I've written a lot of words and then my browser somehow crashed. I don't know why it did that, but now I have to write everything again... grrrrrr. Anyway...
Congrats on getting in the contest. It's been a long while since I've last posted but I've seen your diablo mod improved quite a bit. I hope you can help answer some questions.
1. Current, all prefix and suffix can apply to any piece of equipment I assume, if so, does that mean the max stat that a particular piece can have is 50? (Example, perfect zodiac is 20, perfect str/dex/mag/vit is 30, unless u changed the max cap from D1)?
2. Will there be anymore character wipes? I really hope not....
3a. What is the maximum level you can have for your character?
3b. What is the maximum spell level/cap?
3c. What is the maximum stats or cap in this game for each of the 3 classes (as there was one for D1, 250 being max for their specific main stat)?
4. Are there permanent stat increases from shrines or potion (original D1 had perm stat potion)?
5. Seems there's hell levels now, is Diablo available to kill?
6. Is there any plans for end game?
7. Is there a cow level?
I hope you do win the arcade contest, hopefully you'll keep us posted on what place you are in and other related matters, good luck!
1. Yes, +30 specific stat and +20 all stats are possible on rare items.
2. I don't know, but I hope not.
3A. Character level 76 is the current max value I've added. But I've changed the system to even allow me to add more. Adding more levels and changing the experienced required for the existing ones is fairly easy, so it might change one day. But atm, I've no plans to add more.
3B. I didn't add one, yet... what's the highest level you can achieve right now?
3C. I've removed the cap. All functions were modified, too, though. So, it can't be super overpowered.
4. No. It would be difficult to verify that the person didn't hack his save file. So, all stat changes are just temporary.
5. Diablo and the Hell Level 4 aren't available. The item required to open hell spawns in 25% of the games as the hell levels aren't ocmpleted, yet. I'm allowing the entrance to receive feedback and I didn't want to hold it back for a year or something.
In case someone can model and wants to create some models, I've made some sketches for the
hell dungeon walls and for the
Pedestal of Blood which is used in the Arkaine's Valor quest.
6. The normal playthrough isn't finished yet. There is no skill system added, yet. So, it's quite far away. It would start with difficulty levels which would continue the journey of the hero towards the max char level. It would have a few changes, I assume like different monster appearances in the dungeon. But no aspect of multiple difficulties have been implemented, yet.
An endgame beyond Diablo would require me to open a portal similar to the way the hell dungeon is made accessible. It would require me to remove the other dungeon levels from the map to make room for those.
Another aspect I would like to improve for that would be PvP, so people could properly fight each other. In case, someone has tried PvP, how unfair is it? The current implementation is pretty much like D3's brawling and my loose affix rules and the missing skill system might make it pretty unfair.
7. One day, I hope so.
I've already added data for cow monsters a few years ago.
But I've no cool models. =/ Maybe Diablo 3 Reaper of Souls will give me cow models.
Very cool. Now try to get invited to the main HQ in California and give them the same suggestions! Hopefully they take them to heart, though I think this free Arcade thing is a first major step in the right direction.
The developers have my mail with my suggestions and my feedback regarding arcade and editor. In the q&a session I was only able to talk about the arcade due to limited time, but the developers have my e-mail address in case they want to discuss aspects with me or need clarifications, etc. At least they were quite happy about it. As expected, the youtubers/streamers didn't have a lot of questions as they don't really deal with the arcade as much as every arcade map author. But I really hope that I can get to California one day. I assume I might make a trip there in case I win something in the arcade contest.
Regarding the arcade and the editor, I can see multiple challenges. First of all, Blizzard needs to find a way to earn money out of the arcade. The galaxy platform is meant to stay a quite a few years and the editor is powerful enough to allow nearly every game to be created. So, game developers could use the arcade when they could make money from their creation. Battle.net is an awesome way to make your game accessible and grants a lot of assets, so the start might not as difficult as creating games from scratch on other platforms like unity. But Blizzard is already heading into that direction with the free arcade. After Heroes' release they will think about the marketplace again, so it might be realistic that battle.net allows people to sell games one day.
Connected to that challenge is a long term support for the editor. The editor has problems right now. For example, it is very difficult to get into (although it's now easier than ever before). The community uses the editor the most and might have a few ideas how to improve it, but the smartest move would be allowing the community to expand the functionality of the editor themselves. Blizzard could make the editor open source, so the community could modify it, but Blizzard has invested a lot of money into its development, so it's unrealistic for them to make it open source. A better solution would be to add plugin support for the editor. Then the community can create new windows and functions to improve the usability. For example, it would be possible to add functions that properly duplicate units completely. The spine crawler requires more than 10 steps to end up with a bugfree duplicate, so it's far from perfect or usable by new editor users. Also, it would be possible to hide a lot of aspects making the editor appear more like the wc3 editor which I've heard was easy to use. Unfortunately, I've never mapped for WC3, so I've no idea.
Then there is the arcade which lacks a few features and could receive a few improvements.
Imagine a new editor user that makes a new map. He wants to test it with human players, so he publishes it on battle.net and hosts it just like we all did in our early SCBW mapmaking days. He manages to have a few players joining and playing the map. But the map contains massive bugs as it's the first version of it and the players are disappointed. Now they want to make sure nobody plays such a broken map, so they give the map a bad rating as it was obviously unplayable. Our new editor user improves his map and publishes it again, but now nobody joins the lobby as the map has a terrible rating and every other map in the open lobbies list has at least 3 stars. So, players wouldn't really join a map they don't know that has a 1-star rating.
The problem here is that the map could be rated, so there would need to exist a way to stop maps from being rated or display the rating at all.
Also, people requested to be able to add text to lobbies. But I don't think that free text is the way to go as players might just write random crap into it which might be offensive. So, it would be possible to use tags that the host can select which were added into the map by the author. For example, it could then state "map test", "platin-diamond league", etc.
Then there are more improvement possibilities for battle.net and the arcade:
- a list of all publicly published maps of a person in his profile to allow people to check out other maps made by one author.
- File names on battle.net can't be cleared and projects can't be transferred to different persons. For example, I can't claim "Dia blo - Mortal Shroud" on NA server as Payne published the map witht hat name already.
- arcade icon in the open lobbies' tooltip. (You can memorize the name of the map and/or its icon. In the open lobbies screen, you can't see the icon. Custom games display the minimap inside the tooltip, so arcade maps should display the arcade icon, too)
- proper support for user-made campaigns. When we can make a campaign like the HotS campaign on battle.net, it's good enough.
- easier way to find singleplayer maps. For example, this can be done with a checkbox in the browse screen and maps could be flagged with singleplayer support in the map options in the editor or via a game mode.