
Why Diablo 3 is less addictive than Diablo 2: a scientific explanation - alex_c
http://www.alexc.me/a-scientific-explanation-why-diablo-3-is-less-addictive-than-diablo-2/417/
======
archgrove
Whilst I'm not qualified to comment on the science, I can certainly agree with
the conclusion. In Diablo 2, the hunt for loot was part of feeling the "hero"
- keep digging for treasure, keep dismembering those skeletons; somewhere,
there's that Epic Item with which you can win the day!

I've played Diablo 3 through to "Hell" difficulty, and I've not been using my
own looted gear since the middle of the "Normal" mode - there's just no
competition between drops, and what you can buy on the AH for very little
money. The "sensible" play style is just to farm gold, and buy AH kit. Found
an item? Sell it for gold (or, very occasionally, AH) - don't use it!

It's hard to feel like a hero when you're popping off to Macy's every few
hours to grab a new +1 Sword of Wounding. Your quest to save the world -
sponsored by Nike?

~~~
hazzen
Another thing, related but not frequently discussed, is the change in how
important gear is vs. other factors. For instance, in Diablo II a high level
item would give +20 vitality. Your character got 5 stat points per level which
you could, if you wanted, put all into vitality. This high level item was
roughly equivalent to only 4 character levels (of which you got 99).

In Diablo III, a high-level item is giving you 200+ vitality. I don't know
about other characters, but I believe my Monk is getting 2 vitality per level
(and there are 60 levels). A _single_ item can give me more of a stat than I
gain from leveling all the way from 1 to 60. As such, leveling up doesn't do
much other than allow equip items with better stats.

Because items in Diablo II gave, comparatively, closer benefits to gaining
another level than those in Diablo III, I felt like I was making progress with
either a level up or a nice item drop. If my character was getting decimated
in Act IV of Nightmare, I could go back and gain a few levels and maybe get
some new items in the process. In Diablo III, not only do your levels not
increase your survivability or killing power in any way (besides new skill
runes), by the time you feel like you aren't strong enough to defeat an
encounter you'll most likely have few or even no more levels left to gain. The
only tangible measure of progress is "phatter lewt" at this point.

~~~
guard-of-terra
This is actually a good thing. Diablo II spoiled you with unique items so no
magical and almost no rare items could ever be useful. In Diablo III, a very
simple item can be very useful because of stat bonuses.

~~~
mziulu
This is not entirely correct. While several Uniques could be considered Best
In Slot, a good magical (especially true pre 1.10 path with Cruel weapons) and
more commonly a good rare would be the best choice for a given build. Rare (or
Crafted) Gloves, Amulets, Belts, Boots and Tiaras could spawn with extremely
good properties, often surpassing Unique items.

------
Lewisham
While I think you're getting there, I think there's a better explanation:
variable reward schedules (eg. slot machines).

More of Schultz's work looks at this [1]. Basically, a reward of 50% of the
time is far more addictive for Julio and his pals than 100% (eg. the Staff of
Beatings only drops 50% from The Butcher). Diablo 2 uses a traditional
variable reward schedule for its loot system, as seen in most other RPGs.
Diablo 3 uses gold (stick with me). You need gold to get the items the game
requires you to have from the AH, and you're mostly burning the loot you find
in-game for gold on the AH or other mats. This means that you're working on a
small, 100% drip feed, which you eventually cash out in a predictable fashion.
Not as addictive!

I don't agree with your assertion of a frustration loop being different.
Diablo 2 could be just as frustrating if loot you needed didn't drop in time.
One thing I think Blizzard has done very poorly is that AH transactions do not
provide instant gratification, but take up to 48 hours to process(!). This
means if you are in a rut, you'll have two days stuck in it, and perhaps just
break the habit and leave altogether.

[1]: <http://www.sciencemag.org/content/299/5614/1898.full>

~~~
sterling312
The elaborate on the Schultz paper, dopaminergic reward feedback mechanism is
for unexpected reward only. Repeated stimulation depreciates the neuronal
signals.

A take home message from this is that an ideal diablo 2 drop has a expected
drop time of T, and should never change. The reward, of course, can come from
increased benefit of character strength, or from the rare item itself (Herald
of Zakarum + Barnar Star ftw).

It seems to me like the T for Diablo 3 is much greater than that of Diablo 2,
and because pretty much set items and unique items are non-existent, the
satisfaction of getting the item from drops is also non-existent. Alas, the AH
allows you to gain strength when you are stuck, but because the time it takes
you to go to AH is not a function of T itself, since you can go whenever you
want, it does not really contribute to the over all game reward mechanism.

Not to mention the horrible infrastructure they have built for the AH as
Lewisham mentioned.

~~~
Lewisham
_The elaborate on the Schultz paper, dopaminergic reward feedback mechanism is
for unexpected reward only. Repeated stimulation depreciates the neuronal
signals._

As I'm still working through this stuff, and am certainly no psychologist or
neurobiologist, did I say anything above that was contradictory to this? It
sounds like you know more than I do about the subject (I'm dabbling in it for
my Computer Science thesis) and I'm always paranoid that I'm overstating or
overgeneralizing some experiment result.

~~~
sterling312
Oh no, you did not contradict it at all. It is one of the vital point that was
pointed out in the paper, and I wanted to make sure anybody else who don't
having interest in reading the actual paper to have an opportunity to get this
particular point across. I'm a researcher in a neuroscience lab, and this is
one of the foundational paper into modern understanding of reward mechanism.
Kudos to you for linking it here :)

~~~
slurgfest
Dopamine doesn't just spike at unexpected "rewards," though. It can also spike
at surprising loud noises, etc.

------
muraiki
The "enjoyment graphs" might explain why I like D3 more than D2, despite the
fact that according to many in the D3 forums it is a horrible game.

I played D2 back when I was a college student, so I had the time to spend in
those long troughs between finding awesome items. Well, I didn't actually play
D2 that much because I didn't find it fun -- and perhaps this article explains
why. But for the people who want D3 to have the same addictive feel of D2, I
speculate that part of it has to do with being able to commit a lot of time to
get those rare spikes of joy upon getting a fantastic drop. All the serious D2
gamers knew all of the best items and finding them was a big part of the game
for them (or perhaps it WAS the game?)

For me, I'd rather have a game where the combat is fun, and that's where I
think D3 is a huge improvement upon D2. Blizzard's own stats show that people
are playing with a wide variety of skills. That's a lot different than D2,
where many skills were useless, there were only a handful of worthwhile
builds, and everybody lusted after the same items.

At first I didn't understand why a randomly generated magic item could be
better than a "legendary" item, but now it makes sense. If a person gets a
legendary item, they know they've gotten something that will be good for most
players, but it won't be the best. As such, people still have the ability to
grow and get better items instead of thinking, "Well, I've gotten Sword of
Awesome, no need to do anything more." To me, that makes the game more
interesting, and it enhances replayability for when I sign on and play with
friends. I guess things might be different for people who only play alone,
though.

I'm sure the Auction House plays a big role in all of this, and many want to
ascribe "evil" motives to Blizzard. Certainly the item economy will take time
for them to fully understand. But even if there wasn't an AH, I think that the
way they went with items (and the way skills play off of them) was the right
choice for creating a game that is consistently fun. At least until Inferno --
which was meant to be ridiculous anyways!

~~~
nocipher
_All the serious D2 gamers knew all of the best items and finding them was a
big part of the game for them (or perhaps it WAS the game?)_

Diablo was always about the exploration and the loot hunt. That was the game.
Diablo 3 is a deviation. The loot hunt kept you playing. It let you set
defined goals: "I want to obtain a perfect Skin of the Vipermagi and then use
the quest reward to socket it with a perfect topaz." D3 does not let you do
that. You don't set item goals, you set achievement goals: "I want to beat
inferno."

I'm sure a lot of people will prefer this, but the effect is much different.
In particular, without the excitement of the item hunt, there is no reason to
keep playing after you complete the game a few times; No surprises.

~~~
crag
Blizzard could've made it easier to replay if you didn't have to go through
the same dialog (story) again and again.

I got half way through Nightmare and was like "I am not wadding through this
crap dialog again". And put the game down.

The "story" was lackluster at best. Easy to predict. And absolutely no
surprises. And to make me run though it again, at each difficulty level is
just mean.

~~~
RegEx
Additionally, the boss mechanics were extremely disappointing for normal and
nightmare, so there's no real triumph the first two times you play through the
story. For most of the bosses, you have to _try_ to die.

~~~
guard-of-terra
Play on hardcore.

~~~
RegEx
I'd love to play hardcore, but the friends I play with aren't on board. I love
the idea of it (and I've been watching some Hardcore-Inferno players on
TwitchTV)

~~~
guard-of-terra
You don't have to play with your friends all the time. Might as well go
50%/50%.

------
fragsworth
> Diablo 3 has no real reward loop – there is only a frustration loop, which
> can be temporarily alleviated by using the Auction House.

This is completely wrong, there is a very powerful reward loop. Whenever you
find an item that you can sell at the auction house - that's a reward. It's
arguably as good as it is in Diablo 2.

I think the _real_ reason why Diablo 3 is less addictive than Diablo 2 is
simply because the folks who played Diablo 2 are now 12 years older. There's
something about getting older that makes you less prone to being addicted to
games.

~~~
cldrope
I disagree with the reward loop you perceive, as #1 Finding loot that you sell
doesn't directly increase your avatar strength. Case in point? Find an axe,
equip it and now you're plowing through enemies with greater ease. Feels good.
Find an axe, POST it on the AH and walk away. The loop doesn't include
detached events.

Someone's mentioned 12 years old or 12 years older now several times. I'm
sorry but this simply does not apply. Diablo 2 is so incredibly popular NOT
because people played it back then and are returning now, but because of the
SHEER mass of people that continued to play it for 5+ years. So even by the
norm of sales you're looking at people merely 5-6 years away, not including
that some of the most vocal people STILL PLAY IT.

I was playing through the last two ladder resets, one of them just a few weeks
prior to D3 launch.

The biggest problems aren't caught by people who have nostalgia goggles on,
they're caught by the people who still played it regularly (off and on over
the years.

~~~
crag
"I disagree with the reward loop you perceive, as #1 Finding loot that you
sell doesn't directly increase your avatar strength"

Not to mention most of the items you find (even rare items) are vendor trash
not worth selling on the AH. And crafting is just terrible in this game.

------
f0r
How is this scientific? All I see is a lot of speculation with no
experimentation/testing. Vague similarities to another study don't cut it - we
are not monkeys, and the monkeys weren't playing D2/D3. He's just assumed the
premise that D3 is less addictive than D2, and the rest is an argument made to
fit this assumption. I'm not saying he's wrong, just saying that this is bad
science.

~~~
alex_c
But... but... it has graphs!

The "scientific" part was pretty tongue-in-cheek given all the handwaving I
do, I obviously didn't hook up electrodes to anyone's brain while they're
playing (although that would be fascinating). I'll edit the blog title to put
it in quotes, can't edit the submission title though.

~~~
scott_s
Give yourself some credit: you have a testable hypothesis. We could
conceivably monitor the brain activity of Diablo 2 and 3 players and see if
they match your predicted behavior. That we could either confirm or contradict
your hypothesis means that we could actually provide support or falsify your
theory.

~~~
slurgfest
OK, so suppose you measure metabolic activity in (say) nucleus accumbens, with
pretty sensitive equipment, for a number of different players (experienced or
naive? D2 vets or not?) as they somehow play this commercial computer game
with their heads stabilized, for not very long periods of time. You aggregate
the data across individuals, losing a ton of information.

Now what is the hypothesis - that D2 will drive significantly more metabolic
activity than D3, because some blogger thinks that it is a better game?

This would tell us nothing of any scientific interest whatsoever. (Not to say
you couldn't make a poster or even get grants for such rubbish, with the right
connections)

If there is a testable hypothesis in here, it is so bizarrely specific as to
have no practical value nor any value in distinguishing among meaningful
theories about how the brain works.

~~~
scott_s
The theory isn't about the brain itself, but about the enjoyment cycle of
Diablo 2 and Diablo 3. The hypothesis is clearly stated in his post: it's the
graphs he drew for the brain activity of Diablo 2 and 3. He is predicting a
very specific reward-frustration cycle for each game.

No one said science had to be useful.

~~~
slurgfest
This has nothing to do with science. It has to do with complaining about a
matter of taste, and dressing it up with scientism.

~~~
scott_s
A testable hypothesis whose result will either support or falsify a theory is
the very definition of science.

Note that this theory has nothing to do with whether or not one _likes_ the
experience. Someone very well may like the experience with more frustration
more, for whatever reason. The theory is not "This is why Diablo 2 is better
than Diablo 3," but an explanation for why many people may feel less
satisfaction playing Diablo 2 than Diablo 3.

------
klodolph
The complaint here is that inferno (highest) difficulty is not enjoyable in
the traditional sense. From what I understand, inferno is not designed do be
addictive per se, it's designed do be hard and it's aimed at people who want
to play hard games.

I believe (but have no good citations / evidence for) that there's another
system in the brain for rewarding behavior, one that is based on the
satisfaction of accomplishing tasks that are difficult. This other loop may be
a little harder to study, I'd imagine that it would be difficult to get most
animals to exhibit this loop.

Just take a look at a sample of walkthroughs for various games, alongside
traditional guides you'll find esoteric ones: guides marked as "low-level",
"solo", "pacifist", "naked", etc. There are also play styles such as
"ironman". Back in the day, I used to play Diablo ironman with friends. You're
not allowed to talk to merchants in town. I played FF6 "low-level", where you
don't allow the characters to gain levels: run from any fight you can, but you
still have to fight the bosses with a woefully underpowered team.

It's tapping into the same reward systems that reward programmers for
refactoring code.

So I guess my final point is that you can't call something less addictive by
analyzing it, since you can only analyze the addiction mechanisms you know
about. You have to determine how addictive it is by measuring the behavior of
the actual people using it. From a scientific perspective, this article is
really a hypothesis.

~~~
slurgfest
I don't think anybody has ever shown any studies with animals being extra
rewarded for achieving difficult tasks. To speculate, that may relate to our
social wiring.

Not even the dopamine system is exactly and entirely a "reward system," there
are multiple pieces carrying out various signal-processing tasks without clean
alignment to our intuitive categories.

Despite the existence of localization and specialization in the brain, it is
not common for any high-level behavior to weigh completely on just one
distinct piece of the brain.

------
jtchang
Insightful because I don't seem to enjoy Diablo 3 as much. I'm currently
pretty bored with the inferno difficulty level. My options is to keep farming
gold until I can afford something strong enough on the auction house to carry
me further. Really frustrating. Before I could just farm and eventually get
myself an awesome piece of gear and use that for progression.

~~~
parfe
I think a lot of people dissatisfied with D3 are forgetting they were 12 years
younger when Diablo 2 was released. That's a long time for your tastes to
change. Everyone who played Diablo 2 as a child is now an adult.

~~~
lotharbot
A lot of people dissatisfied with D3 are also satisfied with StarCraft 2,
which had a 12 year delay from its predecessor.

Tastes change, but I don't think that's the primary issue at play here.

~~~
jaems33
Well I think it depends.

Starcraft 2 has improved it's e-sports appeal which I credit mostly to the
community but it suffers from the lack of variety in strategy and the dumbing
down/nerfing of a lot of micro. HotS will likely shift add more strategies
alongside future patches that tweak the balance, but I think it's still about
a year or two before gamers are truly satisfied with the state of the game.
Kind of like what Starcraft 1 went through.

~~~
debacle
Look at Dota 2. It's going to blow Starcraft 2 our of the water with regards
to eSports, probably everywhere but Korea.

------
MSM
I think one of the big things that comes to mind is something I remember
reading with competitive games like Counter Strike and Starcraft- the games
where if you are doing poorly against the competition you're not enjoying
yourself _at all_.

The sentiment was "There is a large portion of gamers that do not enjoy
_playing_ games, they enjoy _winning_ games."

I think this translates to Diablo 3 very well- everyone was perfectly happy
farming Diablo or Baal (previous "final" bosses), yet no one seems to enjoy
farming Act 1 or Act 2 inferno. It's the _exact_ same thing, but I believe
people are not enjoying it because they are unable to beat the game.

I see a lot of talk about how it's impossible to beat the game just by
grinding, and you have to play the AH to get gear from the people that have
already beaten the game but it's important to remember that there were people
that beat the game for the first time. These people didn't have people to
purchase the best stuff of off because they were the furthest of anyone in the
world.

Similarly, there are people progressing (albeit slowly) through inferno
hardcore where there are probably less than ~100 people in the world. There's
very little gear on the market and there are still people progressing by
farming gear themselves.

------
gridspy
A friend of mine is making a competing game, Path of Exile.

According to some, it's more of a D2 sequel in spirit than D3 is. Darker
setting, more emphasis on skill and action play, etc.

The goal when making PoE was to create a game where the item economy was
really strong. There is no gold in PoE. Instead you have currency items (see
<http://www.pathofexile.com/news/dev-diary/>).

All of the shops are horrible for trade, offering tiny amounts for even great
items. If you really want something good, you have to trade for it directly
with other players or find it yourself.

It is a far more addictive game than either D2 or D3 because a greater range
of interesting, random things happen.

PoE also has some great mechanics, for instance flasks (health / mana) are
items that last for a long time - they use charges when you drink them and
recharge as you fight. They can be magical and unique.

Also, the skill tree offers a far greater range of choice.

Definitely worth checking out.

~~~
dkersten
That game looks amazing! Can't wait to play it. Already been passing the
website to friends :)

~~~
gridspy
You can donate to get access to the closed beta -
<https://www.pathofexile.com/purchase>

~~~
dkersten
I noticed - awesome. Definitely plan to pick up a copy next week. After
reading through the site and the forums, it really does sound like a great
game and the graphics are beautiful too. I especially like how they replaced
gold with currency items that actually have value and the dev diary post[1]
about the logic behind doing so shows that they've carefully thought it
through. I think this game has a real chance to being what Diablo 2 fans
(myself included) have been waiting for! Now to finish a ton of work so I have
time to play...

[1] <http://www.pathofexile.com/news/dev-diary/>

------
b0rsuk
A comment by Tei from Rock Paper Shotgun forums:

    
    
      Diablo3 is not PvE or PvP, it is PvAH.
    

It's funny. Laugh.

------
darklajid
I recently wanted to impulse buy Diablo 3. After seeing a price of 60 USD and
clicking order I needed to login to my battle.net account. Which set my
country to Germany and the price to 60 EUR.

Updating my residence? I just need to send in a government issued id and, if
that doesn't include an address, a recent utility bill..

Want to delete a battle.net account? It seems the only way is calling a
hotline of some sorts. I'd bet they ask for similar bullshit.

Yes, I enjoy Diablo 2 more. The braindead way Blizzard treats me excludes any
new version as mere option. Ignoring all the always online idiocy.

------
chrischen
I think the main problem is their flawed auction house design.

Prices for weapons, armor, and gems will keep dropping to lower and lower
prices as long as you aren't in the first wave of players. There's nothing to
stop that price drop since demand for items will decrease over time AND supply
will increase.

An example of the bad design is in the fact that constructing a gem in the
game (which takes mutiple lower quality gems you have to find) costs more
money than to just buy it from another player. And it will only get cheaper.

~~~
slurgfest
I don't know, it seems like the options for fixing this are limited.

As more of anything spawns, the market supply increases. Everyone would cry if
they couldn't farm monsters for good stuff like gems. So at higher levels,
great gems are spawning, and then they are going on the market, increasing
supply and driving the price toward zero.

You could make gems decay in storage to take them out of circulation, but
everyone will cry. You could make gems into very fragile/limited-use items,
but everyone will cry. You could increase the work required to generate gems,
now they will not be accessible to anyone except by buying from Chinese gold
farmers or working Diablo like a job.

All you can do is forbid any kind of selling of gems (or whatever). But then
the entire market is the black market and again the game is run by people who
are using automation to produce items to sell for cash. So you actually have
to prevent transfer of ownership altogether... but nobody suggests that
because it doesn't sound like any fun.

And anyway, even if you do that you will still have people paying for someone
else to level up their character and get goodies.

------
b0rsuk
The game's user score on Metacritic wouldn't be so binary if it wasn't for the
fact that the game is called 'Diablo'. The name invites certain expectation.
If they had the sense (and confidence in their abilities) to call it something
else, at worst they would be getting "Meh.", "I played it, finished it, and
moved on. A decent game I guess.", "Nice, but nothing special."

One thing that particularly annoys me is that Diablo 3 developers _are in
denial_ about the game even being different. They are either in denial or
they're cynically lying. Check out this thread, a guy responds to Jay Wilson's
sentences point by point. Highly recommended !

<http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5638007856?page=1>

~~~
zarify
I think the OP in that thread is a mix of rose coloured glasses and sour
grapes (sour grape coloured glasses?). The rebuffs are mostly of the "D3 does
just what D2 did despite what you said!" variety. About the only thing that I
felt was pretty valid was the invasiveness of the story, partly through the
fluff conversations of hirelings but mainly through all the boss cutscenes. If
the cutscenes didn't play after the first time you'd seen them I'd be a lot
happier. At the same time I like the story and it's one of the things I've
enjoyed most in just about all of Blizzard's games, this being no exception.

(While I like the fact I can find things to improve my character on the
auction house, the fact that I need to because I find a very small number of
upgrades makes me sad.)

------
ShardPhoenix
Diablo 3 has some issues (mainly rareness and badness of legendary items and
excessive difficulty/frustration in Inferno), but I've still found it the most
fun game I've played in quite a while. The most important part of the game -
skills and combat - is really excellent.

------
okamiueru
The original article put "scientific" in quotes. I suggest this title
should've kept it, because there is nothing scientific about it. Stating a
hypothesis doesn't make it science. It might make for an interesting read
though.

------
lukev
How I avoid this problem (and enjoy D3, very much):

1\. Play hardcore. This instantly transforms the entire _point_ of the game
from "get the best gear" to "stay alive", though of course awesome gear is
still fun because it helps you stay alive, and squish monsters faster.

2\. Don't use the Auction House. Sure, this means I won't be competitive
(level for level) with players who do, and I probably won't ever be able to
play Inferno, but I play mostly single player or with friends who use similar
rules.

A lot of people do seem to love the gear grind of D2, and that's fine for
them, but I'd much rather play it in the vein of a classic roguelike.

------
Arelius
Ok, you can't put a bunch of graphs on something and call it a scientific
explanation, While the reasoning is decent, there is no data backing up any of
these assertions, it hardly seems "scientific" in nature.

------
d3throwaway
As both a scientist and avid Diablo 2 player, this blog post is laughable in
its superficiality and its claims.

TL;DR: Diablo 3 was WoWified: broke itemization and skill builds, and thus
replayability.

In D3, finding a rare item is "ID, does it have those stats? Yes: keep, No:
salvage". Brainless.

In D2, finding a rare item is "ID, weird combination of stats, but I don't
think anyone wants this so I'll throw it away, go to d2jsp and find some
absurdly rich player wanting that ridiculous combination and kicking yourself
for vendoring it".

\--

Background: thousands of hours manually farming and botting Diablo 2 since
vanilla release, equivalent time spent trading/on d2jsp (most of this will
refer to 1.09 since that is most fresh in my mind). Also lvl 60 demon hunter
in Diablo 3 Inferno Act 3.

Please don't argue that D2 was just as broken on release. The D3 team had
YEARS of experience to look back on.

\--

1) D2 was all about plowing through monsters. If you were underleveled or
undergeared, bosses should be somewhat difficult. If you were reasonably
prepared, bosses should be fairly easy. If you even had decent gear, bosses
should be a joke.

D3, on the other hand, treats everything like a WoW raid. Hours of grinding to
prepare for a fight, min-maxing forcing everyone into a single class or build
(energy armor wizard or PMS demon hunter?), and even then, the fights are
difficult( vs champions/elites).

Why is this important? Because D2 was so "easy", many many skill builds were
viable. Wanted to roll a melee sorc? Go ahead. Fishymancer ( = pet wd in d3)?
Works. Throwing barb? Surprisingly strong. Thorns + fire aura pally? Too good.

The proliferation of crazy builds is important, as it makes a MUCH larger
proportion of items valuable. This will tie in with the next point.

\--

2) D3 itemization is broken. First, there are very, very few item stats that
are important. Weapon DPS, main stat, vitality, resist all. Maybe atk speed,
crit, crit dmg, move speed. Everything else is garbage. Health globe radius,
seriously?

What made many D2 builds viable was the much larger variety of item effects,
as well as lack of dependence on stats. Life tap wands made smiters useful,
enigma was good for everyone, infinity runeward allowed lightning sorcs and
javazons to fight lightning immune, etc.

\--

3) Rare items. The above 2 problems, when taken together, kill the D3 end-
game. D2 was all about making a MF build, getting some money, then making a
bunch of crazy characters, either min-maxing MF or PVP or Baal runs or
something, but there was a ton of variety in what you could do. End game
economy revolved around rare items.

In D3, finding a rare item is "ID, does it have those stats? Yes: keep, No:
salvage". Brainless.

In D2, finding a rare item is "ID, weird combination of stats, but I don't
think anyone wants this so I'll throw it away, go to d2jsp and find some
absurdly rich player wanting that ridiculous combination and kicking yourself
for vendoring it". This means that botting was difficult, because the really
big $$ items are ones you wouldn't even recognize, and stash size was a
limitation.

\--

Anyways, that's why I stopped playing D3. I really don't think they can fix
these problems without very large patches, which seems unlikely coming from
actiblizzard.

~~~
d3throwaway
I'm kind of sad that this was downvoted. I thought on hacker news downvotes
were used for factually incorrect or trolling posts, and I don't think this
post is either.

Can I get an explanation for the downvotes at least?

~~~
javajosh
I read the post and am not sure why people downvoted. I have sneaking
suspicion that because snarky, trolling posts are universally disallowed,
people resort to snarky downvoting. Not the best solution, but I guess people
need an outlet. I upvoted you to counter a little.

Anyway, this is more of a personal question. I was wondering if you've
actually looked deeper into the personal question of why loot drops, etc, even
constitute a reward. This is not blackberry juice! It is manipulation of RAM
that affects the display. I play D3, and the closest I've come to understand
is that it's _the challenge of maintaining forward progress against increasing
resistance_. In which case the OP is correct - one waits for resistance to
grow too high, go the AH, buy new gear.

The other option, of course, is to adopt/discover a new strategy (which can
then drive your gear choices, of course). But really my question (which is
still a bit perplexing) is why I want to maintain forward progress going
through content that I've already seen.

~~~
d3throwaway
I think the reason is a combination of different aspects, with varying
proportions of each for different people.

I would agree that one of those aspects is surmounting obstacles.

For me, and I would argue for the majority of hardcore Diablo players, the
main aspect is market manipulation. It feels GOOD to buy cheap and sell, or
find some inefficiency in the market and exploit and profit.

Diablo is essentially the free market at its best and worst, and I find it
amazingly addicting to go from rags to riches, and the power that comes with
that. If you are rich enough, you can essentially create a niche market by
yourself.

There was this insanely rich guy on d2jsp that offered large amounts of
currency for the most ridiculously bad items. This "make people do stuff for
me" power is even apparent at lower levels of the heirarchy. I remember
finally reaching "middle-class" status and going into trade games and offering
somewhat valuable items to new players in exchange for them doing inane things
like bringing me tedious (unnecessary) quest items, or answering trivia.

Other aspects are pride in skill builds (I want to try this ridiculous skill
build and show it's viable), showing off items ( through faster PvE, more wins
in PvP, etc )... many more probably.

~~~
javajosh
Aha! In a word: _status_.

Status is such an interesting, and compelling, enticement for behavior. Even
entirely synthetic status, like D3, has it's advocates. In that case, we can
say that the dopamine spikes occur during _status events_.

Perhaps that's D3's real problem - the dearth of status events. Perhaps PvP
will sove that problem for ActiBlizzard.

(Personally, I don't think I'm motivated by status events. I'm more motivated
by puzzle solving, and although D3 has some puzzles, particularly in the meta-
game, they aren't particularly compelling to me.)

~~~
intended
I doubt status is the correct answer here.

Firstly, you can't use a term like status and then apply it across the entire
D3 player base. The edge cases here are complete player types which make a
sizeable portion of the player base.

~~~
javajosh
I think that _status_ correctly summarizes the incentive that the grand parent
post describes. And from what I know about gamers I think he's onto something.
It may be a more local status; e.g. within a close network of friends, but
status is potent.

If you do not want to apply it across the player base, fine. But one must
provide an alternative, perhaps some partition across the base according to
motivation. I'd be interested to see that from you.

~~~
intended
Well instead of seeing that from me, this link may help perhaps -
<http://chiproject.googlecode.com/files/cpb2E20062E92E772.pdf>

Survey results of 3000 mmo gamers on what motivates them, Nick Yee.

~~~
javajosh
1\. I don't see any results. Even the supplamentary link
[<http://www.nickyee.com/cpb-supp.html>] doesn't break down, say, top
responses as fractions.

2\. In the list of MMORPGs WoW is not listed. That seems strange, casting
doubt on this study.

3\. The word "status" is the 5th word in table 1.

It's great that there are multiple motivations, but I'd like to see which
motivations are most prominent in the sample. That is, are 80% motivated by
achievement, 50% by social, and 40% immersion? (And note that in this case,
the percentages don't need to add to 100).

~~~
intended
It's an old sampling, and even with or without wow it makes no difference.

As I have said elsewhere you can go to the dwarf fortress forums and you will
find status to be a far lesser motivator than doing cool stuff.

Gaming is studied pretty extensively nowadays, I pulled the first result you
get for video games plus motivation. A few further google searches will help
illuminate this further for you.

------
Jare
I have only played D3 in normal, not touched the AH at all, and definitely
felt the lack of addiction and excitement. Putting aside that me and my life
are very different now than back in D2 times, there's a very visible issue for
me: all loot is just a collection of variations on the same few numbers. A
piece of gear can be good, it may have a great combination of the right stats
for my char, but it's not _special_ , it's not memorable, it's not unique. I
like it but I don't love it.

------
sneak
While we're on the topic of Blizzard and wasting time - are there any HNers
that enjoy a game of StarCraft2 from time to time? Get in touch!

~~~
aerique
I do although I'm barely dipping into Silver. Also I'm on the EU server.

Perhaps something for an "Ask HN" or an in-game channel? I'll go sit in a
"HackerNews" channel when I'm online.

------
loeschg
Could a reason for disappointment/changed degree of addiction have something
to do with varied expectations over a course of time? Diablo II launched back
in 2000, right? Not to say that game wasn't played years after, but I'm just
thinking my opinion of a game like Diablo would have been quite a bit
different that many years ago.

------
tastive
tl;dr -- everything changes on Inferno, so scroll down and read only that part
if you're in a tl;dr sort of mood. I apologize for any typos/grammatical
mistakes; I should probably get back to work, and that guilt is enough to
prevent me from proofreading this super carefully.

\--

So, I sort of agree with the linked post, but I feel it doesn't apply to the
game as a whole, rather only to certain sections and to certain demographics.
I'll explain by digging into the presence/shape of the reward and frustration
loops (which can co-exist, imo!) for each difficulty level both with and
without use of the Auction House.

On Normal: The game is never very hard. As a result, the frustration loop is
non-existent for both AHers and non-AHers. Players using the AH and players
_not_ using the AH are pretty much in the same boat, though decent items are
inexpensive enough in this level range (1-30) that a player can pretty easily
flatten the reward loop entirely (and thus never find anything truly useful to
him/her) by purchasing new "good" gear every few levels that's very likely to
blow away anything they're going to find. tl;dr: on Normal, the AH serves only
to destroy the reward loop (and removes all challenge from the game as well).

On Nightmare: The game begins to get more difficult; you realize things are a
bit more serious the first time you see an elite pack with potently synergetic
affixes. The increased challenge does not frustrate most players, and for
these players the game (as well as the effects the Auction House has on
rewards/frustration) is the same as on Normal. For inexperienced players,
however, the effects explained in the OP's post begin to manifest themselves.
The game gets tough in some places, and the AH can alleviate this pain at very
affordable prices. Using the AH creates a frustration loop because buying
cheap, relatively powerful gear is easier than learning to play better, and as
such the idea becomes to "out-gear" rather than "out-think" challenges. This
dampens the peaks of the reward loop significantly for AH users. Nightmare is
very doable without using the AH, and as such many users are unaffected and
the game still feels a lot like Diablo II.

As of Hell, D3 becomes much, much harder. Elite packs with deadly affix sets
become common and characters can be killed very quickly at times whether or
not they're prepared for what's coming. Hell, I think, is the part of D3 that
is most negatively impacted by the Auction House. Hell is completable without
using the AH, but it's hard enough/some parts are frustrating enough that many
people will use the AH to augment their gear before finishing it (and will
likely do so several times). Hell difficulty, IMO, is where the linked post
really shines, and I think everything in the OP's article really describes
this very well. Lots of people will use the AH to complete Hell, and as a
result will experience the frustration loop and lack of a reward loop
described in the post. Since the gear necessary to complete Hell is very
affordable still, players can buy their way out of difficult situations and
power through without the addiction that comes along with finding awesome
stuff every so often.

If you've read this far, thanks! This is where the game changes.

On Inferno, the linked post doesn't apply. Starting with Act II, Inferno
becomes incredibly difficult to the point where characters just "playing
through" and even characters who have been farming (collecting gold and new
items) for awhile in Act I are eliminated by foes instantly and frequently.
Inferno is nigh-impossible (yes, some people have finished it, but the vast
majority won't for awhile if at all) as it is intended to be and the absolute
best gear is needed to progress without major pain.

This gear is very, very expensive, and most players won't be able to afford
it. I don't have statistics to back this up (yet?), but imagine that gear
quality follows a power law distribution in which there is a _ton_ of crap and
only very infrequently do the wonderful things pop up. The wonderful things
are needed to progress on Inferno, so the demand for them is very high, higher
even than it'd be if Inferno could be reasonably completed without them. The
game is now different. Instead of being able to smoothly purchase the items
you need as you go, there is a brick wall in front of you that says you must
be THIS TALL to ride, and you're only half this tall. So how do you get THIS
TALL? You farm.

You farm and farm and farm. The game becomes about total equippable assets.
Say a suitable item for a given slot costs 1 million gold; 2x rings, 1x
amulet, 1x chest, 1x helm, 1x boots, 1x pants, 1x weapon (2h for sake of
example), 1x belt, 1x gloves, 1x shoulders = 11 items = 11 million gold. You
don't need to find or trade for 11 suitable items; you just need to be able to
purchase them. You feed the power law curve of crap on the Auction House by
selling everything you think will sell for a reasonable price so that you can
buy the super-expensive items you need to progress.

Here's the kicker: this means that the presence of the AH doesn't actually
dilute the reward cycle! The inability to trivially purchase everything you
need means that the items you find have full meaning. Even if you can't wear
the good ones, you'll sell them or give them to friends who need them,
building up gold and friend-goodwill s.t. they'll give you things they find as
well. In short, the incredibly high bar set by Inferno combined with the
rarity of the items needed to progress through Inferno balances with the
effects of the AH in cheapening the reward loop, restoring the feel of Diablo
IIness.

For those wondering about the Inferno frustration loop, I argue that the
presence of the AH doesn't change it. Were it not for the AH, Blizzard would
still find a difficulty bar befitting their highest difficulty. (It would
likely be easier to compensate for having no AH -- or perhaps good rare items
would drop more frequently -- but the difficulty would likely not change
substantially.) In both cases, the very rare amazing finds are what pushes the
player toward progression; in the AH case, the few major item find successes
give the player the gold he needs to move on; in the non-AH case, the few
major item finds are what you actually use. The reward loops then are awfully
similar if not the same (hence the feeling of Diablo IIness).

\--

To sum up: for players who use the Auction House whenever it's in their best
interest to do so before Inferno, yes, I agree with the linked post. The game
is cheapened, the reward loop doesn't feel as good or doesn't exist, and a lot
of the challenge is removed. This does, however, allow Blizzard to make the
game more difficult for players looking for a challenge (as not using the AH
through Hell is pretty tough!) while still making it possible for less
experienced players (via using the AH). Perhaps that's part of their design,
and they should have made it more obvious (like a recommendation not to use it
for experienced players until later, etc).

~~~
julsonl
That's where I think most people are wrong about inferno though. That
difficulty rewards proper communication and group play. Sure, soloing
everything requires a crap-ton of godly loot, but damage and defenses can be
compensated by a proper synergy of group skills. Lack armor and resists? that
Barb shout may just solve it. Your tank getting face-melted a lot? You could
have a monk stack a 50% damage reduction debuff on the enemy. Your glass
cannon wizard getting chased down? Have a witch doctor load up on CC skills.
What I'm seeing everybody try to do is to gear up and go berserker on the
enemy and it just doesn't work.

~~~
Xion
On Inferno the monsters scale quite massively with each and every player that
joins the game. I believe it's 110% of hit points and about 15% of damage per
player.

So your party have to synergize alot in order to overcome this scaling. This
is further exacerbated by the Nephalem Valor buff's mechanics - a bonus to
magic find you accrue after killing hard mob packs - which prohibits changing
your skills and runes mid-game. Hence you cannot really have your party
members leave and be replaced by someone of different class without losing the
synergy (or the buff).

In solo play, of course, you don't have these problems.

------
atomical
How would others rank the story line of Diable 3? I loved the story line of
Dungeon Siege when I was younger but I haven't found a modern replacement.

~~~
d3throwaway
Pretty terrible compared to Diablo 2.

If you like being ( in the story ) some unrivaled being that everyone flatters
and looks up to and expects you to defeat all evil, you'll love it.

Voice acting was superb, though. I guess I just found Diablo 2's ominous "good
luck hero, you're gonna need it" atmosphere more realistic when going against
the embodiment of all evil.

~~~
guard-of-terra
Diablo II didn't have any story line worth mentioning. It had some long
monologues but that was it.

Did you actually read Diablo III storyline? The idea was: the worldstone is
destroyed, everybody will be nephalem now. There's no reason why you would be
nepalem and anybody else won't. People were miserable but now they actually
become what they should be in the first place.

~~~
d3throwaway
That was what was great about Diablo 2. The storyline was fairly subtle, but
the whole time I felt like I was really a hero struggling against the forces
of evil, following this path of destruction and being scared of actually
finding hat I was looking for.

Yes I read the D3 storyline, and I think you're a bit mistaken in how it
happens.

The humans (nephalem) are offpsring between angels and demons, but their
potential power was too much, so the Worldstone was used so that each new
generation of humans would be progressively weaker. Since you killed the
Worldstone in D2, and some time has passed, _some_ humans have regained
nephalem powers.

The question becomes: how does every minor character know what a nephalem is?
how do they know it's all powerful? why does everyone have so much faith in me
to defeat the evil that has pretty much been uncontested forever?

D3's story makes me feel like I'm Superman, born to save the world and
everyone knows.

a good read: <http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/05/10/diablo-3-the-story-so-far/>

~~~
guard-of-terra
I don't understand why everybody won't be nepalem.

Ancient entities like Diablo and Imperius recognise you being nephalem because
the difference is as obvious to them as the difference between an ape and a
human.

------
spullara
As someone that never played Diablo 2, I find this to be very accurate. Skyrim
was much more enjoyable and habit forming.

------
laserDinosaur
I thought Diablo 2 was nowhere near as addictive as Diablo 1 _shrugs_.

~~~
brazzy
And Diablo 1 was nowhere near as addictive as Angband.

Which I'm playing right now on my Android phone...

~~~
laserDinosaur
And now I'm addicted to Angband. >:(

~~~
brazzy
Mission accomplished!

------
pwthornton
So, for those of us who haven't purchased Diablo 3 yet, is it worth it?

~~~
d3throwaway
It is actually fun from 1 to 60 if you avoid the AH (though near the end of
Hell you might need to). Replayability is totally down from Diablo 2 though.

~~~
cldrope
I found your other post to focus on the wrong aspects of D3, but this one is
right on.

It's pretty fun 1-60, especially with a friend.

As soon as you play a bit longer you quickly realize that most people just
quit trying to loot in regular intervals to use the AH. They only pick up gear
to sell to merchants.

Before I was even hacked I realized the replayability wasn't there and donated
for a beta invite to Path of Exile.

~~~
d3throwaway
Yeah, I think D3 nailed the social aspect of leveling. I only had one friend
playing the game, but I ended playing regularly with over 10 other people that
I just met in game randomly.

------
alainbryden
Great theory and great reference study to back it up.

------
guard-of-terra
Diablo III is a wonderful game and anybody who claims otherwise is probably a
combination of:

\- Whiner who likes whining more than playing games.

\- Bad genre match: go play your mindless Max Payne or Counter Strike, we
won't possibly feel any worse without you.

\- Not really remembering Diablo II downsides that were fixed in Diablo III.
Having idealized past and snarky today.

Of course you have to play on hardcore. AH makes single player softcore much
less fun; multiplayer softcore a bit less fun (it was possible to trade even
in Diablo II); and hardcore becomes a lot more fun. Because seriously.

Now, Diablo II had a lot of problems of its own that I'm glad are fixed in
Diablo III. A clear improvement.

Come on! Meph running without maphack is NOT fun! Throwing out every magic and
rare item is NOT fun! Ignoring every non-mandatory dungeon because the only
good drop is from bosses is NOT fun! Skipping acts 1 & 2 because good exp only
comes in 4&5 is NOT fun! Running thru huge levels killing monsters with lots
of health but little scare factor is NOT fun! First scene in act 5, where very
good exp could be made but no scary monsters or interesting drop - a
definition of boredom!

We loved Diablo II, but now we love Diablo III, so please ignore the whiners
and give it a try! Hardcore.

~~~
Freestyler_3
GL on hardcore inferno act 3

So many mops that jump or do quick long range attacks. Not to mention elite
packs.

Takes just too much time to be a considerable challenge. I know its about
farming gear on hardcore... but the chance of rolling perfect stats that you
need.... slim.

~~~
guard-of-terra
You don't play hardcore to never die.

