It’s not the first time I read Shild at F13 repeating how absolutely great is the loot system in Diablo (2), in particular compared to those used in mmorpgs. I was going to ask him to explain in detail the reasons, but he did it further in the thread, so here it is:

There are 6 things that make Diablo loot what it is.

1. The distribution system: Some things have higher drop rates on better items, but no one is chasing after that one shiny – this is where WoW fails, everyone knows what everyone wants.

2. .The randomization of attached attributes: This is something WoW could fix, sure everyone wants the…whatever, but that whatever could have different stats from your friends. Wouldn’t fix problem #1 though.

3. Can’t exist in a game that isn’t replayable. Something that needs to be paired with this loot bit is randomization of actual levels and bosses and such – there’s a reason all of this is being pimped so hard with Hellgate: London (SAVE ME FLAGSHIP), and there’s a reason why PSU fails so bad, and there’s a reason WoW will never have a loot system better than say… EQ.

4. There needs to be many tiers and sister types to the tiers – the set system was a good start, but I imagine Blizzard or Flagship will expand on this for the appropriate titles.

5. Class, level, and stat specific loot. Level specific loot is so… passe. We need, Thief Only, Dex 100 required on this shit. This is the ultimate carrot. Sure, you may be in a dungeon and kill something that drops a kickass sword – but you can’t use it yet. What do you do? You grind to the point of using it of course. And then you grind some more because you just found a kickass pair of boots but you dumped all your points into dex when you leveled and you need more points in strength. Just one more time through Travincal, just one more time.

6. Most importantly? Tangible differences between every item. This is key. When I equip a short sword, I expect to see a shortsword – when I requip an icy short sword, I expect to see some sort of particle effect or different color blade. The most recent game that comes to mind that nails this is Summon Night 1 & 2 for the GBA from Atlus/Flight Plan.

Anyway, yea. There aren’t any MMOGs out with this done right. They’re all missing one or more of the things above. Most fuck up on #6, which is just goddamn unacceptable.

Shild is a much more experienced and all around “gamer” than me so I’m interested in his point of view.

Let’s see. I absolutely agree with the last point. This is something I always considered fundamental, in particular when I was younger. This is just about the visual cues, nothing really about game design, but it’s a part extremely important. I think the fantasy genre is more dependent on the “visuals” than it is on the “plot”. Even in a fantasy book like Lord of the Rings the visuals are extremely important, even if only evoked through just words.

Today we know how it is important the “avatar” for a player, and also how important is the customization and personalization, so this point isn’t arguable.

But from the point of view of Diablo I don’t think the game did a so great work. Most of the art assets were reused over multiple items. Not really much (visual) personalization overall. Since we are comparing Diablo loot system to those in the current mmorpgs I really don’t see how WoW can perform worse on this point.

You can like or dislike the art style, but WoW’s loot variety (still from the perspective of the visual appearance) is exceptional. Both because the items are different one from the other and always visible on the character model, and because the single item has usually an unique style that really stands out. Not much in this game looks “generic” or bland, often the problem is the opposite, when tings are too exaggerates, over the top and not really consistent with the genre (in fact I like much more Warhammer’s current style).

Point 5. Something similar happened to me in WoW when I got an epic two-handed sword while my warrior used a two handed axe. I couldn’t equip it right away because I had to train for two handed swords, and then I had to go out and grind to skill up so that I could use it. Not a really fun mechanic from this perspective, but I agree that Diablo is different.

I think this point alone isn’t worth much, but it becomes valuable if you tie it with the level system. In Diablo you continue to grow constantly, so a requirement on a item that depends on a statistic like Dexterity is a “soft cap”. It works as an incentive as Shild describes because it “tells” you to play some more. It works as a “bait”, gets you hooked to the game. But it’s hard to bring this to a mmorpg because of all the problems with the levels.

It could work in a skill-based game though.

Point 4. Well, not much to comment. More variety, more mixes. This point is strictly tied with the other three above.

Jump to point 1. I didn’t understand this one initially and in fact I see it depending on the other two points. “Everyone knows what everyone wants” because of the static drops. But the static drops depend on the fact that content isn’t randomly generated (point 3) and the items don’t have random variables (point 2).

I don’t see how you can have that first point without also having the other two. WoW is actually a definite improvement. If every mob had a small chance of dropping whatever, and if every raid encounter could drop anything, then the players would just find the most efficient path and grind that one. If instead every big encounter has its own static loot list, as WoW currently works, then you have a guarantee that all the content in the game is equally used, because you are going to need all those different steps. All those different steps have a precise “function” in the loot system, so you avoid mudflation from a certain point of view.

In Diablo things were different because the content was linear and soloable. So you would move along naturally without really feeling the need to repeat the same part. The min-maxing wasn’t really needed as a better item could always be past the *next* corner, not the previous. This is what worked in Diablo.

Predictability is also not always a bad element when you can expect the kind of loot you are going to see. You’ll less likely get pissed off. It gives a better sense of persistence, a better sense of progression and achievement. I actually like the quest system where the reward is certain, so you complete the quest and get your reward. Most of the loot you are going to use in WoW as you level up comes either from questing or drops in instances, so there’s a very little use of the random drops. But at the same time the “carrot” didn’t vanish, it only got replaced. In Diablo it was the item past the next corner, in WoW it’s the quest system that gives you objectives and “segments” your playsession.

There isn’t a system significantly better. Diablo was well designed and worked well because all the parts fit together. The random itemization going along with the generated content and the level progression. I think WoW is also well designed from this perspective. You could easily experiment, for example building just one instance where instead of static loot lists you have randomly generated items. You could observe how players react to this but I don’t see this as something revolutionary or so much better than how the game currently works.

What I mean is that or you take all the structure on which Diablo was built, with all its nuances, pretty much what Flagship is supposed to do with Hellgate, or those ideas aren’t really usable on their own.

Instead it is surely possible to isolate the actual problems and find better solutions for each. Personalization, customization, character progress. These aren’t subordinate to the loot system, they are basic structures that have much deeper purposes and dependencies. It’s the loot system that is subordinate to those. It’s a lot of time that I advocate for a skill-based system that makes levels obsolete. That’s an important first step that will strongly influence all the rest.

I also had described on this website, for the “dream mmorpg”, a magic item system where the player “levels” and specializes an item unlocking new skills, powers and bonuses, making every item unique and personalized (and with a generated “DNA” code that will silently affect the efficiency and propensity of each item). There are just many different possibilities.

I think the important point is that the design of a loot system depends strictly on the structure of the game. Form there you really have an infinite number of possibilities and the way Diablo worked is just one, probably not even one of the best possible.

Diablo was at its core an hack&slash game with very little depth if you exclude the combat system. So the repeatable/random content, infinite level progression and random itemization fit the purpose of a “full combat” game.

From Shild again:

Anyway, it’s pretty much a guarantee that if I know what the best armor and weapon in a game is, I’ll never play that game. And that’s just a tiny fraction of why MMOGs suck and could be favorably altered by the inclusion of the Diablo style loot system.

So the predictability. But I wrote above as the predictability isn’t always bad. What is that doesn’t really work here? What is missing?

The point isn’t really the predictability of the loot system, but the fact that you know where you’ll be. So:

1- The experience is spoiled, you can see far away. There’s no surprise nor sense of wonder.
2- The game fails to give you the unique feel. You are going to be an exact copy of everyone else in that game.

I think both of those points are interesting to consider OUTSIDE of the loot system.