloured glasses and sour grapes (sour grape coloured glasses?). The rebuffs are mostly of the "D3 does just what D2 did despite what you said!" variety. About the only thing that I felt was pretty valid was the invasiveness of the story, partly through the fluff conversations of hirelings but mainly through all the boss cutscenes. If the cutscenes didn't play after the first time you'd seen them I'd be a lot happier. At the same time I like the story and it's one of the things I've enjoyed most in just about all of Blizzard's games, this being no exception. (While I like the fact I can find things to improve my character on the auction house, the fact that I need to because I find a very small number of upgrades makes me sad.)