Interview: A Deep Dive into What Customization Truly Means in Diablo IV | MMORPG.com

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Interview: A Deep Dive into What Customization Truly Means in Diablo IV | MMORPG.com

In Diablo IV, Blizzard is looking to push character creation further with various choices players make while playing. Last week we had the opportunity to participate in a roundtable interview with Lead Class Designer Adam Jackson and Lead Game Producer Melissa Corning, where we delved into some of the real nitty gritty of how the customization systems work.

Read the full story here

Eldrach

Pfft - just wait - they’ll sell Pink Unicorn armor on the Shop soon enough

Angrakhan

Personally I liked the druid look. Looks a lot like me, actually, so I connected with that class for sure. What I was missing were options with the necro and sorcerer to not make them look like a goth emo club kid. Really I just wanted an option to nix the way overdone black eyeliner. If I could have done that, it would have been fine. Granted I realize D4 is an isometric top down game and even if you zoom all the way in you can't see that level of detail especially once you equip a helmet that covers your face at all, so this is not some deal breaker for me. Most ARPG's don't even have any sort of character customization, so what they have is a welcome improvement.

Kratier

what customization? any f2p game has better and more diverse options

Angrakhan

Kratier said:

what customization? any f2p game has better and more diverse options

LOL... now you're just making shit up. Go show us the customization options for Path of Exile, which by the way is a F2P game. I'll wait.

ZenJelly

Eldrach said:

Pfft - just wait - they’ll sell Pink Unicorn armor on the Shop soon enough

This 100%. They will start off serious and then before you know it someone in an over the top chicken costume will be running around a hub city.

ValdemarJ

There are some good points in the article that concern me personally.

One of the things I like least about D3 (which is my overall favorite so far) are the character models/silhouettes. I absolutely can't stand the Witch Doctor. It looks stupid, like a total parody. And I also don't like how the archetypes are comically troped.

More character customization in D4 is a good thing. I am skeptical though because of their strange decision to hang on to the silhouettes. I wouldn't care if the sils were divorced from the actual character and just an icon of sorts representing the class. That there are body types for each class concerns me.

Another good nugget of info from the article is the section on respecs and builds. This quote from Jackson has me incredulous,

Where we’ve landed on that earlier on in the game, it’s very, very cheap to the point where it’s essentially free, to respec your character and change around you build and experiment and do what you want, particularly through the campaign. And then when you get to the really late game, we do kind of want you to start to optimize and focus on a build. And focus on a real fantasy so you can have that identity of ‘I am a werewolf Druid’ or ‘I am a blood-casting magic Necro’.

This will most likely have the effect funneling every non-casual player into a very small subset of builds. It is enough grind and time sink just to collect gear sets for different builds, but adding exorbitant costs on top is going to further stifle build diversity and pigeonhole classes.

I can't believe what an idiotic take Blizzard has on this. Why do they want players to do this? To control them? There isn't a reason given and I have doubts there is a good reason behind it. Or rather the reason has to do with corralling players into monetization. Let's just see if a "time saving alternative" turns up in the cash shop.

I appreciate the author took a moment to seriously pause about this, but I wish they had turned up the heat a little on Blizzard because this could end up being a big thorn later.

Iselin

The late-game re-specialization cost, which when it involves the paragon boards can be 10mil gold+, is going to get them more player pushback than they're expecting and a lot quicker than they think especially when they start rebalancing gear and abilities that can turn great builds into trash overnight.

Fine-tuning late-game builds for different content types (open world, nightmare dungeon progression for glyph leveling, PvP) or solo v. group builds is something players always do in these types of games and will want to do here.

Call me a cynic but this seems like such an obvious misstep that it feels like a deliberately designed "pain point" for monetization relief purposes

emperorhades1

Angrakhan said:

Kratier said:

what customization? any f2p game has better and more diverse options

LOL... now you're just making shit up. Go show us the customization options for Path of Exile, which by the way is a F2P game. I'll wait.

You realize you not only can change your character appearance in PoE with full armor transmogs, but you can change skill appearances , auras, pets, wings, halos, weapon auras. Change your portals, you can also change footprints, choose a hideout, put in custom furniture. D4 is doing nothing new.

emperorhades1

and the Druid has now ate its bear companion. It no longer has a bear companion, and it takes up half the screen.

KnightFalz

emperorhades1 said:

Angrakhan said:

Kratier said:

what customization? any f2p game has better and more diverse options

LOL... now you're just making shit up. Go show us the customization options for Path of Exile, which by the way is a F2P game. I'll wait.

You realize you not only can change your character appearance in PoE with full armor transmogs, but you can change skill appearances , auras, pets, wings, halos, weapon auras. Change your portals, you can also change footprints, choose a hideout, put in custom furniture. D4 is doing nothing new.

None of these are character customization. They are customization of elements other than your character.

ValdemarJ

Iselin said:

The late-game re-specialization cost, which when it involves the paragon boards can be 10mil gold+, is going to get them more player pushback than they're expecting and a lot quicker than they think especially when they start rebalancing gear and abilities that can turn great builds into trash overnight.

Fine-tuning late-game builds for different content types (open world, nightmare dungeon progression for glyph leveling, PvP) or solo v. group builds is something players always do in these types of games and will want to do here.

Call me a cynic but this seems like such an obvious misstep that it feels like a deliberately designed "pain point" for monetization relief purposes

That is what went through my mind. I remember when D3 seasons started. I had good builds that had to be fundamentally changed (if not abandoned) by Season 4, due to balancing.

I like the phrase "pain point" monetization. If that turns out to be the case, then it will only fuel the blowback over respecs.

Arlee

ValdemarJ said:

I appreciate the author took a moment to seriously pause about this, but I wish they had turned up the heat a little on Blizzard because this could end up being a big thorn later.

I'm sorry I didn't go into more detail on this, but the basic reasoning given is that they feel like when players can freely change builds there's less buy in on a particular style of gameplay because the choices don't matter and can be freely changed. I understand where they are coming from on this and they aren't really wrong in that aspect.

The problem is that practically, it's going to be an issue as things get balanced and changed over time. If I make a character and build it out to be an amazing burn build, then a couple weeks later they change things so the build doesn't work well anymore... it's a much bigger deal to me to now need to change than it would be if the costs to change were low. They are basically guaranteeing that people will be pissed when balance patches happen.

Talin

Angrakhan said:

Kratier said:

what customization? any f2p game has better and more diverse options

LOL... now you're just making shit up. Go show us the customization options for Path of Exile, which by the way is a F2P game. I'll wait.

Agreed. A good portion of F2P games are still gender locked (*coughLostArkcough*), which is the epitome of bad character customization optionality.

ValdemarJ

Arlee said:

ValdemarJ said:

I appreciate the author took a moment to seriously pause about this, but I wish they had turned up the heat a little on Blizzard because this could end up being a big thorn later.

I'm sorry I didn't go into more detail on this, but the basic reasoning given is that they feel like when players can freely change builds there's less buy in on a particular style of gameplay because the choices don't matter and can be freely changed. I understand where they are coming from on this and they aren't really wrong in that aspect.

The problem is that practically, it's going to be an issue as things get balanced and changed over time. If I make a character and build it out to be an amazing burn build, then a couple weeks later they change things so the build doesn't work well anymore... it's a much bigger deal to me to now need to change than it would be if the costs to change were low. They are basically guaranteeing that people will be pissed when balance patches happen.

I think you did a great job of explaining it all in the article. I feel more informed after reading it, for sure.

Warlyx

respecs need to be free on main city at least, blizz will buff nerf skills , and those can break your build ....

in wow blizz gave free respecs when it costed gold

richrem1

Forcing a cooky cutter build towards end game sounds like bad design IMO. It means they didn't bother balancing it all out; and to band aid the issues it would cause, make the early game and campaign very easy. Stupid is, is what stupid does. I'd like to know their reasoning behind this desicision, or we will continue to make up conspiracy theories lol.

Ryukan

In D4 customization means just trying to make the least ugly character you can.

Samhael

richrem1 said:

Forcing a cooky cutter build towards end game sounds like bad design IMO. It means they didn't bother balancing it all out; and to band aid the issues it would cause, make the early game and campaign very easy. Stupid is, is what stupid does. I'd like to know their reasoning behind this desicision, or we will continue to make up conspiracy theories lol.

Blizzard is very familiar with cookie cutter builds and forcing them down people's throats. Just look at WoW...

ValdemarJ

Ryukan said:

In D4 customization means just trying to make the least ugly character you can.

Customization in Diablo games has always been about trying to make your character less ugly. We got a few more tools in D3 than previous games. Hopefully D4 will be better at this.