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[MrToughPants]

Just buy the game please, OK?

terrible

edit: I can't believe that he hasn't played through D3 normal.

Damn...

Bought D2 and Battle chess 12 times I'm not sure if I'll even buy D3 if its like a sequel to the village.

 

[erragal]

There's a significant difference between 1 and 7, sure, but not between 6 and 7. If a level 7 rune is so hard to get, it wouldn't have really mattered that much since you could have made do with a level 6 rune just fine. From level 30, after trying all the different level 1 runes, you have a pretty good idea of the progression rune levels would have and can start to set some long term goals. Under the new system, those long term goals are set for you. No thinking necessary. Bland.


Oh? What if in Diablo II you couldn't unlock Lightning Fury until level 60? What if you couldn't unlock Smite until level 70? That would have been ridiculous.


But that's the thing. Do we really want to resign ourselves to the excuse of , "oh the REAL game doesn't start until Inferno, anyway, so who gives a shit about level 1-59"? That also flies right in the face of their goal that Inferno is ass-explodingly difficult and meant for only the strong. If that's the case, then what the heck are casuals supposed to be doing in Normal, Nightmare, and Hell if they're not even playing "the real game" yet? And what does that bode for them if they manage to get to level 60 somehow and find that they're supposed to now play in this crazy difficulty now for the "real game" meant for a different class of gamers?

In the previous system you really didn't have any progression as your character level rose. There's also -no- indication that ALL of the rune effects were actually available in normal difficulty at this stage of development; for all we know every single obsidian rune only dropped in Hell difficulty the last time they were iterating on that design and that's why there's a level based unlock system.

The argument about Diablo II is really quite absurd considering the level progression in Diablo 2 was far different. Using completely inequivalent arguments to support your position is a poor showing when you're trying to advocate that your design ideas are superior to Blizzards'. It probably would have been quite interesting had the skill progression been drawn out a bit in D2 (More towards level 45-50 where you ended nightmare) assuming there was even 1/10 the number of skill options available in D2.

But the 'REAL' game is the progression of abilities and exploration of all the various combinations your chosen class can do. By unlocking things every level you encourage someone to constantly be retooling their character and trying out new strategies while giving them a good amount of time to explore what they do and do not like. When they finally hit the 'brick wall' of the game they have a strong fundamental understanding of ALL the abilities they can utilize so they have some basis for creating a build and tackling more complex challenges.

Much of the same principles exist in MMO's as to why abilities are handed out slowly over the course of the game as opposed to early on. It's also why there was quite a stigma for 'ebayed' characters in WoW for awhile because not having leveled through acquiring each ability properly gives someone a poor innate understanding of their overall character options.

I just find your whole armchair design philosophy to be lacking any sort of big picture thought process. It's about what 'you' want to see as opposed to a genuine attempt to fit a system into the overall design principles of Diablo 3 as a game.

Now saying you -disagree- with the overall design principles of D3 makes for a completely different (And far more interesting!) argument than trying to defend your scratchpad designs.

 

[SillyEskimo]

In the previous system you really didn't have any progression as your character level rose. There's also -no- indication that ALL of the rune effects were actually available in normal difficulty at this stage of development; for all we know every single obsidian rune only dropped in Hell difficulty the last time they were iterating on that design and that's why there's a level based unlock system.

The argument about Diablo II is really quite absurd considering the level progression in Diablo 2 was far different. Using completely inequivalent arguments to support your position is a poor showing when you're trying to advocate that your design ideas are superior to Blizzards'. It probably would have been quite interesting had the skill progression been drawn out a bit in D2 (More towards level 45-50 where you ended nightmare) assuming there was even 1/10 the number of skill options available in D2.

But the 'REAL' game is the progression of abilities and exploration of all the various combinations your chosen class can do. By unlocking things every level you encourage someone to constantly be retooling their character and trying out new strategies while giving them a good amount of time to explore what they do and do not like. When they finally hit the 'brick wall' of the game they have a strong fundamental understanding of ALL the abilities they can utilize so they have some basis for creating a build and tackling more complex challenges.

Much of the same principles exist in MMO's as to why abilities are handed out slowly over the course of the game as opposed to early on. It's also why there was quite a stigma for 'ebayed' characters in WoW for awhile because not having leveled through acquiring each ability properly gives someone a poor innate understanding of their overall character options.

I just find your whole armchair design philosophy to be lacking any sort of big picture thought process. It's about what 'you' want to see as opposed to a genuine attempt to fit a system into the overall design principles of Diablo 3 as a game.

Now saying you -disagree- with the overall design principles of D3 makes for a completely different (And far more interesting!) argument than trying to defend your scratchpad designs.

This is a great post.

 

[Valnen]

They need a new PR representative then. That is horrible PR right there, almost to an embarrasing level from a corporate standpoint.

Bashiok is not a PR representative, nor is it his job to represent Diablo 3 or even play the game.

 

[TylerD]

I don't mean this to sound flippant in a, "Hurr durr making a game is easy durrrp" kind of way but sometimes I think Blizzard has made the task of crafting a sequel to Diablo 2 much more difficult than it ever needed to be. Know what I mean?

I would say the biggest problem is trying to create something that is still "Diablo" and not just Diablo 2.5 and appease the maybe tens of millions of people that played D2 while still trying to attract new players.

From what I have played for many many hours so far (more than any other full game in years) I would say they have succeeded.

 

[MrDenny]

For each skill, are the rune effects switchable at anytime?

 

[Rentahamster]

In the previous system you really didn't have any progression as your character level rose.

Yeah you did. Eventually you find higher level runes as you progress through the game, and you can use those runes to augment your skills to a higher power level.

There's also -no- indication that ALL of the rune effects were actually available in normal difficulty at this stage of development; for all we know every single obsidian rune only dropped in Hell difficulty the last time they were iterating on that design and that's why there's a level based unlock system.

Their comments as to why they went to a level-based unlock system gave no hint of that speculation.

The argument about Diablo II is really quite absurd considering the level progression in Diablo 2 was far different. Using completely inequivalent arguments to support your position is a poor showing when you're trying to advocate that your design ideas are superior to Blizzards'. It probably would have been quite interesting had the skill progression been drawn out a bit in D2 (More towards level 45-50 where you ended nightmare) assuming there was even 1/10 the number of skill options available in D2.

It's not absurd. Max level in Diablo II is 99. Max level in Diablo III is 60. By the end of Normal in Diablo II you have access to all your skills. In Diablo III, you won't have access to all your skills until you're more than halfway through Hell.

But the 'REAL' game is the progression of abilities and exploration of all the various combinations your chosen class can do. By unlocking things every level you encourage someone to constantly be retooling their character and trying out new strategies while giving them a good amount of time to explore what they do and do not like.

My system has stuff unlocking at every level, and gives players even more freedom to retool and try out new strategies. And they can experiment all they want near the end of Normal and the beginning of Nightmare, when it's still fun to experiment with non-viable builds. Can't do much experimenting with brand new, potentially non-viable builds in Inferno mode if you get destroyed instantly.

Much of the same principles exist in MMO's as to why abilities are handed out slowly over the course of the game as opposed to early on.

My system hands out abilities slowly over the course of the game, all the way to level 60, too.

I just find your whole armchair design philosophy to be lacking any sort of big picture thought process. It's about what 'you' want to see as opposed to a genuine attempt to fit a system into the overall design principles of Diablo 3 as a game.

My proposal was a genuine attempt to merge the good qualities of the old system with the good qualities of the new system in a tight package of compromise that minimizes the negative aspects and preserves the core Diablo tenant of loot-whoring.

 

[Oblivionmancer]

I would say the biggest problem is trying to create something that is still "Diablo" and not just Diablo 2.5 and appease the maybe tens of millions of people that played D2 while still trying to attract new players.

From what I have played for many many hours so far (more than any other full game in years) I would say they have succeeded.

Not to call you out in particular or anything, but I've been seeing a lot of these 'Diablo 2.5' arguments being made, and I find them pretty troubling. Being different just to be different is not really a very good solution to the 'problem' of making 'Diablo 2.5.' If redesigning systems for the sake of newness makes the game worse, then just give me Diablo 2.5 instead. I'm not saying for sure that Blizzard has done that, but think there is a very real risk there; the reality is that Diablo 2 is a perfect storm of design that made for a game with a decade or more worth of replayability in it, and junking bits and pieces of that design without very good reasons more substantial than 'sequel must be different' is a dangerous road to travel.

I'm sure Diablo 3 will be a blast to play, but nothing I've experienced of the beta so far suggests a game that I'll be coming back to years and years after release. It feels like a game where the designers thought of everything, which means there's much less for the players to discover. Figuring out how all the pieces of Diablo 2 fit together, and using that knowledge to overcome the games challenges in an endless variety of ways was a big part of its success. The reality of Diablo 3 is that every Wizard will be exactly the same except for the parts of him that you can buy and sell for real money, of which Blizzard gets a cut. I am not encouraged by this.

 

[Rentahamster]

Being different just to be different is not really a very good solution to the 'problem' of making 'Diablo 2.5.' If redesigning systems for the sake of newness makes the game worse, then just give me Diablo 2.5 instead.

Yes. While striving to be different is a good design goal in order to evolve the genre, it's not much use if all these different things end up being bad. This is one of the problems Final Fantasy 14 had. In all their vigor to make things different from other MMOs, they just ended up launching with a bunch of stupid game mechanics. They were different, sure, but they were also terrible.

 

[Victrix]

I'm sure Diablo 3 will be a blast to play, but nothing I've experienced of the beta so far suggests a game that I'll be coming back to years and years after release.

The Diablo 2 beta bored the ever-loving shit out of me, then I played it for years

The D3 beta is boring for similar reasons, but far, far better designed and vastly more interesting on every single character already in terms of skills available.

It's a bit like trying to argue an mmo lacks depth or replayability after you've gone through the newbie area and then you're left to farm rotten boots of the whale with different characters up to level 13.

edit: ^^^^ Hi Renta!

 

[erragal]

Yeah you did. Eventually you find higher level runes as you progress through the game, and you can use those runes to augment your skills to a higher power level.

To reword it: No direct rewards for leveling. Randomized item based progression is not the same thing.

It's not absurd. Max level in Diablo II is 99. Max level in Diablo III is 60. By the end of Normal in Diablo II you have access to all your skills. In Diablo III, you won't have access to all your skills until you're more than halfway through Hell.

You actually just dug yourself deeper here. Getting to level 99 in Diablo 2 was a feat of sheer persistence; the average person got nowhere near there even with excessive playtime. It was quite normal to finish Hell difficulty (The equivalent of Inferno in D3 I might add) somewhere in the 70's, possibly early 80's. Assuming you unlocked everything near the end of Nightmare that'd be somewhere around level 50-60.

My system has stuff unlocking at every level, and gives players even more freedom to retool and try out new strategies. And they can experiment all they want near the end of Normal and the beginning of Nightmare, when it's still fun to experiment with non-viable builds. Can't do much experimenting with brand new, potentially non-viable builds in Inferno mode if you get destroyed instantly.

You still don't have any concept of overall design. Your system doesn't encourage the player to try new strategies in any way; it encourages the player to decide ahead of time what the best 'unlock' would be and to choose that. Excessive choice is often a path to overdesign and then alienate players too early into the game experience.

My proposal was a genuine attempt to merge the good qualities of the old system with the good qualities of the new system in a tight package of compromise that minimizes the negative aspects and preserves the core Diablo tenant of loot-whoring.

There's no indication that the new rune selection system in any way harmed the loot progression of Diablo 3. Tying ability gradients to random drops and/or player economy has just as much of a potential to be frustrating as it is fun and also presents several potential obstacles to someone that does want to prepare for 'endgame' viability. If you make the items so common as to not require some effort to obtain you might as well just make the system selectable (This has been mentioned many times prior to this change too)

You're missing another key point here: the only good quality of the old system was when they were iterating on runes having affixes. This was only good in that it introduced the benefit of more permutations for possible stat boosts; expect to see more gear slots in the expansion. Start simple; by the second expansion Diablo 3 will be an absurd mix of complex systems we're all looking forward to.

The one 'flaw' you find in the new system isn't really a flaw. It's a design decision which encourages more experimentation. Your system is overly complex in order to resemble something from before to appease people without having any positive benefits and also massively increasing design time.

Are you forgetting this game is supposed to release within five months based on their previous conference call? Right now outside of perhaps the backend of RMAH, Diablo 3 is ready to ship within two months, maybe three. Must be restated: The current system exists because they are out of time to iterate on what they actually wanted to do. At some point after spending -YEARS- muddling over something you just have to say "Ok this direction just isn't fitting with the overall direction of our game". Especially when it's the only thing holding you back.

 

[Rentahamster]

The reality of Diablo 3 is that every Wizard will be exactly the same

Well this is more true at lower levels since everyone has to travel the same path. Once you hit level 55-ish you have access to most of the skills and at that point you can choose what skills suit your style better. At that point it ends up being kinda like Guild Wars in the sense that your identity is created from what skill combinations you choose to use. Unless of course there is one skill combo that is leagues better than the rest for end game, then everyone will be the same.

 

[KKRT00]

But the 'REAL' game is the progression of abilities and exploration of all the various combinations your chosen class can do. By unlocking things every level you encourage someone to constantly be retooling their character and trying out new strategies while giving them a good amount of time to explore what they do and do not like. When they finally hit the 'brick wall' of the game they have a strong fundamental understanding of ALL the abilities they can utilize so they have some basis for creating a build and tackling more complex challenges.

What is this even? Have You even thought how will building Your equipment and character build look like? Instead of slowly building and learning how to play with planned build, You will have to use some other not complete build to get to certain level.
How is that good design? Explain me, how forcing players to use skills they dont want, or dont synerge properly, make game better or is designed better than giving player a freedom of unlocking certain runes.

I think that system that would allow players to decide what rune to unlock for current skill is perfect.

 

[erragal]

I'm sure Diablo 3 will be a blast to play, but nothing I've experienced of the beta so far suggests a game that I'll be coming back to years and years after release. It feels like a game where the designers thought of everything, which means there's much less for the players to discover. Figuring out how all the pieces of Diablo 2 fit together, and using that knowledge to overcome the games challenges in an endless variety of ways was a big part of its success. The reality of Diablo 3 is that every Wizard will be exactly the same except for the parts of him that you can buy and sell for real money, of which Blizzard gets a cut. I am not encouraged by this.

That's more of an era-based problem than the game itself. The audience for Blizzard games is so massive and the internet so fluid that theorycrafting happens instantaneously and is very public. My feeling on this is that D3 will benefit from being a far more 'private' game experience than an MMO. You can experience the game with a core group of friends without the overall community ever really impacting the atmosphere/way you consume the game.

I understand your argument is one more in favor of the old no respec design but even games designed with more old-school type approaches don't try to punish players to that degree anymore.

They also used one of my favorite design principles: Always make the maximum group size smaller than the number of class archetypes. Psychological effects go a long way towards helping people enjoy a game in the longterm.

What is this even? Have You even thought how will building Your equipment and character build look like? Instead of slowly building and learning how to play with planned build, You will have to use some other not complete build to get to certain level.
How is that good design? Explain me, how forcing players to use skills they dont want, or dont synerge properly, make game better or is designed better than giving player a freedom of unlocking certain runes.

I think that system that would allow players to decide what rune to unlock for current skill is perfect.

You're never forced to use anything. Certain abilities are locked up until certain levels and each level you're introduced to a new ability. This encourages you to 'give it a whirl' and see if you like it as you level up. It also gives each skill effect its' own opportunity to be highlighted and brought to the players attention so they're aware of it when considering builds later.

And the game already did have skills locked up until level 30; no one complained that Wave of Light or Meteor couldn't be used at the same time as Dashing Strike or Arcane Orb. How is this any different? It just extends the hard progression further into the game and gives more emphasis to each individual skill.

In the previous system each specific rune effect got highlighted when you got that drop "Oooh, I just got Sidearm for my Barbarian, I'm going to try it out". If you switch to a 'free unlock' system you end up with people picking a build very early in the game based on what sounds good and never being encouraged to experiment.

Much of the same reasoning exists for the 'forced' skill layout they have as the default. They want to encourage people to have diverse builds to prepare them tactically/strategically for harder difficulties. Freedom of choice often leads to sloppy learned behaviors; structured development reinforces better decision making for average/poor players and improves their skill at the game intuitively.

Good game design involves a lot of psychology; understanding how you can manipulate human behavior the way you want it.

I wouldn't be surprised if they iterate on it a bit and the unlock orders for certain rune effects are swapped around.

 

[Rentahamster]

To reword it: No direct rewards for leveling. Randomized item based progression is not the same thing.

It was still character progression that correlated to your level progression, nonetheless. But anyway, I recognized the problem of no direct rewards, which is why I put that into my proposal so you unlock something all the way to 60.

You actually just dug yourself deeper here. Getting to level 99 in Diablo 2 was a feat of sheer persistence; the average person got nowhere near there even with excessive playtime. It was quite normal to finish Hell difficulty (The equivalent of Inferno in D3 I might add) somewhere in the 70's, possibly early 80's. Assuming you unlocked everything near the end of Nightmare that'd be somewhere around level 50-60.

I didn't dig anything. Why do you think I said Lightning Fury at level 70 and Smite at level 80? That's because that was the average start of end-game for Diablo II. Unlocking your last skill runes at level 55+ is the same thing since that will be the average start of end-game for Diablo III.

Hell mode in Diablo II is not the equivalent of Inferno mode in Diablo III. Hell mode in Diablo II is the equivalent of Hell mode in Diablo III. Inferno mode is something else entirely. Hell mode in Diablo II was not designed to have monsters all be at level 105 and kick your ass to oblivion.

You still don't have any concept of overall design. Your system doesn't encourage the player to try new strategies in any way; it encourages the player to decide ahead of time what the best 'unlock' would be and to choose that. Excessive choice is often a path to overdesign and then alienate players too early into the game experience.

If a player is truly dead-set upon a static build all the way from 1-60, then all the current system does is force him to play in a style he doesn't want to play for a long time. The current system doesn't encourage players to try new strategies, either, you know. If I get enhanced missile at level 3, and then get split missile at level 13, I don't have to change it if I don't want to. I'm not "encouraged" to do anything. I do know one thing, though. I am discouraged from choosing for myself what rune want to play around with first.

You really think players under my system are just gonna blindly build a class on the skill calculator and then just punch it in all the way until level 30? there's real trial and error involved, and if they figure out that their build sucks, they have all the freedom in the world to change it around and find something that works. If they figure out that their build works well, then good for them. At least they could figure it out during the growing phase, rather than right at end-game.

Besides, there is no "excessive choice" in my system. My system follows the same delayed skill progression as the current system. You can only unlock one rune at a time and then you have to wait 5 whole levels until you can opt to unlock another one. The key difference is that I decide what the next step will be, not Blizzard.

There's no indication that the new rune selection system in any way harmed the loot progression of Diablo 3. Tying ability gradients to random drops and/or player economy has just as much of a potential to be frustrating as it is fun and also presents several potential obstacles to someone that does want to prepare for 'endgame' viability. If you make the items so common as to not require some effort to obtain you might as well just make the system selectable (This has been mentioned many times prior to this change too)

I'm pretty sure that having an entire category of potentially sellable drops suddenly vanish has an impact on loot. I made adjustments into my system so that frustration is minimized so that it's nearly impossible to gimp yourself. As far as rarity is concerned, level 1 runes are common. Level 4 runes are not. But then again, only core gamers who like getting their ass kicked in Inferno mode will be the ones who would want to get level 4 runes, anyway. Casuals still get their casual game, and hardcores still get to experience pain. No one gets shafted at the expense of the other, which is what the current system does.

You're missing another key point here: the only good quality of the old system was when they were iterating on runes having affixes.

That wasn't the only good thing. But besides, I got rid of that aspect since it makes managing stackable runes a lot easier.

The one 'flaw' you find in the new system isn't really a flaw. It's a design decision which encourages more experimentation. Your system is overly complex in order to resemble something from before to appease people without having any positive benefits and also massively increasing design time.

Are you forgetting this game is supposed to release within five months based on their previous conference call? Right now outside of perhaps the backend of RMAH, Diablo 3 is ready to ship within two months, maybe three. Must be restated: The current system exists because they are out of time to iterate on what they actually wanted to do. At some point after spending -YEARS- muddling over something you just have to say "Ok this direction just isn't fitting with the overall direction of our game". Especially when it's the only thing holding you back.

Like I said, my system is no different from the current system as far as "encouraging experimentation" is concerned. You still unlock skill runes at a slow and steady pace. The only difference is that you get a say in which path to take first. Blizzard's way forces you into the same path as everyone else.

I'm not one of those gamers that is going to bitch at every single thing a developer does. Up until this point I was in a general agreement with everything they had done. When people complained about auto stat points, I agreed with their reasoning that justified its inclusion in Diablo III. This is the very first thing that they've done that I have a problem with.

We've waited 12 years already. I can wait another year if I have to.

 

[Rentahamster]

edit: ^^^^ Hi Renta!

I've managed to footnote Final Fantasy 14 into this thread somehow. See what I did there?

lol

 

[Rentahamster]

You're never forced to use anything.

Yes you are. You are forced into using enhanced missile at level 6. You can't try anything else. You have to use enhanced missile.

 

[Artanisix]

It's not absurd. Max level in Diablo II is 99. Max level in Diablo III is 60. By the end of Normal in Diablo II you have access to all your skills. In Diablo III, you won't have access to all your skills until you're more than halfway through Hell.

Okay... In this case, let's just remove all of the skill runes from the game, that way you have all your skills by the end of normal. That would be a more fair comparison.

Diablo 3 has way, way more skills to play around with, especially accounting in the runes. Why can't you experiment with new rune builds in the middle of Hell difficulty? What's wrong with that? What do you have to lose by experimenting at this point? I'd argue that endgame is THE time to experiment, not early game.

 

[erragal]

I'm not one of those gamers that is going to bitch at every single thing a developer does. Up until this point I was in a general agreement with everything they had done. When people complained about auto stat points, I agreed with their reasoning that justified its inclusion in Diablo III. This is the very first thing that they've done that I have a problem with.

We've waited 12 years already. I can wait another year if I have to.

I wasn't implying that you were complaining just to complain, I just don't agree with any of your concerns at all. I don't believe they accomplish the things you want them to accomplish and they add complexity to an area of the game that should be streamlined. There are more advantages to separating loot-based skill improvements and level-based skill improvements.

We're never going to agree about whether choosing your runes is any better than having them chosen for you. I understand why the player -WANTS- to choose them but there are reasons to restrict that. I want badly to choose my runes! How amazing if my monk could have teleporting Fists of Thunder from level 6 for the rest of the time I play him; I also can see how it would completely eliminate any real desire for me to test other mobility skills I could get as I level up and learn to utilize them. It's not a cut and dry issue where player choice is always better.

My personal isssue is the barbarian and many sorceress skills returning. I wanted five brand new concepts for them to work with and really shake things up. They really could have done a much better job with a melee class than the barbarian; it's my biggest disappointment with D3.

Yes you are. You are forced into using enhanced missile at level 6. You can't try anything else. You have to use enhanced missile.

Not true at all. I don't like magic missile at all so I swap it out and don't ever use it again on my Wizard; why do I care that it has a rune if I don't want to be a magic missile using Wizard? I'll use my other unruned skills that I prefer more.

 

[ZombieSupaStar]

I don't know, maybe I'm just a fanboy, maybe I'm too much of an optimist, but I think Diablo 3 is coming along nicely. I like the changes they made to the rune skills and I think they made the right choice in overhauling the system. I think it will improve gameplay and make the leveling experience more fun. I also think it will allow us to see all kinds of creative and varied builds at endgame (inferno). I'm sad that the game isn't finished yet but I'm also glad to see they aren't afraid to make some hard choices to ensure the game is as good as they want it to be. It doesn't shake my faith in Blizzard, it strengthens it. I've never bought a Blizzard game yet that I haven't enjoyed immensely. I expect no less from Diablo 3.


Maybe I'm in the minority here?

I dunno I thought war 3 and sc2 were good, but not great when I bought them, then again I'm one of those weirdos who plays only single player in rts's and no multiplayer, and also for the story (of which starcraft 2 became pants on head retarded by the end).

 

[Oblivionmancer]

The Diablo 2 beta bored the ever-loving shit out of me, then I played it for years

The D3 beta is boring for similar reasons, but far, far better designed and vastly more interesting on every single character already in terms of skills available.

It's a bit like trying to argue an mmo lacks depth or replayability after you've gone through the newbie area and then you're left to farm rotten boots of the whale with different characters up to level 13.

edit: ^^^^ Hi Renta!

Wasn't around for the D2 beta, as a middle-schooler with no home internet during that particular time, so I can't speak to that.

As for your broader point about judging only based on the beginning, it's fair enough, but 4 years after announcement that's what they have for us to discuss, so what's a bro to do? This is after all a beta discussion thread. I happily admit I'm making observations on the basis of incomplete data though.

Also, there are some core moment to moment gameplay decisions they've made that aren't going to go away magically in the later acts/difficulties. In particular, they've decided for us what skills we spam and which are apparently for oh-shit moments only (and to be fair with some varying degrees in between). That's the kind of decision that I refer to when I talk about them figuring everything out for us.

That's more of an era-based problem than the game itself. The audience for Blizzard games is so massive and the internet so fluid that theorycrafting happens instantaneously and is very public. My feeling on this is that D3 will benefit from being a far more 'private' game experience than an MMO. You can experience the game with a core group of friends without the overall community ever really impacting the atmosphere/way you consume the game.

I understand your argument is one more in favor of the old no respec design but even games designed with more old-school type approaches don't try to punish players to that degree anymore.

They also used one of my favorite design principles: Always make the maximum group size smaller than the number of class archetypes. Psychological effects go a long way towards helping people enjoy a game in the longterm.

I wouldn't go as far as to say that no-respec design is my imperative; I was glad to see them added to Diablo 2. Even with that option in place though, there is a colossal amount of granularity in defining a given character's 'build' at a given time between stats and skill points. There are decisions to make, paths to perfect optimization, or versatility, or kind of off kilter builds that allowed characters to stretch beyond the inherent limits of their class designations. Now of course it's possible that that's all still in Diablo 3 in the later hours of the game. Again though, I can't examine evidence that hasn't been provided, and the truth is at a basic system level, the level of granularity in character development between Diablo 2 and Diablo 3 is transparently, obviously much less. It isn't about absolute permanence, a misclick in using a single skill point ruining your character. It's about all the different and interesting ways in which you can get it right, with this stat spread, that split of skills between trees. Basically there's no way to fail at character development in Diablo 3, which kind of takes some of the thrill out of succeeding. Sure let me have another try at it without having to level a new character, but let me fail. Let me try something and find out it doesn't work.

And of course, yes, we can't equip all skills at once, there are still choices to be made there. But if you can't see the difference between swapping loadouts from a bag of tricks that is always complete (at level 60 anyway) and systems Diablo 2 had on offer, then you aren't trying.

That isn't to say Diablo 2's systems were perfect, or that there aren't other ways to give us those opportunities for customization. There are no apparent replacements on offer though; again, these things don't make Diablo 3 seem like a bad game, they just make it seem like a game I'll grow bored of in many, many fewer hours than Diablo 2.

My personal isssue is the barbarian and many sorceress skills returning. I wanted five brand new concepts for them to work with and really shake things up. They really could have done a much better job with a melee class than the barbarian; it's my biggest disappointment with D3.

That's interesting. Personally, I found the Barbarian surprisingly satisfying despite having the same misgivings as you going in. I think they did a great job (in a cheezy sort of way) in really selling the weight and power of the Barbarian, with all the bodies he constantly sends flying stupidly high in the air. And to be fair, they did take a second pass at a melee class with the Monk, whom I found a bit underwhelming in the early levels, at least, after being probably most excited about it in concept.

Not asking you to start doing game design for me, but I'm curious if you have any specific thoughts about what would constitute a "much better job with a melee class than the barbarian."

 

[Rentahamster]

Okay... In this case, let's just remove all of the skill runes from the game, that way you have all your skills by the end of normal. That would be a more fair comparison.

But you won't have all your skills because no one in their right mind is going to use unruned skills.

Why can't you experiment with new rune builds in the middle of Hell difficulty?

I didn't say that you "can't" do that. I said that it's impractical to be trying to figure out the core of your personal playstyle in Hell difficulty when you could have had the option to do so in Normal. People are going to be experimenting in some form or another at all levels in all difficulty, regardless of what system they end up using.

What do you have to lose by experimenting at this point?

What do you lose? This is what you lose: The freedom to try out that experiment in Normal difficulty when there's not good reason why you shouldn't be able to do so.

I'd argue that endgame is THE time to experiment, not early game.

Then if that's the case then Blizzard is changing what their previous stated goal of Inferno was supposed to be: a place where seasoned gamers go to get destroyed.

That leaves us with the dilemma: If Inferno is supposed to be the place to experiment on new builds, then casuals have to play up to Inferno to experience all the possible builds, which means that Inferno difficulty gets tuned down to accommodate the casuals, at the expense of the hardcore who want a high difficulty. Alternatively, if the difficulty is not turned down, then casuals are stuck with Inferno mode to experiment and die horribly, so that the hardcore are accommodated at the expense of the casuals.

 

[Oblivionmancer]

I didn't say that you "can't" do that. I said that it's impractical to be trying to figure out the core of your personal playstyle in Hell difficulty when you could have had the option to do so in Normal. People are going to be experimenting in some form or another at all levels in all difficulty, regardless of what system they end up using.

I'm not sure I buy that. If anything what Blizzard's new systems allow is greater opportunity to change styles on the fly, and It's not unreasonable to expect that an approach that works well on normal might be disastrous to attempt in Hell.

This actually reminds me of one of the strangest things about Diablo 2's difficulty curve. In my estimation, assuming you are starting from scratch without gear to twink your character with at the start of the game, Nightmare is pretty consistently the easiest difficulty. You spend most of normal with garbage gear and without access to the higher level skills that make up the core of many, if not most builds. By the time nightmare rolls around you've managed to cobble together some decent equipment most likely, and managed to acquire (and since patch 1.10, to synergize) your favored skills. If you're a caster you've found a way to grow and/or stabilize your mana pool, and if you're a melee character you've managed to get a hold of some mana and life leech. Nightmare is basically a breeze, and then shit gets real in hell where all your resists are gone and everything has immunities, and every third monster is a champion.

I actually really appreciate that progression, as nightmare becomes kind of a breather to let you build up skill points and start farming for some solid, mid range items before taking on hell.

Yet another reason why it's tough to judge Diablo 3 of the first hour and a half; I'm excited to see what the difficulty curve is like across that first untwinked playthrough.

 

[Rentahamster]

We're never going to agree about whether choosing your runes is any better than having them chosen for you. I understand why the player -WANTS- to choose them but there are reasons to restrict that. I want badly to choose my runes! How amazing if my monk could have teleporting Fists of Thunder from level 6 for the rest of the time I play him; I also can see how it would completely eliminate any real desire for me to test other mobility skills I could get as I level up and learn to utilize them. It's not a cut and dry issue where player choice is always better.

You still seem to think that my system discourages discourages experimentation when it does not. There is nothing to lose from trying out a new rune when you unlock it, and there is everything to gain. With those incentives, it is impossible to be discouraged from trying out something new.

If teleporting Fists of Thunder is so obviously broken that it is always the best rune to use no matter what, then that is a balance problem. In the current system, if that same relative overpoweredness is maintained, then the game is just forcing you to use shitty versions of Fists of Thunder at low levels until you unlock the uber teleporting version at level 56 or whatever. At that point, everyone is just going to use Teleporting Fists of Thunder for endgame since it's so obviously better than the rest. This is a terrible blow to build diversity.

Not true at all. I don't like magic missile at all so I swap it out and don't ever use it again on my Wizard; why do I care that it has a rune if I don't want to be a magic missile using Wizard? I'll use my other unruned skills that I prefer more.

Well of course you can use other skills. I was talking about the runes. If I want to rune magic missile, I am forced to use enhanced missile. Is it really so horrible that I read the description of piercing missile and would have rather wanted to use that one first? I think not.

You still didn't address this point earlier which makes me think that you misunderstand the position that I'm coming from about what core essences a Diablo experience should contain.

Any design which says 'the player must figure out that this is stupid' is not intelligently designed.

Um, this is Diablo, right? The whole point of the game is to experiment with a myriad of potential builds to see what kind of skill combination suits you the best.

Besides, it's not like under my system you'd be able to gimp yourself beyond reproach like you could do in Diablo II. Every boost to your character's strength is permanent and scaled to your level and gear. The only limitation is the 6-skill limit. Respecs and skill shuffling are a mere 15-second cooldown away.

 

[Rentahamster]

It's not unreasonable to expect that an approach that works well on normal might be disastrous to attempt in Hell.

Actually that was the point that I was making. I said a few posts up that casual players can muck around with non-viable builds just fine in Normal difficulty, whereas they'd be blown up in Hell difficulty. But they wouldn't have a chance to have tried it in Normal under the current system because none of the necessary skills would unlock until Hell. At which point it's too late to start casually experimenting on oddball builds. And it's not like they could just go back and do it on Normal or Nightmare since by that point they have way outleveled to content.

 

[Artadius]

I would heavily argue the 'whole point of the game' is to collect loot.

I would not be surprised if the vast majority of players over the years with Diablo 2 did not do a whole lot of skill experimentation. They either chose skills which they thought they would like or they looked up a skill guide and chose the best build at the time. The people who had multiple characters of the same class for build experimentation was a small subset of the amount of people who have ever played Diablo 2. They're probably not the target audience of the direction of Diablo 3.

I bet close to 100% of the people who enjoy Diablo enjoy killing stuff and collecting loot. That's the core demographic there.

 

[Raide]

I would heavily argue the 'whole point of the game' is to collect loot.

I would not be surprised if the vast majority of players over the years with Diablo 2 did not do a whole lot of skill experimentation. They either chose skills which they thought they would like or they looked up a skill guide and chose the best build at the time. The people who had multiple characters of the same class for build experimentation was a small subset of the amount of people who have ever played Diablo 2. They're probably not the target audience of the direction of Diablo 3.

I bet close to 100% of the people who enjoy Diablo enjoy killing stuff and collecting loot. That's the core demographic there.

It is.

All this character progression is just to give players another fancy way to make things die...so more loot comes out. Choosing which Rune to unlock at certain levels sounds like a good plan but unless they can plan it well enough that by the time I hit 60, I have them all unlocked, then it will be annoying.

People keep praising Diablo 2 but for the majority of players, some of those skills for the various classes were pretty poor compared to other classes. Just like WoW had to be tweaked to remove pointless skills and talents, so Diablo 3 had to trim off all that nonsense.

I still love Diablo 2 but I don't want Diablo 3 to just be that in 3D. They are making some radical changes to the Diablo 2 formula which is what they should be doing.

 

[erragal]

I wouldn't go as far as to say that no-respec design is my imperative; I was glad to see them added to Diablo 2. Even with that option in place though, there is a colossal amount of granularity in defining a given character's 'build' at a given time between stats and skill points. There are decisions to make, paths to perfect optimization, or versatility, or kind of off kilter builds that allowed characters to stretch beyond the inherent limits of their class designations. Now of course it's possible that that's all still in Diablo 3 in the later hours of the game. Again though, I can't examine evidence that hasn't been provided, and the truth is at a basic system level, the level of granularity in character development between Diablo 2 and Diablo 3 is transparently, obviously much less. It isn't about absolute permanence, a misclick in using a single skill point ruining your character. It's about all the different and interesting ways in which you can get it right, with this stat spread, that split of skills between trees. Basically there's no way to fail at character development in Diablo 3, which kind of takes some of the thrill out of succeeding. Sure let me have another try at it without having to level a new character, but let me fail. Let me try something and find out it doesn't work.


And of course, yes, we can't equip all skills at once, there are still choices to be made there. But if you can't see the difference between swapping loadouts from a bag of tricks that is always complete (at level 60 anyway) and systems Diablo 2 had on offer, then you aren't trying.

That isn't to say Diablo 2's systems were perfect, or that there aren't other ways to give us those opportunities for customization. There are no apparent replacements on offer though; again, these things don't make Diablo 3 seem like a bad game, they just make it seem like a game I'll grow bored of in many, many fewer hours than Diablo 2.

My impressions from a theorycrafting standpoint is that there are clearly some skills/builds that are significantly more powerful than others on the whole. Where you get your 'failure' at is attempting to take a build you enjoy from a thematic/style/functionality standpoint and finding the proper gear makeup/strategy that allows it to succeed as opposed to picking skills based on pure power. Unlike an MMO the hardest content is scalable for even solo runs so you can really test yourself based on what you enjoy as opposed to any real pressure to maximize your performance or you can work with close friends to make crazy combinations between classes. Thrill of success comes in making your decisions work and learning from decisions that fail for you.

That said I still believe there will be builds that either don't work or only work in specific situations based on the difficulty/encounter types. The only significant change is that you can't fail irrevocably; the only thing preventing you from changing your build is stubborness.

I should refine a previous point: I actually don't prefer the respec system they used. I think you should be able to change your build but I really favor semi-permanent systems that have some opportunity cost for wholesale class changes. I understand your emotional sentiment when it comes to not feeling success in the current system; my personal hope is that the difficulty level at Hell/Inferno is such that finely tuning gear/build in tandem with player skill will surpass that of D2's so much that the 'flexibility' will be a neccessity as opposed to a weakness of the system.

That's interesting. Personally, I found the Barbarian surprisingly satisfying despite having the same misgivings as you going in. I think they did a great job (in a cheezy sort of way) in really selling the weight and power of the Barbarian, with all the bodies he constantly sends flying stupidly high in the air. And to be fair, they did take a second pass at a melee class with the Monk, whom I found a bit underwhelming in the early levels, at least, after being probably most excited about it in concept.

Not asking you to start doing game design for me, but I'm curious if you have any specific thoughts about what would constitute a "much better job with a melee class than the barbarian."

No questions about the quality of animations and weight to the Barbarian. It's quite impressive. My issue with the barbarian is more one of creativity and originality than whether they succeeded with his design.

You didn't enjoy the monk?!? The speed, fluidity, and impact! So much mobility even at low levels once you get dashing strike and start to chain maneuvers together properly. I do feel that monk is only fun when using very fast weapons; dual-wielding daggers on the monk is by far the most enjoyable gameplay I've had in the beta. I found the Wizard to be the most dull.

Ideas for a more interesting melee class? Something along the lines of a Conquistador would really be interesting. Realistically familiar with a large variety of weapon types and combat styles with elements both traditional and renaissance. Likely has a bit too much overlap with the Demon Hunter for D3 though. A Mamluk like slave warrior would be really interesting; could have a lot of overlap with a Gladiator in design as well for a character that might more reasonably wear heavy armor. That's actually the one thing D3 is really lacking; not a single current character really has any thematic business for wearing heavy plated armor.

You still didn't address this point earlier which makes me think that you misunderstand the position that I'm coming from about what core essences a Diablo experience should contain.

Because I disagree that slowed down progression actually prevents you from experimenting. Psychologically a gradual and strict progression encourages people to try more new things than a 'free for all' option. If you have something 'walled off' there must be a reason and people are going to try them to find out what that 'new and exciting' option is. This is how most people work. By the time you hit level 30 you already have unlocked more viable builds on an individual character than were available in all of Diablo 2 alone; at some point slowing down the progression of possibilities is advantageous.

It's really just a difference in philosophy. You believe that Diablo should be a sandbox for you to customize your character the way you want; I understand that some rigidity in progression has certain psychological influences that are good for the game in the long run. I understand your point of view but I think it's ultimately selfish (This isn't meant to be rude, just factual) and not considering game design for the masses at all. It's unfortunate but Diablo 3 is being design to sell 10 million copies, not 1 million.

Now Grim Dawn on the other hand; that'll hopefully feed some of the more 'you f'ed up and are out of money to fix it' type elements of my personality.

 

[Gotchaye]

Having played through the new patch with both a wizard and a demon hunter, my biggest problem with the new system is that you don't unlock enough meaningful stuff early on now. I actually look forward to the unlocking process from levels 30 and on, say.

The early problem is that a skill plus a level 4 rune is almost always much better than a skill with no rune. It's really hard to justify taking Ray of Frost over Magic Missile with enhanced damage. It's really hard to justify /anything/ un-runed over Arcane Orb with 4x the base area coverage. Especially with the wizard I felt like my skill selection was basically determined by what I had a decent rune for, and I expect that to stay the same going forward - skill unlocks mean a lot less than rune unlocks, and the rune unlocks are biased towards the later parts of the game.

Edit: I think I'd prefer it if you didn't unlock runes for particular skills, but instead unlocked runes for all skills through an artisan. Have a runesmith that you upgrade like the blacksmith, and at each level you get access to the next level of all runes for all unlocked skills. Maybe also progressively unlock different types of runes, so that the player wouldn't get a huge skill dump at the first level.

 

[Oblivionmancer]

I understand your emotional sentiment when it comes to not feeling success in the current system; my personal hope is that the difficulty level at Hell/Inferno is such that finely tuning gear/build in tandem with player skill will surpass that of D2's so much that the 'flexibility' will be a neccessity as opposed to a weakness of the system.

I don't detect any intent at 'offense' here, but I think boiling my point down to a mere 'emotional sentiment' undermines it a bit. What I'm really driving at with my point about the available degree of customization is a concern about the game's longevity. Certainly there will be some tweaking of gear within a given class to best match your chosen skills, but the fact remains that to a large degree, trying something new in this game just amounts opening the skills window for a moment and then waiting for some cooldowns. So instead of coming back to the game years from now to try out a new concept or build that I always thought might be cool, I can just swap between every skill at will, without really making a plan, or any degree of commitment. To put it another way, there will never be any reason to make more than one character of each class (unless I desire to have one of each gender). That's not to say I'd never want to, as (hopefully) there will be fun to be had in the act of playing a character through from the start of normal all the way through the end of Inferno; but there isn't one choice I'll make in that time that I can't just wipe away with a few moments in a menu screen; and again, even that wouldn't matter so much if there weren't so much less granularity in the choices being made.

Maybe the simplest way of putting it is that yanking out the guts of character progression and letting Blizzard basically handle that whole process just makes the game seem smaller, when it should feel bigger.

Certainly they can do new things with itemization, but given the absence of runewords, for example, they hardly seem to be doing that. In fact I remember reading a post where Blizzard's bar was that D3 would launch with a greater variety of items than D2 vanilla. Well in case they've forgotten, they kind of raised the bar a few notches since then. The bar shouldn't be D2 12 years ago, it should be Lord of Destruction as it stands today.

Of course, another funny little wrinkle to this conversation is that in the course of those 12 years Blizzard fundamentally altered the function of the skill system of Diablo 2 in a lot of ways, so maybe I have nothing to worry about.

You didn't enjoy the monk?!? The speed, fluidity, and impact! So much mobility even at low levels once you get dashing strike and start to chain maneuvers together properly. I do feel that monk is only fun when using very fast weapons; dual-wielding daggers on the monk is by far the most enjoyable gameplay I've had in the beta. I found the Wizard to be the most dull.

In particular in comparison to the Barbarian, I just thought that the monk felt kind of weak. I felt like I was spending a long time chipping away at each individual enemy, while the Barbarian carved his way through several at once. I was surprised too, and I intend to give him another chance in the full game by all means.

Actually that was the point that I was making. I said a few posts up that casual players can muck around with non-viable builds just fine in Normal difficulty, whereas they'd be blown up in Hell difficulty. But they wouldn't have a chance to have tried it in Normal under the current system because none of the necessary skills would unlock until Hell. At which point it's too late to start casually experimenting on oddball builds. And it's not like they could just go back and do it on Normal or Nightmare since by that point they have way outleveled to content.

I don't think that point is quite the same. My suggestion was that even if all the skills are available, any amount of experimentation in Normal could plausibly be useless in telegraphing success in Hell. That's not a reason that they should hold back options until later, but it is a reason why it probably doesn't matter if they do.

 

[Rentahamster]

I would heavily argue the 'whole point of the game' is to collect loot.

Perhaps I exaggerated with that choice of words, when I should have said "a large part of the game". My feelings on the loot aspect of the game are already stated though:

Diablo is at its core a loot-whore game.

Because I disagree that slowed down progression actually prevents you from experimenting.

Even though it does prevent you from experimenting with potential builds in Normal and Nightmare because not all of the runes are unlocked yet. You are totally free to experiment, of course, but that is only after you hit level 60.

Psychologically a gradual and strict progression encourages people to try more new things than a 'free for all' option. If you have something 'walled off' there must be a reason and people are going to try them to find out what that 'new and exciting' option is. This is how most people work.

My system isn't as "free for all" as you think. In my system it's impossible to have all 110 level 1 skill runes unlocked by level 30. It's just as slow as the current system. I always have skill runes "walled off" at some point. You can only unlock the fifth skill rune of your level 29 skill at level 59.

By the time you hit level 30 you already have unlocked more viable builds on an individual character than were available in all of Diablo 2 alone; at some point slowing down the progression of possibilities is advantageous.

Like I said:

Under the current system, you finally unlock every single skill rune at level 59
Under my system, you finally unlock every single skill rune at level 59, too.

They both advance at the exact same pace. Slow, from level 1-60.

I understand your point of view but I think it's ultimately selfish (This isn't meant to be rude, just factual) and not considering game design for the masses at all. It's unfortunate but Diablo 3 is being design to sell 10 million copies, not 1 million.

Do you really think that my aim is to not sell 10 million copies as well? You think that by integrating a plan that caters to both casuals and hardcores at the same time is going to diminish sales by a factor of 10?

At the rate they are going, the design is going to lead to the accommodation of hardcores at the expense of the casuals, or the accommodation of the casuals at the expense of the hardcores, depending on what sort of steps they take now. This is in contradiction to their goals of accommodating everyone so they can sell 10 million copies.

 

[Gunmonkey36]

New nvidia drivers out with ambient occlusion tweak for Diablo 3.

>>comparison page<<

 

[Cipherr]

New nvidia drivers out with ambient occlusion tweak for Diablo 3.

>>comparison page<<

Where are the differences? The only place in the picture I see change is in the shrubbery to the right of the player.

 

[Gunmonkey36]

Where are the differences? The only place in the picture I see change is in the shrubbery to the right of the player.

You can move the slider. The changes are not massive, but they are still noticeable.

 

[Cipherr]

You can move the slider.

Whoops, Adblock Noscript and the like blocked that. I had no idea, thanks. I was comparing the top and bottom with pgup and pgdwn.


Edit: Ahhh, nice, I like.

 

[Frostburn]

Looks good except the foliage, makes it stand out in a way not intended by the artists. The rest of the shadowing looks great and adds some depth and a bit more atmosphere.

 

[Hazaro]

I think the passives are what is going to make stuff really different. Just looking at them again for Monk is a big deal.

84 minutes of monk gameplay. Level 1 to SK run, then another SK run.
As someone mentioned before attack speed just feels nice. The AOE split rune on the Monk Deadly Reach (ranged punch) feels so good. Speed bonus, active dodge boost, blind light change, etc. Feels real nice to play.

 

[Boken]

@RENTAHAMMER

You're missing a PRO of the new system -
PRO - makes leveling feel more rewarding. This is through the combination that each rune is powerful and it being tied to your level up.

What I do like about your idea is that it gives people the opportunity to specialise in specific spells which creates an environment that allows differential experience. I like a tiered rune idea, but my problem with it is that the number of level ups is almost excessive compared to their use. There are approximately 22 skills, 5 runes and X ranks of runes. At one time, a player can only use 6 skills (6 runes). This is especially true while leveling - a player is unlikely to constantly swap between 22 skills and 5 runes (110 "different" skills). I feel as if a system that constantly updates each of the 110 skills, individually and seperately provides an over abundance of information and user input that is unnecessary. Beyond the few skills a player favours for leveling up, the extra level ups to their other skills become a chore like experience. The level ups come so often that the players don't care about the other runes for other spells - in comparison to the current system where each rune unlock is extremely powerful.
short - excessive amount of leveling up (4 levels x 5 rune x 22 skills or 110 level ups per difficulty) especially at a time when they all wont be needed

I however, despise random drop skill modifiers. A few people have argued that Diablo is a loot game and thus rune drops make sense. This is however, an incomplete arguement. It assumes that runes are items or alternatively, that they function like items. They are an essential character modifier - everybody needs them, but only once. Items are constantly updated, an iterative process. If they functioned like loot they would either drop very rarely (good for gold value, but bad since everybody needs lots of them) or would drop too often and would break after a certain amount of uses (pointless). The problem with rune drops is that it is simply a binary experience - you either need them or you don't. They also provide a bunch of on screen loot clutter since past a certain point, nobody wants them since unlike loot - runes do not have to be constantly updated.
short - random drop runes are bad because they drop too little or too often and because they do not function like loot.

I propose: An experienced based rune level up system
- Summary: Skills that are in use would charge the runes of the skills when activated. After a certain amount, the runes would become charged and the player selects a rune for that skill to activate (or power up). This allows players to specialise in certain spells while combating the effects of excessive input and random drops.
- Different skills have different spammability, affecting their level up rate - thus we multiply by the cooldown (xCD/y y is the "cd modifier" and to be determined by testing)
- Players may wish to use a fresh unleveled skill in higher difficulties, to find that they need runes - thus we have an experience multiplier by the difficulty (e.g. x1, x2, x3, x4)
- It is uncertain whether there should be 3 or 4 levels of runes, since 4 means that there is less of a difference between each level (differences between levels make leveling feel good!) or whether 3 is too little for the content. My gut tells me 3 levels is the preferable since we don't want people to spend inferno unlocking.
- Hence the exp rate for runes should be - base x CD/y x difficulty multiplier. The base would be determined by testing
- Rune levels would be gated by difficulty, e.g. runes cannot level past 1 in normal, 2 in nightmare, 3 in hell. Hopefully this encourages players to choose different spells while leveling.
- the level rate (the base, exp required for each level and difficulty modifier control this) should be such that all 5 runes for a highly spammable spell are unlocked 75% into the difficulty - allowing people to experiement with other spells.

 

[mashingkeys]

I still don't understand why we've been testing 1-13 and such a small fraction of A1 for so long now..

..and they still aren't even happy with that portion. Imagine when people discover what's wrong/overpowered or whatever else from 13-60; the rest of A1 and beyond.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

I would say the biggest problem is trying to create something that is still "Diablo" and not just Diablo 2.5 and appease the maybe tens of millions of people that played D2 while still trying to attract new players.

From what I have played for many many hours so far (more than any other full game in years) I would say they have succeeded.

I don't even know how you can make that judgment with only a tiny part of the game available and a cap at level 13.

 

[Raide]

I still don't understand why we've been testing 1-13 and such a small fraction of A1 for so long now..

..and they still aren't even happy with that portion. Imagine when people discover what's wrong/overpowered or whatever else from 13-60; the rest of A1 and beyond.

It is less about the testing the content and more about testing the gameplay mechanics and deeper gameplay systems.

Level wise, I am sure they are pretty happy, hence Blizzard not expanding the Beta to further parts of the game. Once the higher difficulties kick in, all that overpowered stuff will start to level out. Since it is all about level 60 and Inferno, having overpowered skills just means people can hit the cap quickly and start dying over and over.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Great, so you can rush to cap and then get your ass kicked over and over. So it's just like WoW now, except with difficulty when you hit the endgame. Someone please tell me there is somebody, anybody at Blizzard who can still design a game which isn't just like WoW?

 

[Boken]

I don't understand?

WoW was designed just like Diablo 2.
They're basically taking their lessons learnt from WoW and applying it to D3.
So really, D3 is just like Diablo 2!

 

[Raide]

Great, so you can rush to cap and then get your ass kicked over and over. So it's just like WoW now, except with difficulty when you hit the endgame. Someone please tell me there is somebody, anybody at Blizzard who can still design a game which isn't just like WoW?

Anyone that is going to invest the time into Diablo 3 to (a) play it through on all difficulties and (b) hit the cap, I think they will know how to play without dying over and over.

Just like those WoW players that get their free Tier X gear and still have no idea how to play their class, those kinds of players won't finish Diablo 3 on Normal, let alone hit the cap and play Inferno.

Diablo fans already know what Diablo 3 will be all about. Killing monsters and collecting loot. Get more levels, get more gear, kill more stuff. Repeat until death.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

I don't understand?

WoW was designed just like Diablo 2.
They're basically taking their lessons learnt from WoW and applying it to D3.
So really, D3 is just like Diablo 2!

notsureifserious.jpg

 

[Artanisix]

Great, so you can rush to cap and then get your ass kicked over and over. So it's just like WoW now, except with difficulty when you hit the endgame. Someone please tell me there is somebody, anybody at Blizzard who can still design a game which isn't just like WoW?

...Are you serious?

 

[Boken]

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Right back atcha soldier.
You basically said, "difficult end game = WoW"

 

[maharg]

I still don't understand why we've been testing 1-13 and such a small fraction of A1 for so long now..

..and they still aren't even happy with that portion. Imagine when people discover what's wrong/overpowered or whatever else from 13-60; the rest of A1 and beyond.

I think it's a little hard to remember at this point, but original DII was pretty broken in a lot of ways. Some people knew, some people didn't until they released LoD. Now going back to classic DII is almost as bad as going back to Diablo 1.

But it was still fun. And it made LoD being that much more awesome possible.

Diablo 3 will probably be largely the same.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Right back atcha soldier.
You basically said, "difficult end game = WoW"

Not really. What I meant was, since you no longer control your character's development since all skills are awarded as you level, and since the difficulty level of Normal is intended to be equivalent to Faceroll, people will left-click their way to cap and then realize all of a sudden the game is impossible hard at the higher difficulties. This is what happens in WoW because people faceroll their way to cap and then they go off to raid and find they have no idea what the hell to do.

 

[Valnen]

Not really. What I meant was, since you no longer control your character's development since all skills are awarded as you level, and since the difficulty level of Normal is intended to be equivalent to Faceroll, people will left-click their way to cap and then realize all of a sudden the game is impossible hard at the higher difficulties. This is what happens in WoW because people faceroll their way to cap and then they go off to raid and find they have no idea what the hell to do.

That's their own fault. Not Blizzard's. If they can't figure out what to do they have no business playing.