Hardcore fans of the epic Diablo franchise have been disappointed again and again with the latest game. From the release of Diablo 3 itself, to it’s expansion, to every subsequent patch, players claim that Blizzard -ahem- Activision, has failed to live up to their previous standards of quality.
Random Numbers Game, RNG, affectionately referred to as RnGeezus by gamers, is the system by which everything from monster spawns to loot drops are determined. It infects every aspect of the game. Let’s say you want to find a special gem, say Gibbering Gemstone - this gem is a necessary component to build a staff which acts as a key to unlocking a special level of the game full of ironic, gory, fun. The Gibbering Gemstone can only be found by defeating a special monster which may or may not be found in a cave which may or may not actually be where it’s supposed to be, if it’s there at all. It would not be unheard of to seek out this Cave 3 or 4 times only to discover that this game doesn’t have the Caverns of Frost at all. A minor inconvenience, mainly because you have to exit your game and start a new game if you want another chance at the Caverns showing up on the map. So you finally get the Caverns, the monster who can give you this gem, the wily wench known as Chilltara, is located on the 2nd floor of the Caverns of Frost (if she shows up at all), and you have to fight your way through some fairly dense monster populations to get to her. You have no promises that she will give you the Gem if you defeat her, but you can’t get it unless you try, right? By all accounts, Chilltara can be fought several times a day for weeks without dropping the gem.
We are gamers, and we love a challenge. We will not be defeated by something so petty as repetition, right? Let’s alter the scenario slightly. Let’s assume that the coveted loot drop is something you would equip and use on your character to (hopefully) improve your overall heroic awesomeness. Let’s say that you need a Ring of Royal Grandeur. This is a covet drop indeed and one of the more frustrating pieces in the game. We will assume for brevity sake that you have to go through a similar scenario to attain this ring. (It’s actually more complicated and frustrating than the first scenario.) You’ve patiently attended to your daily questing for days or weeks, and by some miracle of numbers, you have won your Ring of Royal Grandeur! Your heart is thumping like crazy with anticipation, because you STILL don’t know if you will even be able to use the silly thing!
Every piece of equipment that drops, has a set number of magical properties, which are rolled randomly from a list of possibilities. For argument’s sake, you play a Barbarian, and your attack power is based on your character’s strength. Most of your equipment will drop with a bonus to strength. However, if you have another character, the game might occasionally throw you a piece of equipment for your other character. These are mathematical algorithms, and they don’t understand human frustration or want to reward us for hard work or special achievements. So your ring finally drops and not ONLY does it not give you your strength, instead assigning perhaps Intelligence boosts, it also has a few other stats which make it utterly useless to you as a melee character. The game ONLY promises that this item will drop with 5 random magical properties and one fixed affix. The fixed affix on this piece is really special and is useable by almost EVERY type of character. But you’ve rolled a real stinker and only 2 of the properties are useful to you. Now you have invested, 2 hours a day for 2 weeks, that’s 28 hours, toward attaining this most amazing ring, and you got it, but you can’t use it.
Everything about this game is a gamble. In Diablo 2, getting special items was MUCH more difficult, but you were promised what that item was in advance. The stats never changed. In Diablo 3, in concession to player’s frustrations about the random nature of gear, they installed two new features. One was a way to gamble precious resources to change a single stat into one of 3 possible options (also one stat might potentially be changed into hundreds or thousands of variations of a dozen or so possibilities). The precious resource used for changing the stats on a Ring of Royal Grandeur would be items you can primarily attain from destroying other legendary items of equivalent level and thus value, for their principal components and also gem stones. So you now have to go and find other rare and special magical items to destroy for their components to gamble for only a chance to get ONE better stat out of usually 4-6 magical properties.
Finding these items is not an easy task, and in a contrary system, it gets harder the better you get at the game. You see the game evaluates whether you are trying hard enough by playing on specific difficulties and adjusts your “rewards” based on it’s estimation of your effort. Now this is all done through an algorithm which I am certain would make my brain melt, were I to try and decipher it. So, generalizing, you have a reasonable chance of getting 2 or 3 of these items in an hour of intense and difficult gaming. This sounds like a lot, right? You may have to spend every single component you earned in an hour, on one roll on your ring, that’s one chance with odds that are astronomically stacked against you. And that’s being generous.
Take my advice. Learn to embrace the suck. Diablo 3 is all about the grind. There are some curiosities which won’t give you a better character, but may improve your overall gaming experience if you take the time to explore.
