"best" is actually relatively easy to figure out because it is situational. Let's say you get near monsters with ice attack. Obviously it should automatically equip armor for maximum ice armor and maximum fire damage. Let's say you are in a really easy area where not much can hurt you, then max bonuses to xp, gold finding, magic finding, etc. It shouldn't just auto equip once. It should constantly auto re-equip amongst all the things you are holding.
What if I'm willing to have a little harder battles so I can get better loot and want to use bonus xp bonus, gold and magic finding gear while fighting the frost beasts. What if there are both frost and poison dealing monsters at the same area? What if there is 90% of frost monstes and 10% of poison monsters.
What you actually want is a game where there is no equipment. Or one where only equipment choice is what type of weapon you use. Because why have equipment if the game just handles it for you and you don't need to pay attention to it. At that point no equipment at all would be a much better option.
The point is that the game is already a game where you mindlessly click on monsters. Don't try to pretend to be a real game. If you're gonna be Progress Quest, embrace it. If I wanted to play a real game, I would go play a real game. If your game is not a thinking game, don't make me do math that the computer can do trivially.
The point is that the game is already a game where you mindlessly click on monsters. Don't try to pretend to be a real game. If you're gonna be Progress Quest, embrace it. If I wanted to play a real game, I would go play a real game. If your game is not a thinking game, don't make me do math that the computer can do trivially.
Ah so once again your problem is that you're a jaded elitist and the game is fine. As long as we're clear.
The point is that the game is already a game where you mindlessly click on monsters. Don't try to pretend to be a real game. If you're gonna be Progress Quest, embrace it. If I wanted to play a real game, I would go play a real game. If your game is not a thinking game, don't make me do math that the computer can do trivially.
Just because you want something from a game don't blame a game if it isn't tailored for your exact needs. Just because you don't think that choice between +10% heath and +2% gold find, isn't interesting it doesn't mean that other people can't find enjoyment out of those choices.
But lucky for you Trochlight 2 is apparently super modable so you or someone else could make mod that removes all that inventory management from the game.
Once again I respect your opinion, even if it's a shitty opinion, but don't act like your opinions are some divine truths that every game should be designed around.
The optimization problem is not so simple as you posit. First, there are choices in what variables do you want to maximize? What kind of enemies are you fighting? What elemental powers are they resistant to? To make a convincing argument, Scott needs to present some sort of error function to optimize against.
Simpler: Just remove all varied damage types and severely nerf damage so that inventory is not necessary at all. Just make lots of brightly-colored pixels dance around the screen and you click on them and they make a happy face or a pony or a penis.
That can be achieved with multiple different ways. For example for an ranged character movement speed can be more helpful in staying alive than armor. Which one would your automatic item handling algorithm prefer?
The single optimization button is a bit of a red herring. Burst damage vs. sustained. Low damage range vs. high. What you really want is sustainable clearing speed, which would actually require that the button not be a button so much as an automatic sustained equipping process. Take it a step further, and have it equip your maximized damage reduction gear before taking each individual shot, your maximum damage gear constantly shifting to optimize it for each individual attack, and your maximum movement speed/regeneration for everything in-between.
Don't conflate my perspective with Scott's. I just don't want to have to stop the action part of the game every couple steps. I prefer a properly paced game where there are natural lulls in action where you are specifically able to take a break and consider those options.
At the very least, they should show you totals when you are comparing items.
For example, if I am comparing two armors. Show me the total physical and elementarl armor levels for each of the two choices in addition to the individual effects of the items in question.
You might think that is redundant, but it's not. Let's say I am choosing between +36 fire armor and +15 physical armor. Fire armor is looking good, and it's a fire area, so I'll go with that. Oh wait. I didn't realize I already have a zillion fire armor, and my physical armor is way low because I had to check a hard to read window to see the current totals.
I wonder how similar they will be to the original torchlight. You could possibly write it for the first one then just transfer it or port it pretty simply.
Percentage increases and decreases of your overall stats with the item you've found vs your currently equipped item. In your example of physical and fire armor, it would be something like -30% fire damage taken +10% physical damage taken
Percentage increases and decreases of your overall stats with the item you've found vs your currently equipped item. In your example of physical and fire armor, it would be something like -30% fire damage taken +10% physical damage taken
It's already confusing when they use percentages because it lacks specificity.
For example, I get a helmet that says +10% fire damage.
Does that mean you take my current fire damage number and add 10% of itself to itself? When is that percentage added? What if I have another item that is +20 fire damage. Is that now actually an item that effectively becomes +22 fire damage because they stack? What if I cast a fire spell, does it do anything then or does it only apply to weapons?
Moreover than having to pick everything up and manage numbers, my biggest peeve about Torchlight 2 (and Borderlands 2), is that we're STILL, after so many years and games, totally okay with shitty inventory management.
I have prismatic energy flowing from my hands, little magical pets follow me around, I kill demons, and yet I can still only carry some arbitrary number of slots of gear. Bag of holding anyone?
What the fuck.
Also, as far as the auto-equipping thing goes, I could totally see a system where you get a lot more loot, it auto-picks up, and then you have like 10 or so sliders, with settings like, Elemental Defense<->Physical Defense, Magical Damage<->Physical Damage, etc. Instead of micro-managing gear, the game just keeps basically a full set of gear for you, and you just get to move sliders and play the game. Can't beat something? Move the slider and try it a different way! It's still based on your loot, so it's still a personal experience.
And as a side note, what's the point of putting stat points into your character? Arbitrary customization? It seems like a step back to me.
I'm not saying the helmet itself would be a +10% fire damage helmet.
I'm saying that the overall effectiveness of the new item, when used in combination with the rest of your gear, would be directly compared to the old one and shown in a comparison summary panel. That's entirely separate from whether your other item ends up having 20 or 22 fire damage. You could still look at the more detailed item stats if you wanted to, but you wouldn't need to do so and you wouldn't need to do the math.
In this hypothetical example, the helmet might have a stat of +20 fire damage, but would show up as +10% fire damage in the comparison pane because replacing your old helm with it would cause your fire damage to go from 100 to 110, and in practice you would find that, on average, you would be doing 10% more fire damage if you swapped the old helm for the new one.
As for fire spells vs weapons, that's an entirely different issue. Design clarity would dictate that "fire damage" ought to apply to any and all types of fire coming from you.
Well in WoW, it's a decent market for the AH to sell inventory bags.
I do agree with you. Limited inventory slots is annoying. I recently had to upgrade my Bank SDU in BL2 so I can have stuff to send to other toons when I create them.
Gothic 1/2 allows you to hold an unlimited amount of anything. It's so convenient, but then I just hoard every single jar/glass/fork I can find. More game should do that.
Comments
What you actually want is a game where there is no equipment. Or one where only equipment choice is what type of weapon you use. Because why have equipment if the game just handles it for you and you don't need to pay attention to it. At that point no equipment at all would be a much better option.
But lucky for you Trochlight 2 is apparently super modable so you or someone else could make mod that removes all that inventory management from the game.
Once again I respect your opinion, even if it's a shitty opinion, but don't act like your opinions are some divine truths that every game should be designed around.
Priority 2 - max damage
Don't conflate my perspective with Scott's. I just don't want to have to stop the action part of the game every couple steps. I prefer a properly paced game where there are natural lulls in action where you are specifically able to take a break and consider those options.
For example, if I am comparing two armors. Show me the total physical and elementarl armor levels for each of the two choices in addition to the individual effects of the items in question.
You might think that is redundant, but it's not. Let's say I am choosing between +36 fire armor and +15 physical armor. Fire armor is looking good, and it's a fire area, so I'll go with that. Oh wait. I didn't realize I already have a zillion fire armor, and my physical armor is way low because I had to check a hard to read window to see the current totals.
-30% fire damage taken
+10% physical damage taken
For example, I get a helmet that says +10% fire damage.
Does that mean you take my current fire damage number and add 10% of itself to itself? When is that percentage added? What if I have another item that is +20 fire damage. Is that now actually an item that effectively becomes +22 fire damage because they stack? What if I cast a fire spell, does it do anything then or does it only apply to weapons?
I have prismatic energy flowing from my hands, little magical pets follow me around, I kill demons, and yet I can still only carry some arbitrary number of slots of gear. Bag of holding anyone?
What the fuck.
Also, as far as the auto-equipping thing goes, I could totally see a system where you get a lot more loot, it auto-picks up, and then you have like 10 or so sliders, with settings like, Elemental Defense<->Physical Defense, Magical Damage<->Physical Damage, etc. Instead of micro-managing gear, the game just keeps basically a full set of gear for you, and you just get to move sliders and play the game. Can't beat something? Move the slider and try it a different way! It's still based on your loot, so it's still a personal experience.
And as a side note, what's the point of putting stat points into your character? Arbitrary customization? It seems like a step back to me.
I'm saying that the overall effectiveness of the new item, when used in combination with the rest of your gear, would be directly compared to the old one and shown in a comparison summary panel. That's entirely separate from whether your other item ends up having 20 or 22 fire damage. You could still look at the more detailed item stats if you wanted to, but you wouldn't need to do so and you wouldn't need to do the math.
In this hypothetical example, the helmet might have a stat of +20 fire damage, but would show up as +10% fire damage in the comparison pane because replacing your old helm with it would cause your fire damage to go from 100 to 110, and in practice you would find that, on average, you would be doing 10% more fire damage if you swapped the old helm for the new one.
As for fire spells vs weapons, that's an entirely different issue. Design clarity would dictate that "fire damage" ought to apply to any and all types of fire coming from you.
I do agree with you. Limited inventory slots is annoying. I recently had to upgrade my Bank SDU in BL2 so I can have stuff to send to other toons when I create them.