Every
once in a while, I find myself playing a multiplayer loot-fest, where
the main point in the game is to grow stronger and acquire better
equipment as the game goes on. I am not entirely sure why this is the
case. Though I rarely ever get as much fun out of them as other
people do, they keep ending up on my queue somehow. In this
particular instance, a friend of mine requested that I play Diablo 3
with him, so I got the PS4 version and did just that. Somehow, we
managed to make it through both the base game and the Reaper of Souls
expansion that came with the Ultimate Evil Edition. While a great
game, I feel that Diablo 3 had a couple of big problems that I am not
entirely sure how to address.
Initially
released in May of 2012, Diablo 3 released to great controversy. The
original title included several criticized new features, like
always-online DRM and the auction house, in real-money and in-game
currency varieties. Others disliked the lower drop rates of items in
the first release. Slowly, over time, most of these issues were
addressed in updates to the game, to the point where most of the old
fans were at least satisfied by the end result. Many new features,
like Paragon leveling and PvP, were even added in. The PS4 version I
played came out in August of 2014. My version of the game is, as of
the time of writing, complete with the only expansion to ever have
been released for the game.
As a
port, the game is very solid. Though I have no experience with the PC
version, the game looks quite good. While it will never be a
spectacle in graphic prowess, each area in the game is memorable in
its own right. The characters are also quite distinct from one
another. At a glance, it was extremely easy to tell my character
apart from both my partner's character and the enemies on screen.
Furthermore, I enjoyed the use of color in the game. Looking at
screen-shots of the first 2 Diablo games, I noticed a very gray and
brown palette. Though Diablo 3 is just as dark in its world design,
the extra color and style they injected helps it stand out from other
games. With loads times rarely, if ever, exceeding a single second,
Blizzard definitely gave the PS4 the royal treatment when it came to
porting Diablo 3 to the machine.
At the
same time, I did find that I had some issues with controlling the
game. For those unaware, Diablo presents the player and up to three
of their friends with many enemies to fight, and most fights consist
of repeatedly clicking on enemies (on the PC) until they die. The PS4
lacks a mouse, so movement and direction have to be handled using
analog sticks. For this reason, precisely aiming some special attacks
is an impossible task. For example, as I was playing a Wizard,
Wizards are given a move where they can summon a black hole that
pulls enemies towards itself. There were a number of occasions where
it went in the direction I was aiming, but was either too close or
too far to my intended target because it was auto-aimed at the wrong
enemy. I do not have an easy solution to this problem, because it is
inherent to the controller-interface. They may have been able to
alleviate it by using the touch pad as a mouse, but I imagine that
would have similar issues to using a mouse pad on a laptop computer.
It is not an easy fix, but still an issue that needs to be pointed
out.
The
other control-based issue I had was a general-discomfort from
prolonged play. Typically, my co-op partner and I would play for
roughly 3 hours in a single game session. At the end of our sessions,
we would often experiences soreness in our fingers and thumbs. This
mostly came from repeatedly holding down the X button on the PS4
controller for minutes at a time to use our characters' basic
attacks. I would even have a switch fingers mid-battle a lot just to
make myself feel a bit more comfortable. Like the issue with precise
aiming, I feel that this might just be an inherent problem to putting
a fundamentally PC, keyboard-and-mouse-oriented game onto a console,
because a mouse button is more comfortable to use for extended
periods of time. However, unlike the issue of precise aiming, it is
less of a minor annoyance and more of a genuine complication. It is
difficult to enjoy a game that literally hurts to play at length.
The
other interesting thing I made note of when playing is the unique way
in which the loot system creates a form of competitive-cooperation.
For the unaware, the main method by which Diablo 3 engages players,
enticing them to press on, is through a positive feedback. In the
version of the game I played, as players defeat monsters, complete
quests, and open treasure chests, they will obtain equipment and
experience which can be used to further strengthen their characters.
After acquiring new more powerful gear, they can tackle more
challenging content and obtain even better items. Though there is a
story and campaign, this feedback loop is at the core of why Diablo
is effective.
When
playing with friends, the best thing that Diablo does is give each
player their own separate loot drops. In the event that an enemy or
treasure chest leaves a piece of equipment behind, each player will
have their own items that only they can see. No other player will be
able to take them, nor can they take the drops of other players. This
neatly skirts a common trap that is often seen in games like
Borderlands, where every player sees all the loot. As a result, teams
will not have to compete with one another to strengthen their
characters. I refer to this as “negative competition,” where the
desire to outmatch others results in a dissolution of the team
dynamic when the rewards start flowing.
Instead,
I found that my co-op partner and I experienced what I would call
“positive competition.” We still constantly tried to one up each
other in a form of an arms race to see which of us was the stronger
character. However, since we both obtained new equipment at the same
rate, and could not worsen each others chances of obtaining good
loot, we could more easily cooperate towards a common goal. By
working with each other, we could maximize our rewards. Afterwards,
we would attempt to one-up each other by showing off the items we
earned. We would even engage in trade and item exchanges if it meant
that our team was more effective overall. Though we were essentially
competing with each other, the systems utilized that and channeled it
into a cooperative force.
On the
other hand, there is an interesting problem that I discovered as I
was playing. That is, it became hard to pick a difficulty that was
exactly challenging enough to keep me interested in the game, but not
enough to make the enemies extremely time-consuming to kill. Since
enemies scale to the party's level, the only way to truly control
both how tough they are, and how good their loot drops are, is by
adjusting the difficulty. Rarely does increasing difficulty ever make
the game “challenging,” in that it requires more tactics and use
of evasive/defensive skills, unless the player is fighting an elite
or boss character. Rather, what usually happens is that the enemies
take significantly more time to kill. Not only does it exacerbate the
sore-thumb problem from earlier, but it can also really start to bore
the player if they go too far. Finding this equilibrium is the real
difficulty, not the actual fighting.
Diablo 3
is a great game for those with the correct disposition. Those who
adore loot-fests like Borderlands or Torchlight probably already have
Diablo 3 at this point, enjoying their experience. Though it
entertained me enough to stick with it to the end, I would not have
done so without the encouragement of my co-op partner. It is very
much a game that works better with friends. The single-player will
not find as much value here. Though there is a story, it only does
its job by justifying the dungeon-crawling and loot gathering. I
think that may be why I find myself quitting these games often. It is
difficult to routinely gather a group of friends to play one game.
Those who can gather a reliable group will have great times here.
Solo gamers need not bother.
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