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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.
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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.
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.
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
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
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.
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.
Agreed. A good portion of F2P games are still gender locked (*coughLostArkcough*), which is the epitome of bad character customization optionality.
I think you did a great job of explaining it all in the article. I feel more informed after reading it, for sure.
in wow blizz gave free respecs when it costed gold
Blizzard is very familiar with cookie cutter builds and forcing them down people's throats. Just look at WoW...
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.