At their core, video games are almost always about having fun. That fun can take a whole lot of forms; that’s where the wealth of genres of video games comes from. Everyone has their preference when it comes to games, and designers have decades of experience exploring these different genres.
However, it’s not just the style of game that makes it fun. The game has to be well rounded: balanced, compelling, and rewarding. Not every game accomplishes that, but there are plenty of games with the expertise behind them to be really excellent games. That’s the hope for last year’s big Blizzcon reveal, Diablo 4.
So what is it that makes a game fun? That’s impossible to say objectively, but there are definitely some significant pillars in each genre that give one an idea. For instance, in a loot-driven fantasy RPG like Diablo 4, it’s important to establish a strong setting, give the player compelling customization options, and tell a story that draws the player in.
However, the developers can’t forget about that loot aspect of this franchise. Diablo 4 has to have a good loot system at launch in order to be a success, or else the team at Blizzard will be scrambling to repair the game the way they had to do in Diablo 3. Blizzard will be much better off if the game can hit the ground running.
In order to emphasize the importance of good loot in the next game, it’s worth looking back at what the Diablo team has learned firsthand about loot. Diablo 3 was generally well-received on launch, but it had a significant amount of problems in the loot system. Players were not happy with how long it took to get legendary items, and there was a huge risk that players would get rare items for the wrong class. Naturally, this was a tremendous problem for the game, since it’s hard to progress through any game without getting the necessary items to get stronger.
Thankfully, Blizzard listened to the community and set to work changing the system. Ultimately, Diablo 3 was well remembered once it got past a rocky start. Still, it was an important experience that Blizzard would be wise to remember. It looks like they did learn from it, considering the team apparently admitted to their mistakes while talking to a team at Bungie about Destiny once. The Diablo team encouraged the team behind Destiny to make sure that loot wasn’t just driven by random numbers but was designed to make the player happy while still maintaining some challenge.
That really seems like some very solid advice from Diablo 3‘s team. Everybody wins when a loot system is designed in such a way that there’s still some challenge for players but they’re still getting rewarded for their work in the long run. It’s a perfect way for a looter to develop a good reputation and draw in more players — a happy community is much more glad to spend money on Blizzard’s products. It’s also worth taking to heart simply because loot is what defines looters. No game in that genre is going to be a hit if the loot itself isn’t any good.
Thankfully there are a few details that players will want to know about concerning Diablo 4‘s loot. For instance, the tiers of rarity have been revealed. There are Common items scaling up to Mythic items after branching briefly into Legendary items and Set items. Players will be glad to know the classic Sets are returning, but they might also be assured that completing a set isn’t quite imperative. They’ll be designed such that they aren’t mandatory in the endgame like they were in Diablo 3. There’s also some new types of loot in various runes that players can slot into their equipment to get conditional boosts.
However, even though some of these ideas sound great on paper, Blizzard has to make sure the numbers behind these drops are just as good. It sounds like there’s a lot of possible loot in this game, so there has to be some assurance that players won’t get stuck looking for one particular item. It’d be really frustrating to keep getting the wrong drops when looking for something specific. On top of that, hopefully, Sets won’t be harder to complete just because they’re not as important anymore. Sets are surely still going to be compelling gateways to unique playstyles that some players will want to enjoy.
At the same time, it would be a bit of a shame if Blizzard erred too much in the other direction. Diablo 4 would probably turn out woefully easy if powerful items are really easy to find. Thankfully, with three Diablo games and a major loot overhaul under its belt, Blizzard hopefully has all the necessary tools for making the system just right. With all these possible customization options, it’s exciting to imagine what Diablo 4 could be is the developers are able to deliver on their promises.
As always, players would be wise to pay attention to anything else the Diablo team has to say about drops in the next game. While doing so, though, players also have a decent reason to be optimistic. The reason for that optimism stems from the Destiny story. It’s one thing for a team of developers to respond to the community’s dissatisfaction by fixing the errors to the best of their ability. It’s another to go to a studio developing a similar game and actively advise them to orient the game and specifically the drop rates toward fun and not toward chance. Based on that story, there seems to be a lot of care being put into this aspect of the Diablo games from here on out.
Admittedly a few years have passed since Blizzard and Bungie’s developers had that conversation. Still, even as employees come and go, ideally the philosophy behind loot and game design as a whole gets passed on. As was said before, games ought to be fun, and developers can never forget that. It’s always important to consider the gameplay experience from the perspective of a player. The empathetic design has always earned companies fans. If Blizzard felt so deeply about making Diablo 3 right and even helping Destiny work, ideally it’s taking its own passion to heart to make the best Diablo 4 possible.
Diablo 4 is in development for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
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