The transformation of data

I'm starting a new project to really sit down and think about how and why we manipulate data and what that means for the game projects that I would like to get to.  As I laid out the foundations for those projects, I basically came up against the same problem.  Managing state/data.

My other thoughts since we started shelter in place for covid-19 are "on what and how should I focus my energy to educate my 5 year old" and "how do I make work easier for my wife" (im a stay at home dad).  This new project probably bridges solutions to the whole family's problems and it'll help me stretch some web development/programming muscles that haven't seen any use for a while.

Next post will be about fighting games, granblue fantasy versus and will no doubt be terrible because I am not great at classic fighters, and fighters are really hard to talk about in general.

Event decks, variation and player will

In the pursuit of meaningful randomness, I've decided to do some thinking and writing about events in board games.  It's definitely vary interesting what lines people draw when it comes to adding unpredictability into board games. Too much and it's considered "ameritrash" and too little and you get that traditional tight euro/chess kinda feeling.

In general, I'm a HUGE fan of variability.  I don't think winning is that important, but it is important as a gauge to determine everyone's performance. Now if a game has so much variation that it doesn't seem like anything you do will change the course of the game then it's probably too random, and of course, that threshold varies per player.

BUT..  I don't want a game full of scripted responses and memorization. (tic-tac-toe anyone?) What I really really want is to assert my will against or with players who are doing the same and the phrase that I want to use is from fighting games. I want to play board game footsies. 

A little bit about footsies (fighting games). At its foundation, it basically comes down to game theory (economic). If you're unfamiliar with either of those concepts, I'm sorry. I highly doubt I can explain either of those concepts well without embarrassing both of us.

But my interest essentially boils down to this question "do you know, that I know, that you know etc?" and the decisions that we make from there.  For instance, if someone in Catan starts laying roads down aggressively, other players have to guess if the road-guy is rushing to a location or is trying to control area. The only problem in that game is that you either 1. can't do anything about it or 2. it doesn't really matter. HOWEVER.. in that rare case where you can do something, it's interesting to watch players either challenge the road, run away or feign a challenge.  Most area control games have this in some shape or form but a lot of the times it's very clunky or the encounters are random or something.

The concept that I want to explore is whether or not player agency can drive events instead of semi-artificial randomness.  Next,  the choose your adventure mechanic for multiple players in either cooperative or competitive format.

Diablo 3 - 2.3 and 2.4 - the beginning of greatness?

Forgot about this blog! But this is a good time to start since D3 was the reason why I started it to begin with, and now is an exciting time.

With a little less than a month until 2.4.0, I'd just like to put a few thoughts here.

What's great?

Scaling

To those complaining about the number scaling.. you really have to take a step back and see what is actually happening.  That team is committed to scaling the base skills with gear to control the multiplicative nature of the beast and introducing the Legacy of Nightmares set to bring skills up to par (kinda) based on damage alone.

I think it's slightly misguided to keep trying to control the top end meta but I think it's also a really good way of finding what is actually fun for players. And.. in the future, I can see them adding the scaling in by default and focusing on augmenting the skills which is far more intersting.

Kanai's cube

First. RIP.

Second, I like that we've gotten a way to extend the number of "skills" we have with the cube and legendary gems.. at this point I'm definitely feeling like we should remove the accessory socket requirement and put legendary gems just as additional powers.  The game is probably in the right spot right now to do that since we're re-establishing baseline defense and offense and we can mitigate the 3 additional stat slots.

What's the same?

Channeling

Channeling should probably just be removed at this point.  I don't think the dev team knows how to make this mechanic interesting and even though they're making the numbers better.. i'm not sure that standing somewhere and holding down a button should be good except in specific circumstances.

What could we do about it?  I'd like to see a completely new approach to channeling (although no idea if it's technically feasible). So stuff like, buff/debuff ground pools that widen as you cast, regeneration/resource regeneration, access to different skills while channeling (archon)

Just as an example.. say mirror image, could be a "channeled" ability where you get to summon 3 clones based on the direction you're facing, you get a new set of "skills" where 1 is cancel, 2-5 will swap the real you to the corresponding position, all copies (including you) are gimpy and do 10% damage and cast random stuff but most importantly.. they dont move

Definitely excited to see the final patch notes for 2.4.0!

Diablo 3 - breakdown - overpowered

There seem to be a few warring philosophies to the current conversation around d3. One side seems to think that exploits and mechanics should just be left alone, that broken overpoweredness is what it's all about, and the other side of the coin is the people more interested in balance.

 Now, I'll start by saying I'm on the side of balance. But there's a reason why we all should be very interested in basic mechanics that are balanced.

The heart of d3 is the skills system. When I first read about how skills will scale in d3, I immediately knew this would be the loot pinata dungeon crawler of all time. This game is essentially an orgasm of math and scalability. The devs basically said.. 'screw it, we're going to throw away anything that corresponds to "sense" and make this game capable of scaling up and down based simpler math'.  What does this mean for us?

Each skill can be balanced.  Note that I said.. can be.. some skills are clearly superior to others based on factors outside of the numbers on skills.  For instance, the demon hunters grenades are ridiculously hard to use solo.. and practically useless against fast enemies because of the casting animation and the time it takes to actually explode (at least in the current meta)  The problem with skills like this is that there's probably a very specific build or group composition that can take advantage of the skill, but you need either or to make it worth taking. That's something of a problem but it also gives people a reason to group or swap whole skill sets..

For the sake of fun.. we want to tune all the available skills so that they are worth taking and at the same time.. are soft counters for elite/champ affixes so that we can gear to. Why do we want to do this? For the simple fact that although nephalem valor is completely OP, sometimes that calling for progression is too insistent to quit and restart the run.

Diablo 3 - breakdown of awesomeness

After being on the very poisonous main diablo 3 forums for some time and browsing through people's opinions, I decided to write a bit about the good things (amazing things really) about the game, its potential and its relationship with issues games are having, in general, in the 21st century. Not quite sure how many parts this series will be.. but here goes nothing.