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What constitutes worthwhile evolution in RPG design is a contentious subject. For every player who prefers the action-oriented route of modern Final Fantasy games, you've got those who want a return to the turn-based days of yore. The same is true for Diablo and action-RPG fans, as Path of Exile co-creator Chris Wilson explains how more modern, intuitive character progression is less fun to genre diehards.
Wilson went through the logic in a new YouTube video. He says the key problem for ARPG players stems from what are known as breakpoints – the benchmarks for when a particular action stat actually changes or improves. For instance, you don't automatically get quicker in spellcasting each time you move up a level. Instead, your ability goes up by increments after you reach a certain number of levels.
"There are arbitrary sweet spots of attack speed, cast speed, and hit recovery that players want to reach, because the jump in animation speed happens all at once," Wilson explains.
As a response, Diablo 2 "players created tables of speed breakpoints and optimize their characters around these thresholds," Wilson says. "Many of them had a lot of fun doing so, and it was an important part of the game for them."
The Diablo audience is such that I don't think there's any struggle in imagining players putting together spreadsheets of information on how each build can best level up. I've not done it for this series, but I've definitely been known to open up Excel or get out a pen and paper for a Dark Souls game over the years.
In my experience, Wilson is correct: it's fun. Strategizing your build brings a more tangible element to what you're doing and lets you test just how far the developers went with their balancing.
Where Wilson's perspective also holds water is in the fact that other action-RPGs fail to capture the Diablo 2 playerbase. They have less of these breakpoints, thus disappointing people who live for a good graph.
If you want old school players, you've got to play by old school rules. It's that simple.
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