Will D3 be a MACRO game or a TRADING game?

#0 - Feb. 18, 2011, 2:49 a.m.

My view of the Blizzard universe is that: Diablo is to Starcraft as WoW is to Warcraft.

Starcraft focuses on MACRO. Lots of units with little HP that die quickly. Warcraft focuses on MICRO. Less units but each have lots of HP and several skills and abilities that the player uses to some combination to win the battle.

WoW is about MICRO. You have lots of HP, you kill things 1 at a time and you have a wide array and spells and abilities to do so. Diablo is about MACRO. Its you fighting 5-8-10-12 mobs at once, any of them can quickly kill you sometimes in one hit, and you can kill them all just as quickly. Strategy in Diablo is about not aggroing more mobs than you can handle at once, and when you aggro them you kite them around, position them, peel them off around corners, line of sight them, or otherwise funnel them into manageable pieces.

Diablo features very CHAOTIC gameplay, with many things happening at once, bodies hitting the floor every moment, and lots of running, yelling, and screaming. Diablo as a game does its job when you jump out of your chair as 54373189473 mobs streak into view from some dark corner of evil.

I heard, however, that Blizzard views Diablo as a TRADING game, meaning the point of the game is to trade with other people to collect gear and gear up.

So my question is this:

Is my view of Diablo valid in Blizzard's eyes? To Blizzard, is Diablo a MACRO game, about a frenzied, heart-racing playstyle where everything dies fast? Or is that view now outdated? Does Blizzard view Diablo as a TRADING game instead?

Bashiok

#9 - Feb. 18, 2011, 3:43 a.m.

Q u o t e:
Blizzard is advertising "big hit" attacks monsters may attempt which are slow and deliberate and may strip you of most of your hp, which implies by default most mobs can't kill you quickly like in D2. it implies they no longer view Diablo as a MACRO game. The concept of "big hit" attacks don't really make sense in a MACRO game and is a cause for consternation regarding what exactly they are planning.

Yeah kinda, but they're big hits because we expect players to be able to avoid them. Think of it more as a punishment for not dealing with the fight strategically (or just screwing up) than a mechanic you'll constantly be at the mercy of.

As I said in another recent post the way health works in Diablo III we can't really have big spikey damage coming through a ton because you're not going to have any reliable way to deal with it. You'll have health globes, which are not guaranteed (but can be guaranteed more often or to heal more with class traits), and then potions on cooldowns. So the game has to shift away from having to compensate for those huge spikes to a more moderate managing of defenses and attacks. Which isn't to say you're going to be out their in big bulky armor with tons of defense hitting guys with a stick. You're still the god king demon killer from the infiniteverse of badassery. It's just a shift of general balance and how damage comes in to player characters. It should be far more measured and manageable with stats and character building as the reliance on potspam just isn't there.

And on the topic specifically, the game is very much about macro. We spend a ton of time pining over textures and poly counts to ensure we can throw hundreds of creatures at you without blinking. And we think for the minimal performance impact we design them for, they look real damn good.

That's with the exception of uniques and bosses, though. Uniques especially change up the recipe in the middle of macro fights. Which is good. You see one and you're like "WHAT AFFIXES!? NOOOOOOOO" but the rewards for downing one ideally make the extra effort of hacking at them for a bit worthwhile.

Bashiok

#13 - Feb. 18, 2011, 4:12 a.m.

Q u o t e:
So what you're saying is you've turned most unique mobs into the Death Lord pack with cursed, extra fast, extra strong, fanat aura?

Nah, I mean, some uniques are just not going to roll super tough affixes. And some builds are going to be able to deal with certain affixes better, or worse. I also don't think we're fooling ourselves, at some point I fully expect people to roll Uniques without batting an eye, but hopefully they stay challenging and keep it mixed up for quite a while.

Q u o t e:
C'mon, really? Macro refers to managing your economy (income v. production). It's not even relevant to Diablo, nor does it make sense to compare macro and "trading" to one another.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/macro

Q u o t e:
of, involving, or intended for use with relatively large quantities or on a large scale

Macro is not a word created or owned by StarCraft. ;)