Diablo III: Don't Expect It SoonYou may know me as a mild-mannered reporter for IndustryGamers, but I am also a roleplaying game system designer with a number of games to my credit, including fantasy roleplaying games. Which means I am well qualified to analyze the recent post from Jay Wilson at Blizzard concerning system changes for Diablo III. He details a number of smaller changes to the game system that they are making based on feedback from beta testers, but he saves the big one for last: They are changing the core character attributes.
So what, you say. They want to polish Diablo III up before they ship, make it as good as they can. After working for what, 4 years on this game (though it has been 12 years since Diablo II was released, Diablo III was announced in 2008) they might need to take another week or two to sand off a few rough edges.
I'm here to tell you not to expect Diablo III any time real soon. If it does ship in a month it's not likely to be well-balanced. Why? Because they are changing the core character attributes. That means the fundamental basis of the combat algorithms has shifted. The core of the game is the combat, and how character attributes affect combat should be significant. (If it's not, what's the point of having the attributes or character classes?) Diablo III, like earlier games in the series, is based around the idea of vast amounts of magical loot with random assortments of attribute-enhancing abilities and special powers. It's like playing a slot machine, looking for jackpots of rare magical items that improve your character stats. Blizzard is making it even more fun by letting you break down magic items for their parts to build into other items, and by setting up an auction hall where you can sell your items or buy others.
None of this will work right unless the system is balanced. If one character class is clearly stronger than the others, it will be used most of the time and the others will be rarely seen. Or if one character class is weaker than the others, no one will use it. If some challenges in the game depend on the presence of skills or abilities found only in certain classes, and no one plays those classes, the whole game is at risk.
So too with the items. If the attributes aren't balanced, and the items that affect those attributes balanced accordingly, again some character types will be more or less powerful than they should be as items appear. It's all a delicate ecosystem which requires a fine hand to adjust, and it takes time.
I applaud Blizzard's decision to make the system work properly before shipping the game, but making such a fundamental change so late in the process makes me wonder what's been going on for several years. Basic attributes should have been tweaked to death early on. Perhaps new things were introduced that screwed up the balance, but the changes described are so far-reaching that it can't be described as a tweak any more. Is this tied in with the exit of the senior game producer? I wouldn't be surprised. Blizzard has been feeling some heat for not introducing new products in 2011, and expectations have been high that Diablo III would ship early in 2012 after missing 2011. Missing the first quarter of 2012 could certainly affect Activision Blizzard's quarterly numbers, and thus the stock price. That's when executives start looking for someone responsible to take the ultimate responsibility (“resign to pursue other interests”).
For all of you who were looking forward to playing Diablo III in February, you'd better find some other game for February... and maybe March and April, too. This sort of change could easily take months to settle in. Maybe we should be looking for Diablo III as an E3 release...
