How about a nice cup of Liber-Tea?

Folks, we really need to talk about Helldivers 2. You know, the game that came pretty much out of nowhere in February and has since spread like wildfire just by extremely positive word of mouth? No? Never heard of it? Then you’re in the same boat as I was just a couple of weeks ago.

One day a colleague of mine asked me if I’d already bought the new Helldivers game. I had not; in fact I hadn’t even been aware of its existence up to that point. She told me that it’s a four player co-op third person shooter, that it’s a lot of fun and that it supports crossplay (which is important for her because she’s on Playstation).

That same evening I watched a couple of gameplay videos and was sold immediately. I fired up Steam, shelled out forty bucks and started spreading liberty and democracy across the galaxy right away.

This message is approved by the Super Earth Ministry of Truth

What’s democracy got to do with this? I hear you ask. Well, the game’s story and tone are pretty much a carbon copy of Starship Troopers, as is the action, only that we don’t just fight against bugs, but also against a faction of killer robots.

Choosing this type of humor and satire was a stroke of genius, because the gameplay itself is just as absurd, exaggerated and hilarious. Together this creates an environment that’s really easy to immerse oneself in, despite the outlandish premise.

What it is above all else, though, is a crapton of fun! It’s actually hard to describe with mere words how awesome this game feels while playing – case in point, I’ve started this parapraph over from scratch like five times now, and still don’t quite know where to even begin.

It’s really pretty, let’s start with that

So here’s what I’m going to do: I won’t even try to describe the actual gameplay to you, instead I’ll embed a very entertaining video made by a great content creator at the end of the post, so you can go and see for yourself.

What I will tell you about is all the things Arrowhead Game Studios have done an outstanding job with other than the ‘blasting bugs to bits’ part, because that stuff is almost as important, but is, tragically, often forgotten (or ignored on behalf of maximizing profits) in this day and age.

Blasting bugs to bits is awesome though

Helldivers 2 has one pretty unique feature that many so called “live service” games only wish they had, which is…well…actual live service!

The galactic war against the Automatons and the Terminids is always ongoing, shifting and changing. This is mainly thanks to one individual going by the name of Joel, who, for all intents and purposes, is what we used to call a GM back in the olden days of MMORPGs.

About every other day the players get new orders, telling us which planets need to be liberated or defended. Succeeding means we all get a reward, but more importantly, the enemy gets pushed back. If we fail, however, the opposing forces gain ground and slowly but surely advance towards Super Earth, our beloved home.

Rumor has it that Joel sometimes gets up at night to check up on things, and if players are progressing too quickly he intervenes on the enemy’s behalf, for example by starting an offensive on a previously liberated planet, thus temporarily cutting off our supplies to the front lines.

More than that, he’s allegedly entered actual games, sometimes to drop more enemies onto players’ heads, other times to help them by spawning powerful equipment that’s not even officially released yet (!).

Guys…does this mean we’ve won…?

Last Sunday something unexpected happened – we actually managed to wipe the Automatons off the map completely, and now…we really don’t know what will happen next. I mean, of course they’ll make a return eventually, but for now we can only fight the Terminids as the bots are deemed eradicated [Edit: aaaand they’re back!].

Speaking of delivering or withholding content depending on the success of our war efforts, when the devs had finished a new and shiny piece of equipment a while back they didn’t just release it in a patch – instead we got an order to liberate the planet the stuff was being built on. The way the order was phrased suggested that failing would not only have resulted in us not getting the mechs (!) quite yet, most likely the Automatons would actually have taken the factories and used our own tech against us for a while.

This is “live service” done right, please more of that!

Also, more fire! We can never have too much fire!

While we’re already talking about stuff many competitors fuck up royally these days, let’s have a look at the game’s monetization, shall we? As I’ve argued before, this isn’t just something that makes us spend (more) money on a game. It’s supposed to do exactly that, sure, but more often than not it also affects the gameplay itself in negative ways, which obviously sucks big time.

First of all, the 40$ box price is more than fair. As far as I’m concerned this absolutely is a AAA game (maybe even Quadruple-A, but let’s better not go there…), despite it not being marketed as such. Sure, it has “only” one high quality rendered cutscene and no story to speak of, but as we’ve established earlier, we, the players, shape the story here anyway.

There is also a shop and a premium currency, but a) the stuff is cheap, b) as of yet I’ve not seen anything in there that I would have wanted or needed, and c) Super Credits can actually be earned by playing the game!

Yeah, I couldn’t quite believe it either

Last but not least, there are a couple of pages containing equipment and cosmetics to progress through. They are comparable to the much-hated (at least by me) battle passes other games have, but there’s one huge distinction: they don’t have an expiration date! At the time of this writing there are one free and two premium Warbonds, as they are called, and none of these will ever go away. The currency to actually unlock stuff in them is earned by playing (and can’t be bought with real money), opening up the premium Warbonds would cost 10$ per if you didn’t have enough Super Credits by playing already.

All told you can get the full experience for 40 bucks here and will never have to spend another dime. If you absolutely want to spend more you can, but not all that much, really, and you won’t have any kind of advantage while playing the game if you do, either. Thumbs up!

You know you’ve done something right when you have a ship like this under your command

Finally I’d like to highlight the enormous love and attention to detail that this game was made with. It seems that the devs were absolutely determined to make it feel as epic as humanly possible, and everything they could have done to achieve that – well, they have done it.

Ever since Starfield came out, and probably long before that, a lot has been talked about how boring and immersion-breaking loading screens can be. In Helldivers 2 you hardly even notice that they’re there, because you always get to see in-engine cutscenes of what’s happening, like your ship entering and exiting warp like seen above, or your squad’s drop pods being shot down towards the planet – always with the actual current location in the background of course.

The ammo for some support-weapons is so large and heavy that you need to carry it on your back. Reloading takes a lot of time due to this. So how about your squadmate carrying the backpack and reloading for you while you keep bombarding the enemy with artillery shells non-stop? How awesome is that, and why don’t other games have it?

Speaking of ammo, if you eject a half empty clip the remaining bullets don’t magically appear in your reserves, they’re just gone. Which means that you’ll break the habit of reloading whenever you have a second to spare pretty quickly. I don’t think they did this because “realism”, it just makes the action more tense and, well, epic to run empty in the perfectly wrong moment all the time.

I love this victory pose so much!

This is what you’ll look like after battling a couple hundred bugs – completely covered in goo, but extremely satisfied with yourself! Then you just carry on with your business as if nothing’s happened, still looking like this. Showers are for wimps, not for helldivers!

Oh, and one more thing: if you manage to finish the main objective the battle is won and you’ll get your XP and medals – whether you make it out alive or not! Talk about being expendable.

There’s plenty more, but for now I’ll leave you with the aforementioned video. It’s really worth watching, I promise it’s entertaining even if you have never played the game (yet!). A big shoutout to Kelski for making it. See you on the battlefield, helldivers!

One more thing about good itemization

About a week ago Ginger Gaming Mentor released a video in which he reminded me of a very important aspect of well designed (i.e. motivating and fun) itemization in RPGs – arguably the most important one, in fact – that I completely forgot to address in my own recent post on the subject.

Actually I didn’t so much “forget” to include it, I just didn’t have this particular design philosophy on my radar as something worth mentioning, because it absolutely feels like a no-brainer to me, one that any RPG worth its salt should adhere to.

I’m talking about the (supposedly) simple concept of item power not being dictated by item level.

What do I mean by that?

Well, let’s have a look at this pretty well known Diablo II item. These are the Magefist unique light gauntlets, a very good pair of gloves for many caster-type builds in the game. As you can see a character needs to be only level 23 or higher in order to equip them.

This is not to be confused with the level of the item itself however. Each piece of gear in D2 has one, but it isn’t actually displayed anywhere. If you really want to know a certain thing’s item level you have to take note of what kind of monster it dropped from, and where.

Let’s say you find a pair of Magefists in early Act III on Normal difficulty, which is the earliest where they can drop due to their treasure class (another stat the game hides from us). If a normal monster drops them in the Great Marsh, for example, the item level will be 21.

Now let’s look at the exact same scenario, only on Hell difficulty. This time around the gauntlets will have an item level of 80. Quite the difference, no?

Aaaaaaaayy have some gloves for youuuuuuuuu…

Here’s the thing though: for all intents and purposes there will be absolutely no difference between the two. This is because an item’s level has no effect whatsoever on its stats. Magical affixes, defense, and in the case of weapons even damage – none of this is determined by item level.

In my earlier post linked above I said about D2:

There’s always something to feel good about. […] You find useful stuff all the time and at all levels.

I believe the detachment of item level and item power is the main reason for this, because whenever you find a good item, it really is a good item. You will never have to feel disappointed and say to yourself “Why oh why did I not find this on my max level character, it’s no good to me at this ilvl!”.

Goblin toes are always great to have, believe it or not

If a game lets you level your characters up to, say, 100, but is designed in a way that only loot dropped by level 90+ monsters can potentially be good enough to actually use at late game…what’s the point of the 90 levels that came before? Why even bother?

For me personally that’s really the biggest turn-off any kind of RPG can have – an itemization that’s completely item level (or, to use the more modern term, gear score) focused, because it eliminates almost any chance to hit big jackpots along the way. Sure, you’ll find items that are good at and around that particular level, but you’ll always know that you’ll have to replace them sooner rather than later. I don’t know about you, but I can’t derive any joy from that.

I’ll rather take my…err…chances…with these

It gets even worse when the power of items you find isn’t just dependent on monster levels, but also capped by the gear you’re currently wearing.

New World has (or had, I don’t keep myself informed about the game) such a system at endgame, and while I didn’t experience it myself because I didn’t play long enough I almost threw up in my mouth when I read about it over at Belghast’s.

In a nutshell, if you had an item with a gear score of 600 equipped in a specific slot, let’s say the headgear, whenever another helmet dropped it could only have a maximum GS of 602 (I’m making up these numbers, but you get the picture), no matter how high level a monster or chest you got it from.

This is stupid on so many levels that I can’t for the life of me imagine why anyone would think this was a good system. Unless “good” means “players need to grind for a bazillion hours to get the gear they want”, then, yeah, I get it.

Only that it doesn’t just cause gearing up to take a buttload of time. It also forces you to completely screw up your gear choices along the way, because you always have to wear the items with the highest gear score available to you, even if the stats are utter garbage for the build you’re playing. Where’s the fun in that?

Now, even in Diablo II item level isn’t completely meaningless. When stats for magic and rare items are rolled their ilvl determines which affixes are available and how high the bonuses can go – you wouldn’t find a circlet like the one above at level 20, for example. The maximum number of sockets non-magic items can have is determined by ilvl too. Also, quite a few high-end unique and set items just can’t drop at low levels because of their aforementioned treasure class.

And I’m fine with that. I mean, of course levelling up should enable you to find better and better gear, right? I’ve never suggested this shouldn’t be the case. What I am saying is that accumulating your dream gear should be a process that’s stretched out more or less evenly over the whole levelling process, from start to finish, so there’s always something to rejoice at.

Which brings me back to the Magefist gloves. I believe I got these when my sorceress was somewhere around level 30 or 40, and she’s still wearing them at 91. I was happy to find them then, and I’m still happy to have them now. Her weapon, on the other hand, is a Death’s Fathom, which I got when she was already 88 or so, and I’m still waiting for Tal Rasha’s Adjudication to finally drop, so her gear isn’t even finished yet.

In my opinion that’s how a character’s gear curve should look like, and that’s only possible if the level of an item doesn’t determine (all of) its power.

Spin for the win!

Well, that didn’t take long. Just a few days after talking about the Barbarian being a hot candidate for my next Diablo II Resurrected character I indeed started playing one. Or more precisely, I dusted one off that had been lying around at level 24, unused, for quite some time.

My initial plan for him, shortly after D2R’s release, was to use Frenzy as his main skill. However, I then decided that I wanted to level a buffbot-Barb on my second account first and use Frenzy as a means to get him through the game quickly. In doing so I had to realize that I don’t actually like the skill all that much.

First off, you basically have to clobber each single enemy one by one, and for my taste that’s never been a recipe for success in an ARPG. Sure, D2 doesn’t throw nearly as many mobs at you as, say, Path of Exile, but it’s still too damn many to deal with them more or less individually. A Frenzy Barb compensates for that with speed, but therein lies the second problem: he moves too damn fast for me to be able to control him properly. I’m not getting any younger, you know.

So after the buffbot-to-be had beaten Nightmare difficulty – and given me motion sickness in the process a couple of times, I kid you not – I immediately respecced him into his warcry-build and didn’t touch the other Barb again for almost two years.

A look fit for a king – especially an immortal one I guess

I’ve always been a big fan of the game’s class-specific elite sets though, and since I now had a complete Immortal King set at my disposal – yet another “first” for me – it felt about time to give that Barbarian another shot.

The set’s centerpiece is a two-handed hammer, so using Frenzy or any other dual-wield skill doesn’t work with it, which suits me just fine. Some other skills, like Concentrate and Berserk, are purely single-target and thus out of the question for the aforementioned reasons.

Which leaves Whirlwind.

“Wheeeeeeee!!”…unfortunately it doesn’t look impressive at all on screenshots

I’d never played a WW-Barb before, and to be honest, I didn’t expect much. But boy, have I missed out! I respecced into it at around level 40, and it’s so much fun!

The skill works like this: you point at a certain spot with your mouse; then, when you activate WW, your character starts spinning around in circles and attacking a couple of times per second, depending on weapon speed, while continuously moving towards the target spot at the character’s normal walking pace.

I didn’t think about it before, but what’s really remarkable about this is that you actually deal damage while moving. Usually you can either attack/cast or move in D2, but not both at the same time. It’s hard to describe how very different Whirlwind feels due to this, but it’s totally awesome. It’s especially great against weaker monsters – you don’t even slow down, you basically run them over and keep moving.

Now, technically speaking it’s also a single-target skill, as each individual attack hits only one enemy in range. You can get that speed up to about five attacks per second though, and coupled with a hard hitting weapon this shreds normal packs in a heartbeat. Even uniques and their minions don’t take very long to kill, and while it’s not the most efficient build to farm act bosses it can do even that pretty stress-free, albeit more slowly.

Look, mom, I glow in the dark now!

Speaking of stress-free, holy crap, dude is tanky!

His passive skills, which increase armor and resistances, combined with the massive HP and armor buffs from his warcries Battle Orders and Shout as well as a good amount of life leech make him a tough nut to crack indeed, even though he’s not wearing a shield. Aside from the Annihilus he also has no resistance charms whatsoever in his inventory, and they still all hit the maximum of 75% in Hell difficulty.

This is of course mainly due to the IK set itself giving a good deal of bonuses on that front. As it occupies a whopping seven of the ten available gear slots it kind of has to though, so it’s pretty well thought out in that regard. Also, all pieces except for the hammer sport pretty high armor values. Enhanced by the aforementioned buffs the total thus reaches a magnitude where it’s actually worth a damn, which is not something many D2 characters can achieve.

As I’m writing this he’s just spun his way through the first two acts on Hell difficulty, and I didn’t need to use a single potion of any kind! As a matter of fact I’m pretty sure his health never dipped below half, not even when surrounded by enemies while also being poisoned and/or cursed, which just…doesn’t happen! It’s a completely new experience to play the game like this.

It’s written in green, so it must be good!

The IK set brings two more features to the table that I really dig.

One, with the full array of set bonuses active the hammer deals all kinds of damage. Literally. There are six types of damage in the game, and it deals a good amount of each and every one, as seen above. Consequently he pretty much doesn’t care about immunities, another luxury not many characters have. Sure, he can’t leech off physical immunes, and those take a bit longer to kill too as that’s the only part of the hammer’s damage that gets increased further by his Whirlwind skill and Mace Mastery, but I feel that’s a small price to pay for not needing a sunder charm, a way to cast Necromancer curses and stuff like that.

The second “special feature” is that the gauntlets also get a bonus for wearing the full set which reads Freezes Target +2. I don’t know exactly how the game calculates this, but from experience I’d say that the corpses of normal monsters shatter at least 80% of the time now. Champions shatter less commonly and uniques only rarely or not at all, I’m not sure on that.

What this means in practice is that, for example, Fallen Shamans don’t keep resurrecting their foot soldiers all the time anymore, because there’s nothing left to resurrect. I’ve always found those to be quite annoying when playing melee characters, so I like this a lot. The downside is that the usual practice of Barbarians using the Find Item skill to loot corpses a second time doesn’t work with this set, and Necromancers won’t like grouping up with you either, but I can live with that.

In addition to all of the above playing a Barbarian also has some more universal perks, regardless of the gear and main skill you’re using.

Two of his passive skills increase run/walk speed and stamina, respectively, so he’s generally pretty fast (which also benefits Whirlwind move speed) and can sprint basically forever.

Furthermore, his skill Leap Attack is the only movement ability in the game aside from Teleport that can actually cross non-traversable terrain like rivers and sewers in Act 3 or lava in Act 4, which is obviously super practical.

Lastly, since his warcries are AoE effects his mercenary is tremendously tanky too. Unfortunately my mercs are chronically undergeared (and I’m usually too lazy to log in my buffbot just for that), so I’m used to them dying regularly, especially on my Sorceresses who actually use them to tank stuff. Well, this one just refuses to go down, which is another very welcome side effect of playing this big hunk of meat and muscles.

And there you have it, the IK Whirlwind Barbarian in Diablo II Resurrected. Highly recommended.

This is what good itemization looks like

About two weeks ago I celebrated yet another “first” in my long Diablo II career: the Windforce unique bow finally dropped for me.

This immediately prompted me to create and level up my first D2 Amazon in well over a decade, and just three days later she’d aleady reached the required level to wield this illustrious and mighty item. Yeah, I kinda couldn’t wait.

She’s really fun to play and absolutely shreds places like the Chaos Sanctuary, which, incredibly, she already clears almost twice as fast at level 83 as my level 91 Sorceress does.

What’s remarkable about this, however, isn’t just that I’ve looted a strong item and use it to good effect now. Stuff like that happens all the time in any kind of RPG, and for ARPGs in particular it’s basically the whole raison d’être, isn’t it?

What this really does exemplify is why Diablo II’s itemization is, in my opinion, still the best out there, with nothing else I’ve played even coming close.

Arrows are really hard to see with D2R graphics, so here’s the classic version

D2’s item design wasn’t perfect right from the get-go, mind you. At launch the majority of unique and set items in the game were garbage compared to even mediocre magic and rare items, and pretty much unusable.

In case you don’t know, uniques and sets mostly have a fixed selection of stats, while magic and rare items are rolled completely at random, only limited somewhat by item type. While rares can be extremely good, the chances to ever find a specific base item with the exact stats you want are basically zero.

This, of course, wasn’t a very motivating or satisfying state of affairs, because seeing stuff with a green or golden name drop (set and unique items, respectively) usually wasn’t a cause for celebration at all, and picking up something yellow (rare) more often than not led to disappointment too once you identified it.

“What the heck is this craaaaaaaaap???” he seems to say

Thankfully the dev team must have realized that this was a problem, because during the following year they put a lot of work – and, more importantly, thought – into it. With the game’s first and only expansion, Lord of Destruction, and some subsequent patches they added lots and lots of new unique and set items, as well as runes, runewords, jewels and charms to the game. They also beefed up the vanilla sets, which made at least some of them very usable.

While great, this still doesn’t explain why the whole thing works so damn well though. After all, more doesn’t necessarily mean better, right?

Well, they somehow managed to design and balance all that stuff in a way that’s really, really satisfying to engage with. At all levels I regularly find items that push my account-progress forward in a noticeable way – there’s always something to feel good about. Also, there are so many rare and powerful items in the game now that it’s not very hard to find at least some of those along the way, despite their rarity.

Even if you get one that your current character doesn’t need you’ll at the very least have increased your wealth, so to speak. Trading is pretty easy and always an option, but even if you don’t fancy doing that, chances are the item won’t be worthless to you. Maybe your mercenary or one of your other characters can make good use of it. Or, as finding Windforce did in my case, you might even feel encouraged to create a brand new one because you just can’t hit the jackpot like that and not take such a legendary item out for a spin.

Hell yeah, that’s what I’m talking about!

This is actually the most incredible feat they’ve accomplished – several of the game’s items are not only good – they’re basically famous!

If you’ve ever played Diablo II and maybe also engaged at least a little bit with the subject matter outside of the game, like reading forums or build guides, it’s more than likely that you’ve heard of Harlequin Crest (or Shako, as many just call it), Stone of Jordan, Enigma, Windforce and others, even if you were never lucky enough to find them yourself. Not only that, you probably also know, more or less, what they do, and what you’d use them for should you ever get your hands on them.

Hell, just look at what I’m up to at the moment: right after levelling the Amazon (a process that isn’t even finished yet of course) I also got another Sorceress going – I’d never had a lightning sorc before, and my Griffon’s Eye just begged to be used, you see. While playing her through Nightmare difficulty, electrocuting monsters left and right, yet another treasure fell into my lap: the last missing piece of the Immortal King set. I guess a Whirlwind Barbarian is next on the list now.

Too bad he can’t actually wield both hammers at the same time

So, the items are really strong, and that’s the whole secret to good itemization? No, definitely not.

I mean, sure, if the overwhelming majority of stuff you find isn’t good enough to even use that’s obviously not satisfying or fun at all. So, yeah, a game like this absolutely should have lots of items on its loot tables that are guaranteed to be strong and of use to you. But there’s way more to it.

In D2 it’s also pretty easy to see whether an item is actually good or not, because the amount of possible stats, while not small, is still manageable, and most bonuses you can get are applicable all the time, not just under specific circumstances.

Additionally, many set items, uniques and runewords are, well, unique, in that they have bonuses on them that you’d not normally get on that type of item – or at all. This enables imaginative players to create amazing effects and synergies. However, only very few individual items offer stuff that you absolutely can’t get any other way, so if the one specific shiny you’re looking for just won’t drop there’s usually a way to work around that too.

Which highlights one more virtue D2’s itemization has up its sleeve: giving players options.

Sounds like something a chiropractor would use

Let’s use my Bowzon as an example. Her signature skills are Multiple Shot and Strafe, the latter being the main damage dealer. In order for Strafe to reach an acceptably high attack speed with the Windforce I need a total of 80% Increased Attack Speed, IAS for short. The bow itself already has 20% on it, where the rest comes from is up to me.

I decided to socket a Shael rune into the bow for another 20%, use a Highlord’s Wrath amulet for 20% more, and Laying of Hands gloves for the last 20%. There would have been lots of other options, like the Treachery body armor, which alone sports a whopping 45% IAS, but the amulet and gloves have additional stats that are beneficial to my build, as has the Lionheart body armor when compared to Treachery, so I went with that combination.

The build’s one limitation is that both main skills dish out pretty much purely physical damage, so dealing with enemies immune to that was another problem to be solved. Fortunately Sunder Charms aren’t “Ladder-Only” anymore, and I’ve already found the one that breaks physical immunities, as seen above. However, what these things do is set the monster’s resistance to exactly 95%, which means that you do deal damage to them, only it’s not exactly a whole lot.

The two Necromancer curses Amplify Damage and Decrepify are both capable of lowering physical resistance, and luckily there are a few ways the other classes can also add these to their arsenals. The recommended item for a Bowzon in particular is the Atma’s Scarab amulet, which has a 5% chance to cast AD on striking. Since I don’t have it and also think that Highlord’s is overall better I instead chose to equip my mercenary with The Reaper’s Toll, a unique polearm that has a 33% chance to cast Decrepify on striking. Socketed with another Shael rune it attacks relatively fast, making the curse proc regularly. With the Sunder Charm in my inventory and Decrepify on them even enemies that are immune by default melt just as fast as all the others.

To recap, I think Diablo II’s itemization is awesome because it’s (mostly) easy to understand, you find useful stuff all the time and at all levels (which you can use right away without having to upgrade/level/link it first or some such), you have lots of options to make your characters really strong and to think outside the box if you so desire, and many of its items are so recognizable (and good) that you already know you want them even if you don’t need them yet, and actually finding them feels like Christmas has come early and it’s your birthday.

I believe this is one of the main reasons why the game has always had a strong following and is still played by many, almost a quarter of a century down the road.

Since we’re living in times where “Players are having fun” doesn’t seem to be the main goal of big development studios anymore – unicorns like Larian Studios being the notable exception – I doubt we’ll ever see something like this in AAA-space again, but if someone building a new title asked me which game’s itemization to use as a role model if they want to make players happy, this would be my answer.

Diablo II – 23 years, and it’s still got new stuff for me in store

A couple of weeks ago I decided to dip back into Diablo II Resurrected after about a year-long break. I’d been without a game that managed to really grip and excite me for quite a few months, and I was definitely missing something. Since D2 has never failed me in that regard it seemed like the perfect time for another comeback.

Sure enough, it has delivered once again. Right now I play whenever I can, and think about playing when I can’t.

Of course it helps that they’ve really done an outstanding job with Resurrected, and still continue to improve it on a regular basis without messing up the basic formula.

Robocop can shoot around corners, and so can I

For example, I’m still having a tremendously great time with my Frozen Orb / Hydra sorceress, which only exists because Hydra, along with a couple other hitherto underused skills, was reworked in patch 2.4 and is really good now.

The build is fun, and also relatively safe to play, because both skills can deal damage from quite a ways away. The hydras in particular can easily reach enemies off screen or behind corners, which makes fighting dangerous opponents like Nihlathak much less perilous.

I hope the FBI won’t mind me using the word “terror” so much…

I’ve also come to really dig Terror Zones. I mean, I liked the idea behind it right from the start, but didn’t actually enjoy them all that much in practice at first.

What bothered me was the game setting an arbitrary schedule for my gameplay. Zones in D2 aren’t created equal in terms of layout, enemy types and -density as well as various other factors, so I naturally prefer some over others for farming or levelling.

However, by now I’ve come to terms with the hourly rotation. Playing in different areas does make for a more varied experience after all, and whenever one of the few zones that really aren’t worth running come up I just do something else for a while, like playing an alt.

The main thing that’s won me over though is the loot. Within a matter of about two weeks I’ve found many awesome items scattered across various different terror zones, some of which so rare that they’d never dropped for me before, and I didn’t think it was ever going to happen either.

These are “just” my personal highlights. Click to enlarge

The Griffon’s Eye, for example, dropped in Nihlathak’s Temple, though not from the boss himself, but from a random monster on the way. That’s the magic of terror zones for you.

In addition to better loot the mobs also give lots of XP. A couple of years ago I talked about level 89 having been the highest any of my Diablo II characters had ever reached, and at that point Baal runs were pretty much the only thing that moved the bar at all anymore. Well, my current sorceress hit 90 a week ago and is now well on her way to 91.

I will say though that I still enjoy boss runs the most. Andariel, Mephisto, Baal and the Uber-key bosses retain their status as my favourite targets. But even those benefit greatly from the new(ish) system, because whenever their lairs are terrorized they seem to drop even better loot, and every monster I kill on the way has the chance to do the same and also gives noticeable amounts of XP to boot.

What’s this, a cage fight where the cage’s made of fire? Bring it on, bro!

Speaking of bosses, the event I’m most happy about right now is getting my first ever Annihilus charm.

Interestingly, this item only exists because the game had a massive duping problem back in the day (duping being the illegal duplication of items by utilizing bugs or glitches). The most-duped item by far was the Stone of Jordan ring, and to get those out of the economy again Blizz devised a system where players realmwide needed to sell large amounts to NPC vendors in order to spawn Uber Diablo in every Hell difficulty game on that realm. Killing this pretty strong foe guaranteed a unique small charm to drop, the Annihilus.

It is a strange fate that we should suffer so much toil and loss over so small a thing

As far as I know the rampant duping has long been a thing of the past, but they decided to keep the whole system in place. They may have reduced the number of SoJs that need to be sold, but other than that nothing’s changed.

Which means that we can still get our hands on this powerful charm, but it also means that every ring that’s ought to be sold has to be acquired the hard way. It’s not a common drop either. Personally, I’ve yet to find my first SoJ in Resurrected – and I’ll definitely keep the first one or two, should they eventually drop, as it’s quite a good item (it wasn’t duped that much just for the hell of it).

There are websites that try to keep track of every realm’s status – the approximate number of SoJs that have already been sold can be displayed ingame – but still, at the end of the day only the player(s) that sell the last batch know the exact point in time when Uber Diablo will spawn. If you don’t have a Hell difficulty game open at that exact moment you’ve missed the opportunity.

About a week ago my time had finally come. I was farming with my sorceress when the message “Diablo has invaded Sanctuary” appeared. My heart skipped a beat, and I may or may not have screamed out loud “Hell yeah, finally!!!”.

However, my second thought was, damn, I need my Paladin for this. The sorc might be able to kill the bugger too, but it would be a lot harder and probably cost me quite a few XP due to deaths. Fortunately I always use password-protected lobby games to play, specifically because I can join those with a character from my second account. Usually I use this to mule stuff around or to buff my main character with an Enchant sorceress (great for levelling up alts), but this time around I just logged her in to keep the game open safely and then switched my main account to the Paladin.

Really, I can take this now? Don’t mind if I do!

The rest, as the saying goes, is history.

So, yeah, for over 23 years now I keep coming back to D2, mainly because it’s just an overall awesome game that holds a special place in my heart, but also because it still has, after all this time, new experiences and huge endorphine rushes up its sleeve. At least for me.

Uber Tristram’s next. Great Evils, beware!

My Fabulous Four Frames

At the time of this writing Warframe has 53 different ‘frames on offer (not counting Prime or Umbra variants), with the 54th to be released two days from now.

Of course not all of those are available to new players right away – in fact you start with only one out of a selection of three, the rest have to be farmed and/or unlocked through various methods. After playing the game for a while an embarrassment of riches sets in though, so much so that you may find it hard to decide which of your shiny new battlesuits to invest precious resources like Orokin Reactors and Forma into.

Once you do have souped up a couple and have gotten used to a much higher power level it becomes even harder to evaluate the relative strenght of new additions to your roster, because most of them will inevitably feel rather weak in comparison due to the severely restricted mod capacity.

However, there’s no need to fret too much about those choices. Warframe isn’t actually a hard game once you get the hang of it, and unless you intend to play endless missions until enemy levels approach four digit territory you can beat pretty much any type of content while just using the ‘frame you like the most.

Me, I always gravitate to those that offer a healthy mix of Is really fun to play and Kicks some serious ass. Alternatively, if the content I’m trying to to clear annoys me in some way, I usually look for something that Makes the annoying thing trivial.

Over time these criteria have led to four ‘frames becoming my go-to tools for at least 90% of the stuff I do in the game. These are…

• • Mesa
    

l’ve already spent the better part of a post praising Mesa soon after I’d built her, and ever since then I’ve been using her more than any other ‘frame.

The combination of having up to 95% damage reduction against ranged attacks from her third ability and blasting everything to bits with Peacemaker is just too strong and too much fun to not use her whenever I don’t feel I need anything more specific. Granted, that damage does fall off a bit when facing extremely high-health and -armor enemies (i.e. Steel Path), but since she can also equip two ranged and one melee weapon, like any other ‘frame, there are other tools for those.

Her 1 isn’t really needed (or, well, good), so I’ve replaced it with Rhino’s Roar via the Helminth system for yet another multiplicative damage boost, but honestly, I hardly ever use it because it ain’t necessary in most situations. She’s that strong. Also stylish and fun. What’s not to like?

• • Gara

Meet the bull in the china shop. Gara is all about glass, and the nasty things you can do with it.

First off, she can erect a circular wall of glass panels to block enemy attacks as well as the enemies themselves, like seen above. On first glance this seems to be her cornerstone ability (and it is her fourth, which is the “Ultimate” of more than a few ‘frames), but you can’t really use it for that purpose in high level missions as the panels don’t have a lot of hitpoints and break far too quickly. If you want to protect certain objectives in that manner Frost’s and Limbo’s bubbles are far more efficient.

However, when used in conjunction with her 1 and 2 it’s still good, and also an integral part of her kit. It seems a bit complex at first, but bear with me, it becomes second nature pretty quickly.

If you cast her 2, Splinter Storm, a flurry of glass shards starts floating around her. These give her up to 90% damage reduction against all kinds of attacks and deal damage to all enemies in range each second. Now, this damage is laughably low at first, but don’t dismiss the ability just yet.

When you smash the panels of your own 4 from outside the glass ring with your 1 the whole thing shatters, dealing quite a lot of damage to all enemies in the vicinity, and more importantly, 50% of that damage is also permanently added to your Splinter Storm, as long as it remains active. As casting your 4 also renews Splinter Storm’s duration this all fits together quite nicely.

You can stack this basically forever, and I’ve had it deal well over a million damage per tick on a number of occasions. Which, frankly, is overkill for most normal missions. Even long before reaching such a high number all you need to do is run past or through enemies, and they drop dead instantly.

How much damage is added each time depends on your equipped melee weapon, by the way. Gara is one of the ‘frames that utilizes what the community refers to as a “stat stick”. The weapon itself is completely irrelevant, the only thing that matters are the mods you use on it. In Gara’s case only raw damage actually carries over to her abilities, so don’t use any crit, status or attack speed mods. I was lucky enough to get a Riven mod for a pretty crappy and thus rarely used melee weapon (Rivens for such weapons get their stats boosted) with nothing but damage on it, as seen above. Without any other bonuses my Splinter Storm’s number increases by 31k each time, so having it deal hundreds of thousands of damage per tick doesn’t take very long at all.

Last but certainly not least, you can cast Splinter Storm not just on yourself, but also on your teammates, companion and even inanimate objects like mobile defense terminals or excavators. Protecting those when they too have 90% damage reduction is obviously a much more relaxed affair. Just keep in mind that the duration of your 2 as shown by the UI depends on the last one you’ve cast, so better refresh your own by hitting another 4 afterwards. Losing a Splinter Storm already stacked up to half a million because its duration ran out sucks.

I quite like this playstyle, and more often than not when I finish a mission with Gara I’ve hardly fired any shots with my weapons. Since she really shines when there’s stuff to protect I mainly use her for Defense, Mobile Defense and Excavation missions though, as my other favourites don’t require quite as much buildup and maintenance.

• • Octavia

Octavia is another ‘frame I’ve talked about at lenght before, and I’m still using her regularly. If you want to run a mission but aren’t really in the mood to kill stuff yourself just punch all of her abilities, make yourself invisible and watch (and, of course, listen to) the show.

She’s especially great in the open world zones where her disco ball can’t wander off to other rooms, and she’s also my go-to for Spy missions, with maxed out ability duration so she can stay invisible for ages. But, seriously, she can do anything, and since she makes the enemies kill themselves there’s basically no limit to how high in difficulty she can go.

If there’s one thing to criticize about her it’s that she’s a bit…boring to play, I guess? Some might feel that way. I like her though, not least because I get to rock out to my own versions of Kernkraft 400 or Through The Fire And The Flames whenever I play her.

• • Inaros

If you watch any Warframe tierlist on YouTube you will most likely be told that Inaros is crap and you shouldn’t use him. Now, I get where those folks are coming from, but I don’t care because I know for certain that I approach the game completely differently than they do.

Pro gamers, and I’m not using the term ironically here because they are playing better than me, will tell you that stuff like “shield gating” or mods like Rolling Guard are the only things that can keep you alive at endgame. But, again, I simply don’t face enemies as strong as that. That’s by choice, mind you, mainly for two reasons. One, there’s no real incentive to even do it except for the challenge, and that’s not what motivates me. Two, I don’t fancy having to play around mechanics like shield gating at all, and I sure as hell don’t want to move around the map by doing one dive roll after the other and stuff like that. Playing the game “normally” suits me just fine, thank you very much.

That being said, there are situations where survivability becomes an issue, even at my level of play, and that’s when I hop into Inaros and instantly feel comfortable because I know that absolutely nothing will be able to bring me down. His abilities are crap and I don’t use a single one of them, true, but being immortal without the need to use any skills (unlike, say, Revenant) is already an impressive feat on its own, isn’t it? Just slap health, armor and Adaptation mods as well as a rank 1 or 2 Arcane Grace on him and you’re good to go. Hell, if you have the latter at a higher rank (mine’s at 4 currently) you can even go AFK while standing in a room full of baddies and you’ll most likely still be alive when you come back. If that’s not a relaxing way to play I don’t know what is.

I do use other warframes too of course, but these four are far and away my favourites. Your list may well look completely different, and that’s totally fine and working as intended. Which, if you ask me, is just one more thing about Warframe that’s simply awesome.

Raiders of the lost…stuff

Last time around, when I raved about Warframe’s many qualities once again, I mentioned in passing that one of the things I enjoy a lot is to search for hidden vaults and stashes.

What I didn’t point out is how absolutely awesome the game actually is for ambitious scavenger hunters like myself. I would even go as far as saying that no other game I’ve played, no matter the genre, had quite as much hidden goodies on offer as Digital Extreme’s space ninja shooter – and some of these are exceptionally well hidden to boot.

So if Warframe’s usual gameplay loop is too hectic for you, and you’re as much of a sucker for treasure hunts as I am, the following alternatives might just be what the doctor ordered.

Found ’em all

I’ll start off with my current obsession, which I indulge in pretty much every day right now: collecting Voidplumes in Zariman Extermination missions.

Back when the Angels of the Zariman update introduced this content I didn’t like it all that much and stopped engaging with it soon after I’d completed the associated story. The main reason for this is that the three new mission types are too hectic for my taste – yes, they’re even more frantic than Warframe’s usual chaos and mayhem, because there’s some element of time pressure to all of them (no actual clocks ticking, but stuff that has to be defended at all times etc). That’s doubly problematic because said Voidplumes, eight of which are scattered all over each map, are the only way to gain standing with The Holdfasts, the resident faction you may want to be on good terms with, and you can’t really go and look for these thingies when you need to hurry from one objective to the next in order to not fail the mission.

However, in addition to those Zariman-exclusive mission types there’s also a normal Extermination on offer, as some helpful Redditors (yes, those do exist) have pointed out to players who’d also wondered how the hell to farm Voidplumes reliably. So that’s the one I’ve been doing on repeat recently, and had I not gone on vacation I would most likely have maxed out my Holdfasts-standing and bought all the goodies I need by now.

So how does this work exactly?

Gimme, gimme, gimme a plume after midnight

Voidplumes, just like Ayatan statues, are interactible objects that are lying around somewhere on the map, waiting to be picked up. They aren’t hidden quite as well as some other treasure items, but you’ll not find them in any random hallway either. Usually they’re tucked away in dead ends or small rooms. If the door to such a room won’t let you in but stands a bit ajar, look through the gap, shoot the red electronic panel you will see on the wall inside and the door will open. Some areas can only be reached by dropping into a hole in the ground or smashing a panel concealing the entrance to a narrow, vent-like path – remember that destroyable objects like these flash every few seconds to make spotting them a little easier.

On the Zariman there’s also some help to be had. Glowing and humming little orbs lie around in various places that, when interacted with, spawn a golden ghost child. These apparitions will start running after a moment, expecting you to follow them. Their movement is a little erratic at times, but they leave a golden trail, a few yards in length, to make tracking them easier. They’ll eventually come to a halt next to an item of interest – mostly a Voidplume, but it can also be stuff like a rare container or an Ayatan statue if you’re lucky – and vanish soon after. If you activate such a ghost and it just stands there for a while before despawning again it means that there’s nothing to be found anymore (or it’s just buggy, which unfortunately happens sometimes).

I addition to the eight Voidplumes just lying around a couple more can be acquired per mission. Also hidden somewhere on the map are two items vaguely looking like oversized keys. These are called Zarium Accolades and must be picked up and delivered to a terminal marked by a purple symbol on the map (only if you’re somewhat near though). A Voidplume Quill then appears next to the terminal – don’t forget to take it! The accolades emit a pretty loud sound until picked up, so finding them isn’t that hard when you’re snooping around anyway. Lastly, one dormant Void Angel per map waits to be activated. I won’t go into detail about the fight here, but once it’s defeated you’ll have earned one more Voidplume, and this one’s always a Pinion (the highest tier).

This is what a dormant Void Angel looks like

Since this has almost turned into a guide anyway allow me to go on another little tangent here. The by far most important form of support, and this is true for all kinds of treasure hunts in Warframe, is having at least one source of loot radar. Warframes can be modded to provide this, but most players choose not to „waste“ a valuable ‘frame slot for it and equip their companion of choice with Animal Instinct or Primed Animal Instinct instead. You’ll have to make sure that your little friend doesn’t die until you’ve found what you’re looking for though.

Loot radar marks pretty much everything in its range that can be picked up or interacted with on your mini map, with the exception of lockers. A few item types, mods and Endo for example, have their own unique icon, but most things, including normal loot containers as well as all treasure items and special caches mentioned in this post, share the same little rectangle symbol. In order not to miss any of the rare ones I usually seek out anything and everything with such a marker, smashing and collecting stuff as I go (don’t forget to also give your companion the Vacuum mod, so they hoover in all loot for you from a distance).

The main benefit of loot radar, at least to me, is that still seeing markers on the map after clearing out the mission’s obvious “main route” is always an unmistakable sign that I must have missed something, be it a room, a vent, a balcony, an alcove, or any other place where loot might be waiting. These can be pretty well hidden at times too, and after more than 600 hours in the game I still stumble upon treasure rooms I’ve never seen before from time to time. Do note that not every such room always contains actual “treasure” though, often it’s just a bunch of normal resources. It wouldn’t be much of a hunt if you always found the good stuff right away, now would it?

Next on the list of shinies are resource caches, and man, if you’re really into searching every last corner of the map, however long it might take, these are for you!

Resource caches can be found as an optional objective in most Sabotage missions, as well as select Exterminate and one specific Hive mission. The Lotus will inform you at the start if there are any, and the UI keeps track of how many you’ve already opened. They look like the normal lockers you find pretty much everywhere, only with a white glow instead of the usual green, as seen above. They also emit a sound, making honing in on their exact location a little easier once you’re near enough to hear it. The hard part is getting that near in the first place.

You know those awfully long elevator shafts that appear in some Uranus missions? I once found a cache halfway down such a shaft, tucked away between some steel framework. I never, ever would have looked there had I not seen a blip on the loot radar for a few milliseconds on the way down. They’re placed very much out of the way sometimes, is what I’m saying.

If they’re that hard to find and also optional, why even actively look for them? Well, to be honest, I’ve had runs where I’ve found all three and didn’t get much for my efforts. But they do have nice things on their loot tables that you won’t get anywhere else, a couple useful mods for example, as well as parts for the rare Xiphos landing craft. Also, a real treasure hunter doesn’t do it just for the rewards, right? Right??

Now we’re getting to rare stuff that’s not exclusive to certain mission types. In every mission (possibly with the exception of those occupied by the Infested, I’m not sure on that one) there’s a chance for either a rare or a reinforced storage container to spawn. These look similar to the bog-standard containers of that particular tileset, just with some kind of glow and a humming sound to make them more prominent. The reinforced specimens also look a bit more fancy. Both show up on loot radar, but like all treasure items just with a normal rectangle icon.

If you’re like me you’ll smash them before even realizing that they’re not just a normal container most of the time, but that’s ok because you’ll get the special loot regardless. The first two items will depend on the tileset you’re in: first off you’ll always get either a Detonite Injector (Grineer), a Fieldron (Corpus) or a Forma (Orokin and Zariman), all built and ready to use. Additionally there’s a chance  to snag a blueprint for the Mantis landing craft, which one will again depend on the faction you’re facing. The third special item is a random 30 minute booster if it’s a rare container, while the reinforced one will treat you to a full hour – which is also the only difference between the two. Some credits and Endo round out the package, and rarely you’ll get a random weapon blueprint as a bonus.

However, since these containers can spawn almost anywhere, but only have a low chance of actually doing so, it’s not really worth it to play specific missions just to look for these. Unless…

There you are!

What if you had the means to know whether or not a mission contains something worth your while right from the start? Enter Golden Instinct.

This is one of the Helminth’s unique abilities, which, once unlocked, you can replace any Warframe ability with. When used it sends a spark towards the nearest rare container, Ayatan statue, syndicate medallion, or unscanned fragment or Kuria (some of the game’s mostly lore-related collectibles that have to be scanned instead of picked up). I believe its color depends on your Warframe’s chosen energy color, so pick one you can see well for this.

The great thing about Golden Instinct is that it already has a 200m radius by default. Word is using it on a ‘frame with 200% or more ability range is enough to cover the whole map, no matter the tileset, which means that you can immediately exit and restart the mission if it doesn’t find anything. Using Lavos instead of any other ‘frame adds the benefit of being able to use Golden Instinct more often (thanks to his ability that lowers all other skills’ cooldowns), making actually finding the shiny, once you’re in a mission that has spawned one, much easier.

The catch is that this ability is the last thing you’ll unlock, at Helminth level 15. When I realized that it’s something I really want mine was only at level 7, unfortunately, because I’d only ever used the Helminth when I actually needed it for something specific. What can I say, I usually don’t level stuff up just because, I’m too lazy for that. Of course now I’m constantly giving various abilities to my Warframes, just so I can remove them again and feed the Helminth with resources, and I’ve also farmed some more duplicate ‘frames to also feed to it. Currently it’s at level 11, so I’ve got still a ways to go. Once I’ve reached 15 I’ll be sure to share my own experiences with Golden Instinct. Can’t wait.

Another thing in Warframe I’d classify as treasure hunting is searching for and plundering Orokin vaults. Where to find and how to open these hasn’t changed since I talked about them in my guide to rare mods, if you’re interested. I’ve only tweaked my own approach insofar that I equip all four dragon keys now, which means that I’m always able to open the vault, as long as I manage to find it.

The hobbled key slows running and walking speed down significantly, yes, but I use speedmods to compensate for that at least somewhat. More importantly though, other forms of movement, most notably jumping and bullet jumping, aren’t affected by the key at all, so that’s how I move around almost exclusively when vault hunting. Works like a charm.

A purple locker just has to contain something good

There’s even more I could talk about, like the secret labs on Jupiter or the Halls of Ascension on Lua. Suffice it to say, Warframe really has a lot to offer if you like to search for hidden treasures, and it’s just one more aspect of the game’s design that I absolutely love.

Now if you’ll excuse me, those treasures aren‘t gonna hunt themselves.

What’s so special about Warframe anyway?

I don’t know why, but I seem to be a very seasonal kind of guy. It always happens during winter that I pick up Black Desert again, for example.

The month of August, on the other hand, obviously does something with me that makes me miss playing Warframe. So here I am, still doing my daily stuff in Lost Ark, but dedicating the remainder of my gaming time fully to being a Tenno once more. Man, what an awesome game this is!

The other day I left a comment to one of Naithin’s posts, saying that Warframe is most likely the only Looter Shooter I’ll ever need, and while there is some hyperbole to that it’s pretty spot on at the same time.

The thing is, Digital Extremes’ masterpiece has spoiled me in some fundamental ways, and whenever I play an even remotely similar game I can’t help but compare the two. As you’ve probably gussed by now, Warframe always seems to come out on top in some – to me – very important respects.

Warframe in 2023 – now also with horsies

Unsurprisingly the first thing that comes to mind is the game’s unparalleled pace and fluidity. Everything is so smooth and, if you want it to be, blazingly fast that playing any other game afterwards feels like walking through molasses.

I get that this isn’t to everyone’s liking, but I love it so much that it’s become really hard for me to settle for less, so to speak. If your Looter Shooter doesn’t let me double jump, bullet jump, glide and run alongside walls it’s gonna have a hard time winning me over.

Another big contributor to this quick pace is the fact that, bosses aside, enemies aren’t bullet sponges. I mean, sure, at certain points in your progression you will face considerably tougher opponents, but those aren’t meant to stay that way forever. Instead they’re there to nudge you towards rethinking your loadout and strategy to get stronger, and once you’ve done that even the hardest (normal) enemies become pushovers again.

Yesterday I played one of the game’s endless mission types for about 45 minutes or so, and when I extracted I had defeated just shy of three thousand (!) mobs. It doesn’t always have to be this extreme of course, but let me tell you, I absolutely do not have the patience anymore to shoot each single enemy in the face half a dozen times before they finally decide that I have, in fact, killed them.

Another aspect of the game’s design that I love to death is the enormous complexity, and the freedom that comes with it.

With over 50 ‘frames to choose from, who knows how many weapons, over a thousand mods, companions, arcanes, Forma, focus schools, archon shards, Helminth abilities…it is 100% safe to say that you will never, ever meet another player who is using the exact same loadout as you do.

It’s not that this doesn’t really have much influence on gameplay either – quite the contrary. For example, my Xbox-based buddy and I play the game very differently. He likes to shoot stuff – even his melee weapon of choice is used to nuke the entire site from orbit, basically. I use guns and blades too of course, but I tend to rely on strong warframe abilities much more often. Hence I’m regularly seen playing ‘frames like Gara, with whom I’m usually running around, killing everything by just touching it, without firing even a single shot.

Not only do our tastes in how we like to fight vary, we also enjoy different kinds of missions and gameplay. Before crossplay was implemented we used to play simultaneously but individually, and while he was, say, running two dozen void fissures to crack open relics for Prime parts, I was meticulously searching every nook and cranny for well hidden loot caches in certain missions to find rare mods.

Which is great because this not only means that each of us can play the game exactly how we enjoy it the most, we’ll also be able, should trade between platforms finally be enabled at some point, to help each other out with stuff we don’t like to farm for ourselves. I already have a couple of harder to get mods stockpiled for that occasion, and he keeps surplus Prime parts in store for me in turn.

I always get a kick out of finding one of these

There’s one more thing that puts Warframe way ahead of the competition for me – the loot. It just works. Again, for me.

In his reply to my comment mentioned above Naithin said this about Warframe:

Sure, there is shooting and there is looting, but there isn’t loot, you know? Mods sort of play that role and it isn’t quite the same as getting that one legendary or unique that will enable the build you want.

I absolutely get that, but here’s the thing: finding those legendaries or uniques happens so goddamn rarely in most games! Playing for an hour or two and not finding a single shiny (that I actually need) can feel like a waste of time to me, even if the gameplay itself is enjoyable. Even Diablo II, one of my all-time favourite games, is guilty of that.

Of all loot-centric games I’ve played Path of Exile and Warframe are the only ones that have always managed to make me feel like nothing I do is ever a waste of time.

Getting that sweet dopamine rush by finding a really rare and great thingy is awesome, sure. Warframe has those too – just the other day I finally got my first copy of Hammer Shot, a pretty strong mod for primary weapons that has a measly 1% drop chance at the end of certain missions which you can only do a couple of times per day.

Click to enlarge

For me it’s much more about the little things though. Like I said, I have a desire to feel productive, so even if I do not find that rare item I’m looking for, it still feels good when I at least have a plethora of other useful stuff to show for it.

Look at that screenshot above – in addition to Hammer Shot I received credits, Endo, some other mods that I can give away or turn into more Endo, various resources to build stuff with or feed to the Helminth, syndicate standing, and XP for four different focus schools. So even if Hammer Shot hadn’t dropped I wouldn’t have come up empty, which is just the way I like it.

So, yeah, those are just some of the things that make Warframe special to me, and as of yet no other game I’ve played has come even close to it in these regards.

Blaugust 2023 post count: 5

Challenging vs punishing game design

You there, on the left…camera’s over here!

Last time around I talked about gatekeeping in MMORPGs, i.e. group leaders not granting access to their dungeon runs or raids unless a player meets certain requirements in terms of gear, level etc., and that it usually does not happen due to said group leaders being jerks, but out of a desire to avoid suffering from too punishing game design.

This begs the question how dungeons and raids, or multiplayer content in general, can be designed in such a way that it’s not that, but still challenging.

Now, I’m not saying that stuff always has to be challenging, but today I’d like to focus on those games, or just specific segments of games, that are supposed to be.

You there, on the left…oh, forget it…

In my opinion the most severe form of punishing design, and probably the reason for 90% of any gatekeeping that’s happening, is when a group of players is forced to repeat the same stuff over and over without anything to show for it because just one player made one little mistake.

Hence my suggestion would be to spread the risk on a couple more shoulders. Or less, if you will. Here’s what I mean: let’s say an encounter is designed for eight players, and at certain points in the fight a mechanic kicks in that wipes the group if not executed correctly. Why not make it so that only six or seven of these eight people have to stand at the right spot, click the thing or whatever it is they’re supposed to be doing?

This would still require the bulk of the group to be on point, while giving one or two freshmen (freshpeople?) a chance to watch and learn without immediately causing the run to fail. It would also allow experienced players to have a brain fart moment, which even the best of us do every now and then, without forcing the whole group to start over yet again.

No such thing as “too big” for us

“Do this or it’s a wipe” mechanics aren’t the only ones in need of a little tweak here and there though. Whether or not multiplayer content feels too unforgiving also depends on how a game handles dying and the resurrection of individual players.

Characters in The Secret World, for example, don’t have in-combat rez capabilities of any kind. Which means that, if a player dies, they are out of that particular fight for good. While technically not the same as an automatic wipe, losing one of five players (or ten, in the case of raids) is practically tantamount to having to start over most of the time.

SWTOR, on the other hand, does have in-combat resurrection, but only healer classes get it – this is actually true for most MMORPGs I’ve played – and once one has been used everyone is barred from casting another for five minutes. Which means, for all intents and purposes, that you get one rez per fight, maybe two if it’s a long one.

Personally, I think a five minute cooldown is ok, but each character should have their own instead of a global one, and in a group with just one healer a second player should also get access to an emergency rez of some kind, probably with a much longer CD or even once per fight only.

For raids, which usually have two or more healing classes, this would mean that these players could possibly pull some truly heroic moves in the face of an almost certain wipe. I remember situations like these from my raiding days in Everquest II, and let me tell you, those fights didn’t feel less challenging at all, but had 24 people cheering and hollering as if we’d just won the world cup.

Groups with just one healing class would at least have a small chance of survival whenever the healer’s the first one to fall. Alternatively the “off-rez” could be utilized when someone’s down but the healer has their hands full keeping the tank alive and whatnot.

Assembling the troops for the next onslaught

Last but not least, I think that no encounter should be so overloaded with mechanics that literally every attending player has to assume one or multiple special roles in addition to their “actual” job.

I remember some SWTOR raidfights where the whole group was so busy running to specific spots, pressing buttons, taunting certain enemies at the exact right moment and so forth that actually tanking the boss, healing and dealing damage was almost relegated to an afterthought. It became apparent pretty quickly that this was just too stressful for some of our guildies, especially since one mistake inevitably led to a wipe more often than not – see above.

Of course I’m not suggesting that every bossfight should just be “tank and spank”, that would be boring. However, like I said above, every group or raid should have a couple of spots for players who are either new to the content, or who just aren’t comfortable with and/or good at handling ten things at once while also needing to perform “sexy movement”, as we liked to call it, at the same time.

Taking this into account it can actually be beneficial to have, if you pardon the expression, mechanics for dummies. EQII’s fight against a raidboss named Druushk, for example, needs up to four (!) of 24 players to stand in the corners of a large room, too far away from the actual fight to participate, because every 45 seconds one of four statues becomes clickable, and the assigned player has to react relatively quickly to prevent, you guessed it, a wipe. I seem to remember that we did it with just two players, one each for a pair of statues, and all these two folks had to do was to watch their respective statues and run up to them to clicky clicky if needed. Nothing else, no damage to deal, no ground targets to avoid.

Now, was this fun to do? Not exactly. But it meant that players with sub-par DPS and/or without sexy movement could still come along, do their part and reap the rewards, and that’s a pretty big win in my book.

This one didn’t go down quite so easily…

Of course some might disagree, but I don’t think that any of these proposed changes would make the games less challenging…only less punishing.

All of this being said though, keep in mind that I’m not against having a difficulty setting for those close-knit player groups who’re actually seeking out the biggest, baddest and most punishing of challenges. Nightmare Mode, Mythic+ and whatever the hell else they’re called – those can remain just as they are as far as I’m concerned.

But each and every player who likes to play MMORPGs should be able to see every bit of content that the games have to offer and, even more importantly, experience what sets them apart from single player games – the chance to work towards a goal and taste the sweetness of success alongside likeminded teammates. It’s too much fun to be reserved for a select few.

Blaugust 2023 post count: 4

Punishing game design is bad for MMOs

I’m still playing Lost Ark a lot, and I’m enjoying it very much. However, there’s one thing that bothers me a bit, namely the fact that I’ll most likely never get to see much of the game’s dedicated multiplayer content.

One reason for this is that the game unfortunately doesn’t provide much of an incentive to run Guardian Raids and Abyssal Dungeons below your current gearscore, resulting in all but the highest ones being deserted most of the time. It’s a shame, as from what I’ve heard especially the dungeons are well designed and really fun. I think the folks at Smilegate should draw some inspirations from games like FFXIV here and keep that content relevant somehow.

The bigger problem by far though is that I, as a casual player, won’t even be able to find groups for the current endgame stuff – not because there aren’t any, but because nobody will want to have me in their group. Gatekeeping is what it’s called nowadays, but this is far from the first time I’m confronted with that kind of player behaviour.

I used to think that those players do it because they’re elitist dickheads, end of story. Over time I’ve come to realize that it ain’t quite as simple though. Of course some people indeed are dickheads, sure, but when there’s gatekeeping going on more often than not it’s the game’s fault, not the players’.

Back in 2008 my Everquest II guild was fighting and clawing its way through the Rise of Kunark expansion’s raid tiers, and we all had (mostly) a lot of fun. Until we had to face a boss named Venril Sathir, that is.

Here’s a quick rundown of only his most annoying and punishing mechanics, as they were back then:

1-2 people devoted to clicking the statues in his room. Statues must be clicked constantly during the fight to prevent the two larger statues in the hallway leading up to his room from spawning.

At 65% […] Use the Mistmyrian Soulcube from Tairiza the Widow Mistress within 5 seconds or die.

At 60% […] he will begin to watch your power consumption. Your raid force must keep their power between 30% and 70% to be safe. A raid member who get’s under 30% or over 70% for too long will spawn adds that will wipe the raid most likely.

The first one isn’t too bad for the raid as a whole as it doesn’t take any skill to execute, meaning that basically anyone can do it without risking a wipe, but it sure is boring as hell for the assigned clickers. Also, getting that job doesn’t feel too good, because it means that you’re obviously deemed expendable for the ‘real’ fight. But, fair enough, someone’s gotta do it. And, as we’ll see in a follow-up post, having stuff like this in a fight can actually have its advantages.

The second mechanic wasn’t too much of a problem for us either, but still, I think having a whole 24-player raid wipe because one person didn’t do a specific thing within a 5 second window is pretty harsh – especially when it happens 5-10 minutes into the fight and you’ll have to do it all over again if screwed up.

Shortly after having taken that hurdle the third and really disgusting mechanic kicked in though. Having to stay between 30% and 70% power at all times is harder than you might think, what with healers still needing to heal and damage dealers still having to beat the boss’s enrage timer etc. As if that wasn’t enough random players were debuffed regularly during that phase, either doubling power consumption or drastically enhancing power regen for a while. My Warlock getting hit with the former just before casting a huge nuke meant game over for all of us.

I remember at least three full evenings, three to four hours each, of one wipe after another at the hands of this guy – and I wasn’t even one of those who attended each and every raid night.

As you can probably imagine it didn’t take very long until tempers started to flare, and when yet another wipe had happened someone to blame was quickly found. Once the same person had screwed up twice murmurs along the lines of “let’s not take that player along next time” started, if not openly then at least behind the scenes. And I’ve absolutely seen raidleads comply and bench people. Hell, I was this close to doing it myself once, back when I was a raidlead in our SWTOR guild.

Gatekeeping is nothing new, is what I’m saying, and in my opinion this is a perfect example of too punishing game design being the catalyst for this kind of seemingly toxic behaviour.

Do note that I’m not talking about “too hard” here. Raid bosses are supposed to be hard. However, forcing 24 players to repeat a 15+ minute fight over and over because just one of those people made a little mistake – that’s not hard, it’s overly punishing, which is something different entirely. And it’s only natural that human beings have a tendency not to expose themselves to stuff like that if at all possible.

An argument often brought forth to prove that gatekeeping is idiotic is the fact that a character’s level, gearscore and whatnot don’t actually reveal anything about that player’s skills – and of course that’s 100% true.

But here’s the thing: what else is there to go by? Unless you already know that person and have seen them in action you have absolutely no way of knowing whether or not they will cause wipes galore because they don’t know or can’t execute the mechanics.

When a character has a high gearscore (and in the case of Lost Ark also good engravings, a high roster level etc.) you at least know that the person behind it has played many, many hours, so the chance of them knowing their stuff is quite a bit higher, which is all you can really ask for.

That’s why there will always be gatekeeping in games whose multiplayer content is designed in such punishing ways, and it’s bad because it means that lots of players will either never get to see that content, or worse, get yelled at by strangers for being “bad” and thus grow to hate that content. There’s no doubt in my mind that people have quit playing (and paying for) certain games over this.

So what could game designers do to prevent or at least reduce gatekeeping? How can dungeons and raids still be challenging without reverting to those overly punishing mechanics?

I’ll save my thoughts on that for the next post.

Blaugust 2023 post count: 3