Why Diablo is a better loot game than Destiny

I’ve been playing a lot of Diablo 3 recently and doing so has highlighted just how a good loot and skill system can work together in perfect synergy. Diablo’s loot and skill systems are brilliantly complimentary; not only will a multitude of generic stats found on gear (critical chance, attack speed etc) feed into certain class skills, but legendary and set items present a seemingly unending addition of unique and fascinating effects, many of which synergise with one another and specific class skills in surprising ways. As you play through the game, gradually unlocking skills, you’ll gain an appreciation for the core values and traits of your chosen class, eventually settling on a play style you like, which you’ll gradually tinker with and improve with each new legendary drop.

But it’s in the end game, the level 70+ adventure mode introduced in the Reaper of Souls expansion along with a host of other improvements, that the game’s customisability really shines. Running high-level Nephalem Rifts gives you a challenge to test yourself against, forcing you to rebuild constantly and second-guess your every choice of equipment, whilst rewarding you with higher legendary drop rates to further feed the process of character iteration. As you slowly gain in power with each run, you’ll come across equipment that will be perfect for that fun character build that’s been germinating in the back of your head for hours. Perhaps you want to equip items that cause enemies to spew gold when you hit them to power up Goldwrap, a belt that gives you temporary armour equal to the gold you pick up? Or perhaps the weapon that reduces the cost of Wave of Light and increases its damage is the missing link to the bell build for your monk that you’ve already affectionately named ‘Quasimodo’ and has resulted in many inappropriate jokes about “staying up to buff my bell”.

Many have accused Diablo of being about ‘clicking on things until they die’, and while this might seem a reasonable accusation from the outside, the more familiarity you have with the system, the more nuance you appreciate within it. Playing a Monk is not only a fundamentally different experience to playing a Crusader or a Wizard; but playing a monk constructed around the ability Wave of Light (which drops a huge bell on your enemies’ heads) and one constructed around Tempest Rush (running around spinning your staff like a whirlwind of death) is also fundamentally different. Given the huge range of skills and modifying runes available for each class, coupled with the many unique and quirky abilities legendary weapons provide, and considering the ease at which the game allows you to re-spec your character, Diablo gives you an incredibly generous amount versatility and variety. It’s like breaking down a Lego set and using the component pieces to make an even better spaceship.

Diablo 3 can be horribly addictive and you’ll soon find yourself ‘chain-rifting’ until three in the morning, just living for the next legendary drop and the hugely satisfying ‘dong’ and ray of golden light that accompanies it

There is a health warning associated with this triumph of game design, though. Diablo 3 can be horribly addictive (my housemates have barely seen me for weeks), and you’ll soon find yourself ‘chain-rifting’ until three in the morning, just living for the next legendary drop and the hugely satisfying ‘dong’ and ray of golden light that accompanies it. Meanwhile, whilst at work, you’ll find yourself distracted by Blizzard’s excellent online skill calculator, allowing you to mock up new heroes, or trawling through forums full of reams of algebra exploring whether a particular stat boost is beneficial. Hey, Maths is boring, but attach those numbers to a badass looking sword and I’m suddenly interested – Maths teachers take note. If you’re not careful you’ll find yourself a member of strange cult that has formed its own language with words like ‘proc’ and ‘crowd control’.

In this context it’s impossible not to look back at the previous ‘loot’ game I played, Destiny, and find it horrifyingly lacking. While Diablo does everything in its power to encourage experimentation (even highlighting user-created builds each week on their website – almost like collectable card games might highlight championship decks), Destiny takes every opportunity to close down the possibility space. Not only are the abilities for each class rather scant and unimaginative in Destiny (do three of the tracks on each skill tree really need to be taken up by marginal redistributions of armour and health, or tiny variations in how your jump works?), but the few high tier items that come with exciting effects, such as the Titan armour that gives you an extra grenade (although now I’ve said it, it doesn’t quite sound that exciting), have their use severely limited by the fact that you can only ever equip one exotic weapon and armour piece. Can you imagine how lame that would be if you applied the rule to Diablo? Furthermore, as The Dark Below demonstrated, Activision’s update strategy for Destiny sees exotic items, and the efforts and resources required to upgrade them, constantly reset or rendered insignificant. The fact that you have to invest so much in upgrading each item, and that your very level progression is tied directly to them, is the ultimate discouragement for players to mix it up; almost as though the developers were afraid that if players did start experimenting, they’d quickly discover how insignificant it all was.

I appreciate that Destiny is fundamentally a shooter, and mechanically it excels in that area for certain, but if Bungie want a large part of the game to be about the classes and the loot, as they seem to (indeed they need to if the game is to retain a dedicated long-term player base), then there is no reason why they should pay so little attention to it. Destiny has the potential to be a great shooter, with great RPG skills and loot, but it’s being hampered by some misguided idea that giving the player too much freedom to experiment with interesting abilities will somehow break the game. This is a problem that Diablo gets around by introducing an extensive scalable difficulty, allowing the player to set the difficulty according to their ability (and encourage higher difficulty settings with the promise of greater rewards), or greater rifts ever increasing in difficulty for players to throw themselves against.

It’s also worth noting that Diablo 3 is now several years old and has also made its fair share of missteps (the auction house being the most glaring), while Destiny is a mere infant learning to walk by comparison, so perhaps Bungie’s game can grow and evolve in the way players desperately want it to. I can’t help but feel after playing these two games back to back, however, that Bungie absolutely needs to have a look at Blizzard’s little book of good design principles.