Diablo III Wild Speculation and Rumor Mongering Abounds

[Murgos]

That's the issue I have with the demon hunter's mechanics, yes. Essentially using a rapid fire weapon causes you to actually output about a quarter the damage of someone using the slowest crossbow they can find. I don't know why they're making this same damned mistake again, and can only hope that it's just a first pass on the combat mechanics.

I'm missing something.  Since when does Diablo III use WoW DPS mechanics?

[Lantyssa]

Ever since they copied the shoulder pads in the earliest releases and decided they might as well copy other mechanics, too.

[Mosesandstick]

Don't worry. Buriza was purposely overpowered.

[Ironwood]

See, this is where my 'what' came from :  Someone in here is talking like they're playing it already.

Is there a friends and family beta I don't know about ?  Or are we just being utterly presumptious cockheads again ?

[Yegolev]

Those are not exclusive items.

[Rendakor]

Maybe he played it at Blizzcon?

[Ironwood]

If you played it that much that you're theorycrafting on numbers, dps and timings, then you should have been kicked off the damn stall.

 

[kildorn]

That's the issue I have with the demon hunter's mechanics, yes. Essentially using a rapid fire weapon causes you to actually output about a quarter the damage of someone using the slowest crossbow they can find. I don't know why they're making this same damned mistake again, and can only hope that it's just a first pass on the combat mechanics.

I'm missing something.  Since when does Diablo III use WoW DPS mechanics?

It doesn't, it's just the same logical failure WoW had: weapon DPS can be balanced between a 1.0s attack speed and a 3.0s attack speed. But unless you tweak the formula for instant attacks to take that into account, the 3.0s attack speed item will always be vastly better, because it's instant hits will do three times the damage with the same cooldown/cost.

WoW after vanilla grasped this after a while, and changed the damage formula on instant attacks to not be so .. absurdly favorable to slow weapons.

And yes, I played it at blizzcon. It didn't take more than two runs with a demon hunter to figure out the math issue with the 120% weapon damage skill mechanic. It took getting a 2h crossbow with 13 dps and a longbow with 25 dps to fiddle and grasp that the crossbow did about twice the damage.

[Sjofn]

I thought the stilettos on the Demon Hunter were a bit much.

No fucking kidding. I was hoping that in game they wouldn't be as obvious, but they are, and they look ridiculous. Clearly she taps into the DARK MAJICKS to fight in those things without snapping her ankle.

So far the games biggest gripes are stiletto heels, double crossbows and color palette? Really?  C'mon internet it's like you're not even trying.

Well, I didn't enjoy playing the demon hunter either, but that was mostly because I vastly prefer "use axe on man" type gameplay in my Diablo. It was also hurt (and this goes for the monk too) by not having the rune system available to her. The rune system is  .

[waffel]

I'd just like to reiterate that if you are a Hardcore character, and you go to PVP in the arena and die...you don't come back.

Hardcore arenas.

No one else is holyshitexcited about that?

Gamers are still excited bout masochistic shit like this? Um...



edit: and I'm still trying to understand why the fuck WoW's damage mechanics are being discussed on a thread about an RPG hack and slasher that hasn't been released yet. Is it some new form of Godwinning where, in a thread about a video game, someone will sooner or later mention WoW?

[Tannhauser]

I nominate the term 'Godwowing'.

[kildorn]

I'd just like to reiterate that if you are a Hardcore character, and you go to PVP in the arena and die...you don't come back.

Hardcore arenas.

No one else is holyshitexcited about that?

Gamers are still excited bout masochistic shit like this? Um...



edit: and I'm still trying to understand why the fuck WoW's damage mechanics are being discussed on a thread about an RPG hack and slasher that hasn't been released yet. Is it some new form of Godwinning where, in a thread about a video game, someone will sooner or later mention WoW?

What WoW damage mechanic is being discussed? One person used the WoW instant attack formula as an example of how WoW has mitigated the issue, but beyond that every post has been about Diablo 3's damage mechanics. 

[Murgos]

What WoW damage mechanic is being discussed? One person used the WoW instant attack formula as an example of how WoW has mitigated the issue, but beyond that every post has been about Diablo 3's damage mechanics. 

You're confused or I'm confused.

You found a bow and a crossbow and then realized that 1.2 * 13/s > 1.2 * 25/3s so that means slow weapons are better?

And you then did this with every weapon in the game to show that all high damage weapons are slow?

[Malakili]

What WoW damage mechanic is being discussed? One person used the WoW instant attack formula as an example of how WoW has mitigated the issue, but beyond that every post has been about Diablo 3's damage mechanics. 

You're confused or I'm confused.

You found a bow and a crossbow and then realized that 1.2 * 13/s > 1.2 * 25/3s so that means slow weapons are better?

And you then did this with every weapon in the game to show that all high damage weapons are slow?

You're confused.  Assuming he is right about weapons, the issue is as follows (with random numbers for example)

SLOW WEAPON 1 - 25 damage per shot, 1 shot per 2.5 seconds.
FAST WEAPON 1 - 10 damage per shot, 1 shot per 1 second.

These weapons have = DPS when shooting.

Abilty: Explody shot - does 150% weapon damage. 
Explody shot shoots based on the characters cast speed, not the weapons shoot speed, so regardless of weapon equip it shoots at, lets say 1 shot per one second.

SLOW WEAPON 1 EXPLODY SHOT  - 25 x 1.5 = 37.5 damage 37.5 DPS
FAST WEAPON 1 EXPLODY SHOT - 10 x 1.5  = 15 damage     15 DPS

This is assuming that its based purely off weapon damage and isn't normalized for speed, but I don't know if this is true or no.  If what he says is true, yes, slow weapons are vastly superior.

[kildorn]

From just mucking about with the demo, it appears true. A slow crossbow was one shotting random monsters, while a higher dps bow with a much higher attack speed was dealing about 1/3rd health damage with the same ability (the exploding bolo shot)

The problem is essentially that they're not normalizing for weapon speed.

edit: and while being able to make shitty characters in Diablo is part of the game, it annoys me because the iconic weapons (dual crossbows) are worthless, as are the bows. Basically, they're a waste of development time and art time as is, and I really hope they fix it after a bit more play testing.

[Lantyssa]

I'm okay with the 'iconic' weapon being shit, in this case.  Then I only have to deal with the ballerina of death walking around on her tippy toes all the time.

[Flinky]

Was the 'exploding bolo(bola?) shot' attack actually tied to bows at all, or was it like the Shuriken skill of the D2 Assassin where you ignored standard builds and used mauls because of independent cast time?

I seem to remember that slow weapons also modified the cast times of skills that directly used your attack. That sorta normalised overall DPS and made effect application a Big Thing.

[Sheepherder]

and I'm still trying to understand why the fuck WoW's damage mechanics are being discussed on a thread about an RPG hack and slasher that hasn't been released yet. Is it some new form of Godwinning where, in a thread about a video game, someone will sooner or later mention WoW?

Blizzard re-uses mechanics from previous games.  Shocking, I know.

In this case, the mechanic they've seemingly re-used is a major pain in the ass to players comparing two weapons, has been used constantly to nerf weapons that don't come from catass raiding, and has been a neverending source of fucked up balance.

[ezrast]

Actually, I hope they don't normalize it. Overdo it, and your slow weapon will actually be dealing less damage with an explodey shot than it does with a normal shot, and that kind of thing is immersion-breaking for me. Just add mechanics that favor slow weapons, and mechanics that favor fast weapons (static on-hit effects like procs). Build characters accordingly.

Also, words like "normalization" bother me because Blizz isn't good about keeping their math transparent when the operations get more complex than simple multiplication. Or implementing it in ways that make sense. I really hope (but don't expect) that Arreat Summit extends its awesomeness to D3 at some point. I start to get sweaty when I don't know whether the attack rating increase from a point in dex is proportionally greater than the damage increase from a point in str.

[Murgos]

Fine, so to use that skill optimally you want the highest damage weapon you can find.  That != slowest damage weapon.  The biggest assumption you're making there, which is what is bothering me, is that this is WoW where at every level there is a set DPS goal and they [Blizzard] just create variety by adjusting the factors to that goal.

This is not how really Diablo has ever played.  Did you find a slow 2h crosbow with high damage?  Sure, but that doesn't mean there aren't faster weapons with even higher damage.  Or even that the slow 2h crossbow is optimal for all skills.  What about things like multi-shot where fast re-fire rate is optimal?

[Malakili]

Fine, so to use that skill optimally you want the highest damage weapon you can find.  That != slowest damage weapon.  The biggest assumption you're making there, which is what is bothering me, is that this is WoW where at every level there is a set DPS goal and they [Blizzard] just create variety by adjusting the factors to that goal.

This is not how really Diablo has ever played.  Did you find a slow 2h crosbow with high damage?  Sure, but that doesn't mean there aren't faster weapons with even higher damage.  Or even that the slow 2h crossbow is optimal for all skills.  What about things like multi-shot where fast re-fire rate is optimal?

Yes, obviously you can find a higher damage faster weapon, but thats not really the point.  Thats going to be a higher level item, or a higher quality item.  The assumption is clearly comparing items that are supposedly otherwise equal (which is why in my example, I used two weapons that were of equal DPS).   Clearly a level 10 faster weapon is probably better than a level 1 slow weapon, but to make the argument that because of that reality it bridges the gap between slow and fast weapons is kind of an silly one.

[kildorn]

Fine, so to use that skill optimally you want the highest damage weapon you can find.  That != slowest damage weapon.  The biggest assumption you're making there, which is what is bothering me, is that this is WoW where at every level there is a set DPS goal and they [Blizzard] just create variety by adjusting the factors to that goal.

This is not how really Diablo has ever played.  Did you find a slow 2h crosbow with high damage?  Sure, but that doesn't mean there aren't faster weapons with even higher damage.  Or even that the slow 2h crossbow is optimal for all skills.  What about things like multi-shot where fast re-fire rate is optimal?

Given equivalent level gear, the slower weapon will always have a higher damage range. It's just how math works.

As for things with higher refire rate: if they add on next attack/attack replacement skills, that would rock and create interesting variation in the class. I didn't see any (the full skill list was readable in the demo), and multishot suffers from the same issue: it's a fan attack skill that is on click, so if you fan attack with a 5 damage weapon and a 15 damage weapon, the 15 damage weapon will always have higher dps, dpm, and pretty much lack any drawbacks.

All this math aside (what, I really like mechanics math :( ): the game is absurdly fun. I'd probably not even have noticed the mechanics issue with demon hunters if they had runes available (no runes for monks or demon hunters in this build). There's a freaking rune that causes Cleave to beat money out of people. If there's a pimp armor suit, I know my pvp character immediately.

[Shrike]

I'm not buying any of this shit about slow/fast weapons. People made that assumption about D2 and it was proved decisively wrong with AK404s work and the existance of speedazons (and to a lesser degree, magezons). Even back in...ummm...1.4, I think, when the cookie-cutter korean/multishot 'zon supposedly ruled the roost, AB members develeped the speedazon concept around double bows (ideally) and runebows (what us less lucky people worked with) and strafe/immolate. IAS was where it was at.

Anecdotally, I recall playing with the multishot crowd and decisively outkilling them with my half-assed amazon build (had a lot of melee), but with good IAS gear. 9/2 shot/strafe speeds allowed me easily to keep up or surpass the big-bow 'zons. When it came to physical immunes, there was no contest. Stacking immolate was hugely lethal and VERY effective--until it got nerfed around 1.7. Even after 1.8, speed still ruled the roost, but it was easier to achieve with even bigger bows and FA was the spam of choice--7/2 was possible and 8/2 was relatively easy. My 8/2 amazon used a ton of IAS jewels and a socketed Godstrike Arch and flat out smoked burizons in damage output.

This may or may not have anything to do with D3, but I'm not making any assumptions about what might be good on what very little we know now. The fact I'm mentioning v1.4, v1.6, v1.7 and onto the major revamps of 1.9 and 1.10 just shows how much Blizz will change a game in response to what the players are up to.

[ezrast]

As for things with higher refire rate: if they add on next attack/attack replacement skills, that would rock and create interesting variation in the class. I didn't see any (the full skill list was readable in the demo), and multishot suffers from the same issue: it's a fan attack skill that is on click, so if you fan attack with a 5 damage weapon and a 15 damage weapon, the 15 damage weapon will always have higher dps, dpm, and pretty much lack any drawbacks.

I find that very odd and a little disappointing.

[Sheepherder]

Actually, I hope they don't normalize it. Overdo it, and your slow weapon will actually be dealing less damage with an explodey shot than it does with a normal shot, and that kind of thing is immersion-breaking for me. Just add mechanics that favor slow weapons, and mechanics that favor fast weapons (static on-hit effects like procs). Build characters accordingly.

Nothing says they can't use the slowest base weapon speed in the game as their speed factor for calculating instant attacks (which would make daggers hit like a motherfucker, but that's a little more palatable).  Or they could not use instant attacks at all (this was the case in D2) and just normalize cooldowns and proc effects that scale abnormally with speed.

Speedazons

Going from foggy memory here, but Flinky has it right and D2 always factored weapon speed into cast rate.  This sidesteps the issue entirely until you start getting into cooldown limited abilities, mana cost (which was usually not an issue due to mana leech interacting with attack speed), and secondary effects.  This might be a bigger problem in D3.

[Malakili]

Torchlight gets around this by having its skills to damage based on weapon DPS instead of weapon damage.  This seems like a decent solution.

No fancy formula needed. DPS * skill damage modifier = skill damage. Easy peasy.

[murdoc]

Wow, you guys take this SERIOUS. I just want to click my mouse like a madman and see hordes of beasties die around me. The math behind it doesn't matter.

[Malakili]

Wow, you guys take this SERIOUS. I just want to click my mouse like a madman and see hordes of beasties die around me. The math behind it doesn't matter.

I actually wish I could play games like this again, but I am totally unable to turn my brain off from analyzing game mechanics. 

[murdoc]

My dirty little secret is that I've equiped stuff because it LOOKS COOL, not because of stats.

Don't tell anyone.

[Shrike]

Wow, you guys take this SERIOUS. I just want to click my mouse like a madman and see hordes of beasties die around me. The math behind it doesn't matter.

It'll still have that in spades. It's what makes Diablo games fun.

However, if you are a more serious player (i.e. you like soloing in 8-player hell games or some such) then this stuff will matter. Another really fun aspect of the games were getting accused of cheating because your characters were so very capable. That requires knowing how things work and exploiting that knowledge in setting up your characters.

[waffel]

Wow, you guys take this SERIOUS. I just want to click my mouse like a madman and see hordes of beasties die around me. The math behind it doesn't matter.

It'll still have that in spades. It's what makes Diablo games fun.

However, if you are a more serious player (i.e. you like soloing in 8-player hell games or some such) then this stuff will matter. Another really fun aspect of the games were getting accused of cheating because your characters were so very capable. That requires knowing how things work and exploiting that knowledge in setting up your characters.

Thats why you just let some other *ahem* statnerd figure it out for you. After he posts his 4 paragraph breakdown of Crossbow A vs Crossbow B showing B doing, on average, 4.27% more damage, you save yourself the time and hassle and just equip Crossbow B and move on.

[Soulflame]

Isn't that what Amazon Basin/Elitist Jerks is for?  Someone does the heavy lifting of what works better or best, then you copy it.

[Lantyssa]

My dirty little secret is that I've equiped stuff because it LOOKS COOL, not because of stats.

I'm sorry.  You're not allowed to play Blizzard games then.  Please turn in your gamer badge at the front desk as security escorts you out.

[kildorn]

Wow, you guys take this SERIOUS. I just want to click my mouse like a madman and see hordes of beasties die around me. The math behind it doesn't matter.

It'll still have that in spades. It's what makes Diablo games fun.

However, if you are a more serious player (i.e. you like soloing in 8-player hell games or some such) then this stuff will matter. Another really fun aspect of the games were getting accused of cheating because your characters were so very capable. That requires knowing how things work and exploiting that knowledge in setting up your characters.

Thats why you just let some other *ahem* statnerd figure it out for you. After he posts his 4 paragraph breakdown of Crossbow A vs Crossbow B showing B doing, on average, 0.0027% more damage, you save yourself the time and hassle and just equip Crossbow B and move on.

Fixed for how absurd some stat math arguments are. As much as I love them, it IS a silly way to play a game.

[Sjofn]

Wow, you guys take this SERIOUS. I just want to click my mouse like a madman and see hordes of beasties die around me. The math behind it doesn't matter.

That's pretty much how I play!