Part two of our Diablo 3 conversation with Wyatt Cheng and Josh Mosqueira. Topics include Ironborn mode, Demon Hunter squishiness, Itemization issues and affixes, PvP debate, and much more.
Since we talked a lot about itemization issues and I tried to make the conversation fairly specific, here’s a quote from one portion of that, just to give you a taste of what’s to come:
CC on helms, or CC on bracers or off-hand items, etc. So is the solution to make the mandatory mods more likely to roll, or to make them less effective on the items? Or can the Mystic be part of this and she can add those affixes at the cost of making the item BoA?
Wyatt Cheng: We’ve been reluctant to guarantee stats on items. The reason is that the ultimate end goal is that the designers aren’t hand-crafting good items. If we wanted to we could go in there and make every item roll nothing but the stats that are the most popular today.
Flux: But then that’s boring since everyone has the same gear.
Wyatt Cheng: Yeah. I think the ideal, which we’ll strive towards but may never reach. But the ideal is that the definition of perfect gear is different for every class. And even within the same class since people have different builds.
One thing I think about a lot, is how do we make it so Attack Speed is good for a lot of people, but not for everybody? That’s a tough design problem and we have some ideas, but can we apply that to everyone? Can we make it so that that not every character wants Crit, or Crit damage?
Flux: Not currently, no… but in theory. *laughs*
Wyatt Cheng: *laughs* Right, but that is a better long term angle for the game than saying everybody wants this so let’s give it to them.
Click through for the usual podcast info and a full transcript of part two of this conversation. Part One is here, if you missed it.
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Josh Mosqueira and Wyatt Cheng Interview, Part Two
Continuing right where part one left off, here’s the second half of our interview with Diablo 3 Game Director Josh Mosqueira and Senior Game Developer Wyatt Cheng.
Flux: One question for a clarification about self-found mode, better known as
Ironborn. One point you guys haven’t specifically stated, to the best of my knowledge, is what most fans see as the necessity for Ironborn characters to exist in their own ecology/economy/ecosystem, just as Hardcore characters do. And you can’t have Ironborn characters mixing in games with characters who use the Auction House and who would necessarily have vastly better equipment. You guys mentioned previously an idea that maybe all characters would have some sort of Ironborn tag upon creation, and would lose it once they used the AH.
Wyatt Cheng: It is still something I think is very cool. The whole self-found or Ironborn style of play. I don’t think that Hardcore is in integral part of that experience, but um…
Flux: I don’t mean Ironborn has to be Hardcore, though they could be. But that Ironborn characters need to not mix in with regular characters.
Wyatt Cheng: Ah, so you mean self found characters and non self found characters could not mix in the same game together?
Flux: Yes. That wouldn’t work since they would be so different in their quality of gear. And if you had a friend who was not self found you could just tag along while they blasted through higher MP levels and you’d soak up the gear drops without doing the work.
Wyatt Cheng: Yeah, I think you’d want them segregated.
Flux: Okay, cool. I was just wondering since I hadn’t heard you guys state that specifically, and fans of the idea were wondering.
Josh Mosqueira: Yeah.
Flux: And if it doesn’t happen we can blame you both personally.
Josh Mosqueira: *laughs*
Wyatt Cheng: Yes. The answer is yes, we’re aware that they would need to be kept separate.
Which doesn’t mean they’re going to support Ironborn, of course. Soon or at all. But at least we’re on the same page when it comes to the theory.
Flux: Item binding. I think the mechanic works pretty well. For instance the v1.07 recipes are all Bind of Account and that’s necessary since otherwise those items are all you would ever see in the auction house for shoulders and bracers and such. And it’s a nice gold sink and removes items from circulation. One of the reasons the Hardcore economy is much more fun than the softcore economy is because items leave the economy. Like the ones on my Paragon 61 Monk last month. Not that I’m bitter or anything.
Josh Mosqueira: *pity laugh*
Flux: But in Hardcore items vanish and that drains some value from the economy, where as in Softcore items last forever and you get inevitable mega hyper inflation. And I’m sure you guys are dealing with that all the time in your plannings. Have you thought about more ways to remove gear from the economy? Like items can only be traded a set number of times? Or they lose quality when they’re traded? Or the other side of the coin, is the Mystic comes back and she can charm or socket an item, but once she does it becomes BoA? Are you guys worrying about that aspect of the economy and could item binding be a tool for that?
Wyatt Cheng: Um… yes? Um…
Flux: Okay, next question!
Wyatt Cheng: *laugh* On the topic of the Mystic, we are looking at methods for a Mystic to modify an item. Whether that be adding a property, or allowing you to reroll the stats on a property, or allowing you to roll another property, or you like an item except one of the stats rolled low and you want a shot at getting it higher. WE are looking at that, and I lean towards the idea that you’d want that item to be Soul bound.
As a side note on the topic of anything having to do with limited trades or reduced functionality. I tend not to be in favor of soft limits on those types of things. That’s because if you’re going to have a limit, you might as well put the limit in there. When you have a soft limit… basically it still retains all the problems you had before, while feeling negative to the person who has it.
Flux: And it’s confusing on top of that.
Wyatt Cheng: Yes. It’s a little bit confusing, it’s a UI issue. I feel almost as bad about trading it once, except now I get to trade it twice. And at the end of the day, you’re removing an item from the ecnomy. I feel like you’re not gaining a lot over the extremes of no binding or full binding. So I feel like if you’re going to do that, just do one or the other. Don’t be in the in between land where the players gets to feel bad twice.
Flux: Yes, well we wouldn’t want that. It’s like feeling bad and doubling it.
Josh and Wyatt: *laughter*
Flux: Okay, skipping over more economy questions to get to items. The “Items 2.0” is that the terminology you guys are actually using internally, and is that indicative of how big a change you’re planning? Are you really thinking of it as like a relaunch of the game’s entire itemization system?
Josh Mosqueira: What we’re doing, at least the way we use the term here, or the way I use the term “Loot 2.0.” Not necessarily that we’re revamping everything, but like the way people used to throw around “Web 2.0” back in the day.
Flux: Or Battle.net 2.0, as we got recently.
Lylirra: *laughs*
Josh Mosqueira: That’s true. I think it’s just the reaffirmation of our evolved philosophy behind items. The way our items ideas evolved from launch until now, for the team to have a simple rallying cry around it. At the heart of it is the fact that Loot is a fundamental part of the game. Every time you’re clicking the mouse, you’re killing something because you want something awesome to drop. And we just really want to be sure that we’re keeping in mind that core fantasy. And that when items drop, players feel that there’s a utility to them and an intrinsic gameplay value to them.
So I guess Loot 2.0 is a simpler way for us to say that we want to keep evolving the itemization philosophy and making sure that it’s focused on players and that players feel they’re getting cool stuff.
Flux: Okay, speaking of cool stuff, you guys have mentioned a bunch of changes coming up on Legendary Items. I think pretty much everyone is positive about that. However a lot of the functions you guys have teased are really cool proc effects. Like an Earthquake casting when the Barbarian Leaps , or an item set that gives you unlimited resources, or boots that make you ethereal. And those are cool, but fans have pointed out that we got those in earlier patches, like when the Fire Chains demon was added to the Maximus sword. That kind of thing.
And those are cool, but they’re sort of novelties. I don’t think anyone is basing their build around that item. So with the upcoming Legendary changes, like a double Hydra wand for the Wizard, are you guys thinking these are going to be game changing, “this is what your build will be based around?” Or will they just be cool novelties? Or both?
Wyatt Cheng: I would love for people to build around these items. I think that if I had a choice between Option A: a cool weapon that has a demon with a fire chain, and Option B: a weapon that does way more damage. Then players tend to go, the demon is cute and all, but I want the damage.
What we’re looking at now is Option A should be the demon with the chain and awesome damage, and Option B is two Hydras at once and awesome damage. We don’t really want players to be doing a math problem of some amount of damage vs. a cool effect. Which is where I feel like we are now, where a lot of those cool things get relegated to “toy” status.
Flux: Yeah, Maximus is cool if your follower has it, but you don’t make a whole lot of changes with it.
Wyatt Cheng: They should be cool effects that are also effective.
Flux: There were a whole bunch of specific questions about changes we might see to item affixes. So I’m going to ask one question about that, and depending on how you answer I might ask more, or not.
So basically in the game now, every class wants the same mods. You guys have talked about that before, it’s all about Critical hit Damage, Critical hit Chance, Res All, Faster Attack, etc. So the question is, in “Loot 2.0” are you tinkering with the current stats, considering different values, hard caps, that sort of thing, or are you looking at much bigger, overall changes to whole systems and the ways attributes function and such.
In that case the little changes that fans are always suggesting, to tweak the affix values and such, aren’t really relevant.
Wyatt Cheng: Well, that’s pretty case by case… Okay, high level philosophy is.. we don’t like it when one affix is amazing, and another is absolutely terrible. So that I want the good thing and I’m really sad when I get the other one. Some amount of that is inevitable, but I think the gap between the best and the worst is extremely large. The exact mechanics by which we shrink that gap is TBD, but I do think that gap is too large.
Some of the properties aren’t good and should be better. One we mention regularly is Thorns. We’re going to scale if off your primary stat, and we’re going to do a bunch of testing, and if somebody wants to go out there and do a Thorns build, that should be good. That should be a thing. I’d love to see people some day in a ton of Thorns gear and have that be a thing that’s good. That actually works.
Flux: Some players have been speculating that you guys are going to totally rework some of the systems. Like for instance Attributes won’t still boost DPS the way they do now, and it won’t be useful to get 3000 dexterity on your Monk anymore. Or it’ll be pointless to get 60% Crit Chance since it’ll be capped or changed in function. But it doesn’t sound like you guys are looking at making huge changes, or at least you aren’t going to tell us about it yet if you are.
Wyatt Cheng: Well we do want to be careful…
Flux: Or should I just ask this again in November and get a different answer?
Wyatt Cheng: We do want to be careful with existing gear, that’s something we talk about a lot. I don’t want to log in one day and suddenly my character is completely broken. So that’s definitely a factor. On the other side… regardless of how people feel about existing stats, the idea that there is an item out there that I really want, that I aspire or dream about having one day, is a good thing for the game. So as much as trifecta or quadfecta items are bad in terms of being universal for all characters, it would be a different story if they were rare, hard to get, and I dreamed of getting one some day.
Flux: Or even quinfecta, as we’re moving up to these days.
Josh Mosqueira: Right. *laughs*
Flux: A lot of item types now *must* have one affix or it’s useless. Like Sockets in helms, or CC on helms, or CC on bracers or off-hand items, etc. Are you guys looking at making changes to this problem? So is the solution to make the mandatory mods more likely to roll, or to make them less effective on the items? Or can the Mystic be part of this and she can add those mandatory mods at the cost of making the item BoA?
Wyatt Cheng: We’ve been reluctant to guarantee stats on items. The reason is that the ultimate end goal is that the designers aren’t hand crafting good items. If we wanted to we could go in there and make every item roll nothing but the stats that are the most popular today.
Flux: But then that’s boring since everyone has the same gear.
Wyatt Cheng: Yeah. I think the ideal, which we’ll strive towards but may never reach. But the ideal is that the definition of perfect gear is different for every class. And even within the same class since people have different builds.
One thing I think about a lot, is how do we make it so Attack Speed is good for a lot of people, but not for everybody. That’s a tough design problem and we have some ideas, but can we apply that to everyone? So that not every character wants crit, or crit damage?
Flux: Not currently, no… but in theory. *laughs*
Wyatt Cheng: *laughs* Right, but that is a better long term angle for the game than saying everybody wants this so let’s give it to them.
Flux: I’d continue on the item affixes issue, but there are a ton of other questions and topics.
I was surprised that the guys didn’t give more hints or indications of big changes to items. With the “Loot 2.0” terminology, I’ve been expecting really big changes to items and especially to item affixes. As Wyatt said, they don’t want to do something in a patch so that the next day people log on and their gear is worthless. But the theory many fans have speculated on is that an Expansion could do something like that.
Probably not “worthless,” an Expansion will almost by definition devalue all current gear, since it will introduce something like a new tier of level 64 gear, plus new Legendaries of that level, improvements to current legendaries, etc. That’s what happened in D2X, and it’s what happens in every WoW expansion, and in expansion for pretty much every other RPG on the market.
So, given that expectation, why wouldn’t the devs take that opportunity to revalue and rework and reallocate how the attributes and other item bonuses work in the expansion? You know going into the expansion that you’ll be looking for upgrades. Why not do that so the upgrades aren’t just bigger versions of the current numbers, but are different numbers entirely?
And maybe that is something on the drawing board, but if so Wyatt certainly didn’t give us a lot of hints about it in his replies to these questions.
Flux: A question about single target vs. AoE skills. In another recent interview one of you guys mentioned the Demon Hunter’s
Impale, and how it’s way under powered, since Hungering Arrow actually beats it on a single target, when Impale has a high Hatred cost while Hungering Arrow is free, and actually generates Hatred for you.
Is that just an inherently unfixeable problem in Diablo 3 especially since the monster density increases in v1.08? We had a whole debate about this on the site, and just to make the point I said, “What if there was a skill that would kill any single target, with a three second cooldown?” And people were like, “I still wouldn’t use it, except maybe for Ubers.”
Josh Mosqueira: Right! *laugh*
Flux: So it seems like there’s nothing you guys can do with a single target skill that’s ever going to make it viable in a game where there are 100 enemies on the screen at once?
Wyatt Cheng: I think that an unfortunately side effect of the monster density increase is that it devalues single target skills. What are we doing to do about that? Well, something we’ve talked about, and I stress that we mean a lot when we say “talked about.” But what we’ve talked about is that in a given level there are portions that are dense and portions where single target matters more. We like higher monster density, but maybe we don’t need the player to be surrounded by 100 monsters all the time.
You mentioned it could be used for Ubers. Well, maybe we can create a gameplay experience that has a lot of variety to it, so in a single ten minute play session, you’d have need for single target skills as well as AoE skills. So we’re looking into that.
Flux: Well that’ll be level 17 in the bottomless dungeon, so we can all look forward to that.
*giggling in the background*
Flux: Okay, let’s talk about death. And avoiding it. Given that I play Hardcore, this is a topic that’s in my head. Monks have Near Death Experience. Wizards have Unstable Anomaly. Witch Doctors have Spirit Vessel. And Barbarians don’t need death cheating skills. Why doesn’t the poor Demon Hunter get one? The squishiest class in the game. I love DHs in softcore but I’ve given up on playing them in Hardcore since there’s such a razor thin margin for error.
It seems like you guys could so easily tack on some work around. Just rip off Spirit Vessel; under 10% hit points with a Demon Hunter you auto-cast Smoke Screen with a 2 second duration and it’s got a two minute cooldown. Just put that into the game right now as part of Tactical Advantage of Perfectionist or something. Or replace Grenadier, which has a death effect that no one has ever actually used on purpose. Can that be in there by next week you think?
*laughter*
Wyatt Cheng: Um, there’s a lot there.
Josh Mosqueira: We’ve got a weekend coming up…
Flux: Well obviously it’s a perfect idea that can’t be assailed in any possible way. My logic is inescapable. As I hear Lylirra laughing in the background.
Wyatt Cheng: So uh, I’m going to take your question and much like earlier, use the opportunity to talk about something that’s related but different. If that’s okay?
Flux: That is your skill set.
Wyatt Cheng: *laughter* Okay. And that’s sort of like class design in general. I know what players do, and designers do it too. Actually, humans do this. We draw comparisons between different classes. Class A has this, Class B has this, so logically Class C should have it also…
Flux: Especially when that’s the class that needs it the most.
Wyatt Cheng: I think that it’s a line of reasoning that’s used to justify a buff to something, to a skill. Another example I’ll throw out. The Demon Hunter has Vault. The Barbarian has Leap. The Wizard has Teleport. Why doesn’t the Witch Doctor get a teleport? Clearly the Witch Doctor should have an instant move ability as well.
My general reaction to this is… the classes aren’t meant to be the same. And I don’t want to be in a position where all of our classes come to be so homogenous that they have different-colored versions of the same skill. I think it’s good that a class has something that they’re really envious of that other class. And the other classes are really envious of the first class.
It’s good when the classes have something that’s like, the other classes are super overpowered, and everyone is saying that. Or, better yet, I love my class because I have skill X that nobody else has. Or I can do X and Y together that no one else can.
To wrap up my segue, I wouldn’t make a change based on the argument that 4 classes have it so the 5th should too. I’d be more inclined to ask how we can make them all cool and unique. If the Demon Hunter has issues with Hardcore survivability, can we address that problem in a manner that is unique and cool to the Demon Hunter itself.
Flux: I agree completely with you philosophically, but like 1% of players in Hardcore games in Inferno are Demon Hunters, and this seems like a really easy and direct fix, and I’ve benefited directly many times from the equivalent skills on my Witch Doctor and Monk.
Wyatt Cheng: We have the data on the figures, and the number is a little bigger than 1%.
Flux: Okay, I was a little hyperbolic on that, but anyway…
I have one wrap up question for Josh, and we’ve got about 10 minutes to go, so be sure we save a minute for that.
Changing the topic again, to monsters. The purples. Superuniques, whatever they’re called in Diablo 3. You guys gave them really individual cool names, and stats, and lore, and they have special abilities and individual appearances, and when you actually find one in the game they die in three seconds and drop two stacks of gold and a blue item.
It seems like a really underutilized feature and they are all over the game and you get achievements for killing them, but you hardly notice when you see them. Is there a way we can fix them? Some huge wholistic change would be great, but in the short term just something like 5x their hit points and increase their drops to boss quality.
Wyatt Cheng: I think the purple monsters are underwhelming. In terms of how we got to where we are, sometimes we put in a purple monster because we wanted to have a cool encounter, so there are a couple that are cool to fight and strong. There are other purple monsters that were put in for story, cinematic, or world building purposes. So they’re trying to fill two different design goals.
Internally we’ve talked about doing kind of what you said. We’ve got two different kinds of purple monsters. All the ones that were put in for strictly story and world development purposes are kind of underwhelming, so let’s go back and make them more interesting to fight, meaty, and give good rewards. So that is on our to-do list.
Flux: Okay, cool. They have cool features, lots of them will have Frozen or Molten or other mods and you won’t even notice it since they die so quickly.
Wyatt Cheng: Some of them don’t even have an affix on them. And they don’t always have enough hit points to live long enough for you to really read their name.
Flux: Yeah. Just last night playing I got the Bashiok fallen shaman in the Dahlgur Oasis. And I was so excited since I hadn’t seen him since launch day. I mean the in-game one and the real person too. And I was like, “It would be great if he did some really cool stuff!” and then he was dead in five seconds.
Okay, one last thing before I have a couple of postmortem questions, which we may or may not have time for. PVP! You guys said in a recent interview that you’re not working on any new PvP systems, even though it’s still in your thoughts, and Josh you said that people stop by your desk all the time and ask you about PvP.
Josh Mosqueira: Right.
Flux: Back in Blizzcon 2010 and 2011 there was a PvP demo in the Blizzcon demo. I loved it, I played it madly, if it was on Battle.net right now I’d play it every night. During development you guys repeatedly said that ESports wouldn’t work with Diablo 3, that it couldn’t be balanced. And I can certainly see that with the existing characters, since there’s so much variety in skills and gear that it seems impossible to equalize.
But it seems like you could do an arcade style brawler that would fix that. Say there are 3 pre-made versions of each character, with gear and skills that players can’t change, and we just pick one and make teams and dive into the arena, just like an upgraded version of the wildly-popular PvP demo from past Blizzcons. It keeps records, it keeps scores, you’ve got ladders and rankings and the whole thing. That would be spectacular and awesome and can we see it in the next couple of months?
Josh Mosqueira: You’re right. We played that, at least I played those versions when I got here.
Flux: And they were awesome!
25:40 — Josh Mosqueira: But was it the right expression of PvP for Diablo? Something we really struggled with is, does it feel like Diablo when you’re not A: using your character that has all your cool items, and does it feel like Diablo in the fact that you’re not getting any items. I think everybody intrinsically gets the idea that a PvP mode in Diablo 3 should be really fun, and we’ve seen examples that in bursts it can be a lot of fun. So the questions is how do we make sure it feels like thematically… not just a side product, but part of the overall core fantasy of the game.
Flux: I think we might get into a debate about the perfect being the enemy of the good, in this case? The perfect system would be awesome, but if it doesn’t happen for five years, we could have a lot of fun in the meantime.
Josh Mosqueira: That’s funny since that’s one of the phrases I love saying. “The perfect is the enemy of the good.”
I’ve been on the team in this position for a couple of months and there are a few things we’ve really been focusing on. But it our desire and Wyatt’s as well that we want to tackle this question. A few weeks ago someone came by my office with what I thought was a really cool proposal. So it is something we’re working on and come one day we’ll be able to give you guys an answer. Not the perfect answer, but the right answer.
Flux: Okay, we’ve got one minute to go so I’ll skip to the last question. I was at the fansite summit a couple of weeks ago and you Josh, asked us a question, about what we thought was the most important thing to fix or improve in Diablo 3. But you said you had a total of eight questions, so I was wondering if you could tell me some of the others. What else did you want to ask us, what were you curious to learn from the community, but didn’t have time?
Josh Mosqueira: *muttering* Oh I don’t remember. Of course my brain right now is totally um… not working on that topic.
Flux: And your notepad is in your office, too. [At the Fansite Event Josh actually had and was using one of those tiny spiral ring notepads like you see cops using in crime shows. And he was consulting it when asking the first of his eight questions.]
Josh Mosqueira: *laughing* It totally is! Um… a lot of the questions that we get, that I want to turn around and ask you guys. The big high level one was what one thing you guys would fix. The other ones were, obviously the AH is pretty contentious, what if anything you’d do so address the Auction House. Itemization is a big one also, what you guys would do to address that. Another one was like, how closely, as we’re thinking about the future, how closely should we stick to the Diablo 2 forumla and how can we keep pushing Diablo 3 into its own space and its own identity.
That’s four or five of them. There were a few others that were more noodle-y, which is probably why they’re not coming to mind right now.
Flux: Okay, that’s great. I have one last very quick question you guys can no comment in unison, if you want to practice. Will we see the Diablo 3 Expansion debut at Blizzcon this year?
Josh Mosqueira: Blizzcon is going to be awesome this year!
Flux: Thanks for your time. One thing we always do at the end of the podcast is say that this is the Diablo Podcast and we’re online at Diablo.IncGamers.com, and then we do our Secret Cow Level sound effects. Can you guys join me in a moo?
Both: Sure!
Flux: Moo.
Wyatt Cheng: Moooooooo.
Josh Mosqueira: Moorrroooow!
Lylirra: Thanks!
After 100 of these shows I’ve had more experience doing Secret Cow Level sounds than most people, and I can say that Wyatt and Josh udderly rose to the occasion. Perhaps it’s something that comes over you, once you’re working on a Diablo game? Pity I didn’t get Lylirra to join in; after all, it’s the Secret *Cow* Level, not the Secret *Bull* Level, and despite their male voices in Diablo 2, all of the cows have udders… including the Cow King. So um… let’s just say there’s some gender issues with Diablo 3’s Hell Bovines and leave it at that.
I said it on the show but I should say it again here. I really enjoyed the interview and both Wyatt and Josh were game to answer every question I had, with very little of that crafty PR-FU style redirection game developers are known for. Thanks to them for the time and the good info, thanks to Lylirra for setting everything up, and thanks to you guys for suggesting so many great questions. I couldn’t get through anywhere near all of them, but as you heard I jumped around topics a lot to at least get one or two in every key area.
Also, Blizzard said they’d be doing more of these interviews with fansites and I’d certainly love to conduct another one, hopefully before TDP #200. As I alluded to, I had hundreds more questions, and only lacked the time to pose them.
Afterwards while texting Lylirra, she asked me to send along the postmortem questions I’d meant to ask Wyatt but didn’t have time for. I did, she said the questions were awesome and she’d forward them to various appropriate developers, and while I doubt we’ll hear official responses to them, you never know! I’ll refrain from quoting them here just in case we do hear some official reply, since it would be more fun to post the questions and answers at the same time. (Or save them to ask live on a future interview.)
That said, if nothing comes on them in the next couple of weeks, someone who remembers/cares can ask me and I’ll post them in a news item. They related to Diablo III’s initial design differences from D2, Diablo III’s Legendaries, and one core element of Diablo 3’s story.
Hope you guys enjoyed the interview and the new info, and feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below, and link the interview to your Diablo 3-hating friends. Perhaps it’ll sooth their savage hearts?