Diablo III Wild Speculation and Rumor Mongering Abounds

[Quinton]

Per-player loot is a brilliant idea that removes a ton of the agony of playing with god knows who on battle.net.  I got really tired of Baal runs where you couldn't loot anything because your hard disk loaded slower than everybody else's, to the point that it made you want to stop playing. I really like the stress-free drop in and drop out multi-player philosophy.

Per-player loot will have been the best addition to the genre from D3. Torchlight 2 take note.

Total agreement.  Brilliantly simple. 

[apocrypha]

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/3811455085?page=1

I feel like a lot of the sentiment for people I've talked too boils down to this attitude.  I don't think the beta was really representative of how character building will actually be.  Mostly because a lot of customizing has been shifted to gems, among other things, and there weren't any gems in the open beta, at least.  A lot of D2 players, myself included, are skeptics when it comes to tinkering with systems that we understand, and are comfortable with.  After I read that article, my fears were almost all alleviated.

Warning - The very verbose article I just link leads to a post on the D3 forums.  It is a well written, and thoughtful post.  However if you did not play D2, you should just skip to the conclusion.

That was a really good (if somewhat long) read.

I particularly like his view on game "difficulty" and how what a lot of the hardcore ask for is actually just artificial difficulty that enables them to put a barrier between themselves and the "casuals", by which they mean people who aren't prepared to spend hours reading other websites and messing around with spreadsheets.

In fact, those posts have made me much more excited about D3 now.

[amiable]

Am I the only one who really likes the new customization system?

Aproximately 20 skills per character with 6 different runes means really 120 skills (of which you choose 6) and 3 out of about a dozen passives. Gives you a lot of customization.  You can build very different characters based on the same class.  For example I have ideas for a tank monk, helaing monk, and several different dps monks. 

On of my favorite parts of D2 was monkeying around with weird builds to see what would work.  It was a pain to do though because once you hit about level 50, if you weren't completely optimized you hit an enourmous brick wall.

I  do not really mind customization being entirely gear dependent (although I am a bit annoyed that really the only decision you make about whether to use a weapon for every character is one number - DPS)  One thing I would like is forcing characters to at least go back to town/pay a bit of cash to respecc.  Repeccing in a dungeon right before a boss fight seems cheezy, (although knowing the player base folks would do it anyway, so why not cut out the middleman).

Also the beta was insanely easy: I completed it with every class and never died, I only think I used a potion once.  But they really got the Diablo feel perfect.  Combat was very fluid and very visceral. 

[luckton]

Am I the only one who really likes the new customization system?

No, I too prefer this new system to the D2 ways.  Maybe I'm just not 'hardcore' enough, or whatever, but the early 'stream-line' system and then expanding to a full set of talents, passives, runes, and so on seems to fall in line with Bliz's mantra of 'easy to pick-up and learn/play, a bitch to master and do all.'  New players will find it better, esp. since you can swap stuff around, instead of "OMG, YOU SPENT THE WRONG POINT!  GO BACK TO START!"

[Falconeer]

Not sure if this video has been posted before considering it's 8 months old, but I think it does a very good job at explaining lots of the new stuff and the reasoning behind it. It's Jay Wilson speaking (on why skill points were removed), oy.

[Murgos]

Am I the only one who really likes the new customization system?

No, I too prefer this new system to the D2 ways.  Maybe I'm just not 'hardcore' enough, or whatever, but the early 'stream-line' system and then expanding to a full set of talents, passives, runes, and so on seems to fall in line with Bliz's mantra of 'easy to pick-up and learn/play, a bitch to master and do all.'  New players will find it better, esp. since you can swap stuff around, instead of "OMG, YOU SPENT THE WRONG POINT!  GO BACK TO START!"

Sometimes people have to be dragged kicking and screaming to something new that is better.  Humans, as a whole, are very, very conservative.

[amiable]

Not sure if this video has been posted before considering it's 8 months old, but I think it does a very good job at explaining lots of the new stuff and the reasoning behind it. It's Jay Wilson speaking (on why skill points were removed), oy.

I think he has one on stat point allocation too.  He makes some very, very good points.  It is really refreshing to see a game designer who really understands the system he is developing and the players and is willing to engage and articulate why he made a design decision. 

[Xanthippe]

Not to mention the skill rune system was stupidly designed to begin with.  It hadn't even occurred to me until after their, "we'd have 600+ additional drops to manage!" explanation that there would be a rune per skill. 

Wait.. what? Why?!  That's asinine.  No no.. 6 runes. White, Red, Blue, etc.  Simple, elegant, logical.

No, instead they were going at it as:  White: Spider Jar; White: Magic Missile; White; Whirlwind.

Fucking bonkers, man.

Glad to see I wasn't the only one disappointed with the rune changes.  Still like the game but yeah, I can see how those who were hyped about D1 & D2 and enjoyed micro-managing builds have little to no interest here. 

I was/am upset about that very same change too, but I'm going to hold off on judgment till I play through the game.

I am confused. I haven't followed the development of the game much at all.

Are runes drops or are they rewards when you ding?

[Merusk]

Rewards when you ding.  You get your first at level 6 and it affects the very first starter skill you had.  The rest come at intervals as you level-up.

 One of the rationals being "well under the old system you were done with skills at level 31 and never got rewarded for leveling from there to 50."

[schild]

If the hunter only had two abilities - vault and shoot stuff, I'd be happy. Y'all trying too hard to find problems.

[Sky]

Y'all trying too hard to find problems.

[Paelos]

He's not wrong.

[Register]

I was not exactly overjoyed with the changes from D2 to D3's no stats and no skill points, but the beta proved to be an eye opener. Since I am able to, I actually swap and tried most of the skills available, without having to commit and dump to 1-2 skills given the issues of releveling / finite respecs in D2. Even with the few runes available at start, it is quite clear that runes alter the skills significantly, hence multiplying the variety of the skills further more - like amiable mentioned, the number of skills multiplied by the variety of runes literally give D3 far more room for customization than D2 ever had.

Am not sure if the intent of gating the runes by levels is to encourage/force players to try out many more runes than they would otherwise have bothered with - it certainly made me try out runes other than the "optimum" effect that I would instinctively choose based on the descriptions on the Skill builder/calculator....

[amiable]

It also really lets you customize your character for specific goals...  For example the wife and I are probably going to level characters together, she will go DPS mage so I plan on a spec like this:

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/barbarian#bcXVgk!Veb!YaYcYb

Basically all tank/cc.  There are hundreds of other permutations that would work as well and if I wanted to go solo all I would have to do is swap out a few runes.   I can't believe people are so negative about this, I think it really is pretty brilliant.

[Sky]

He's not wrong.

He's so not wrong it's in the realm of 'Forecast for tonight: dark'.

[Lantyssa]

I think what annoys people is that you have to level to get the runes.  Were they drops then there would be a game in making due with what you have and another in acquiring the ones you want.  Now the solution to get the rune you want is to... level.  Loot is the draw of Diablo, not leveling.  Especially since they nixed skill points.

[schild]

Loot didn't go anywhere, and from a design perspective I'd rather know how and when people could use them for the sake of balance.

[Xuri]

It might just be nostalgia playing a trick on my mind, but it seems to me like the sound-effects when loot drops seem more generic and less... I don't know... exciting? than in the previous games?

[Nija]

There are only a couple real warning signs to me. At this point I think the game is going to be good - maybe even meet expectations, but there are still some warning signs.

1) The amount of changes in the beta in the past 2 months.
2) Things like PVP and the multiple crafting stations getting completely shelved. I actually looked for a list of things that have been removed from the Diablo 3 lauch. I imagine someone is keeping tabs.

If you guys are just now joining for the open beta, you missed some shit. Like the Demon Hunter class which unfortunately schild likes. That class was total ass for nearly the whole beta. It had a bunch of dumb skills that nobody used. A few weeks ago they "rebalanced" the Demon Hunter and a few other classes. What this means is that they took all of those worthless skills and moved them to after level 13. They then moved some of the later, better skills lower in the tree. That's why you like the DH now. One of the Witch Doctor auto-attacks, a few weeks ago, was a right click skill that cost mana. That nobody actually used, because it was shit.

Things like this set off huge warning sirens in my head. If they're admitting that the part of the game that hundreds of thousands of people are playing isn't correct and they are changing things to compensate, I don't have much confidence that they have the rest of the game correct.

I predict huge sweeping balance patches, skill re-arrangements and nerfs for the first few months.

It'll be like Diablo 2!

[Merusk]

Same drop noise as I remember but I barely played D2.  No rings or Amulets drop in the beta and no gems so you're not hearing the 'sweet' drop sounds.  No *ping* just the 'shuffle thump' of armor.

My biggest problem with the rune system is Lant's.   Not being a drop means less lewtz to hunt for, which seems to be the point of the game, not leveling.  This system encourages leveling over crushing every barrel and crate.

This is made even more noticeable by the greater portion of your Xp coming from quests, not monster kills.  Kills = loot, but instead people run past tons of monsters to finish the quest.  You see it all the time in the beta, just swaths of untouched dungeon.  "Find the stairs, go down, kill the objective, repeat."

[Lakov_Sanite]

I loved in one of the above videos when they showed how "hard" normal mode act1 diablo2 was.  "Oh look, he actually hit her, nevermind he missed"

[Fabricated]

There are only a couple real warning signs to me. At this point I think the game is going to be good - maybe even meet expectations, but there are still some warning signs.

1) The amount of changes in the beta in the past 2 months.
2) Things like PVP and the multiple crafting stations getting completely shelved. I actually looked for a list of things that have been removed from the Diablo 3 lauch. I imagine someone is keeping tabs.

If you guys are just now joining for the open beta, you missed some shit. Like the Demon Hunter class which unfortunately schild likes. That class was total ass for nearly the whole beta. It had a bunch of dumb skills that nobody used. A few weeks ago they "rebalanced" the Demon Hunter and a few other classes. What this means is that they took all of those worthless skills and moved them to after level 13. They then moved some of the later, better skills lower in the tree. That's why you like the DH now. One of the Witch Doctor auto-attacks, a few weeks ago, was a right click skill that cost mana. That nobody actually used, because it was shit.

Things like this set off huge warning sirens in my head. If they're admitting that the part of the game that hundreds of thousands of people are playing isn't correct and they are changing things to compensate, I don't have much confidence that they have the rest of the game correct.

I predict huge sweeping balance patches, skill re-arrangements and nerfs for the first few months.

It'll be like Diablo 2!

The only class that felt "Right" to me is the barbarian and that's because I imagine they designed them first.

[Sjofn]

I think what annoys people is that you have to level to get the runes.  Were they drops then there would be a game in making due with what you have and another in acquiring the ones you want.  Now the solution to get the rune you want is to... level.  Loot is the draw of Diablo, not leveling.  Especially since they nixed skill points.

Ayep.

[Lantyssa]

Loot didn't go anywhere, and from a design perspective I'd rather know how and when people could use them for the sake of balance.

From a design perspective it makes sense.  I'm not sure that mixes well with player psychology and what they will consider a "good game".

We are conditioned by 1 and 2, with dropping runes being a carrot that would tie back to both the other games.

[Ghambit]

I've looked at it as an inverted system.  Rather than use skills to balance stats they've just put it on loot.
In beta I went pretty heavy on +block on my wizard to deal with close-in dmg., so I needed to find the loot and/or craft it to make that happen.  When I was loot-hunting I went "+magic item luck."  Etc.  If I wanted to carry all this loot I'd need to boost my stash, requiring a lotta coin (10k?)... which in itself I believe is a loot-stat (+2 gold/kill or something).  So, throw on the +gold gear.

Above all this a few times I had to swap runes/skillslots dependent on situation, which I liked... one of which saved the party from a TPK.  It allowed me more flexibility given the game is a 2-button ARPG.  Had it been a traditional system I would've had to bind more keys, set a macro, and/or respec.

I think the system works.  People will just have to get used to finding utility in the different loot they find...  and that likely won't happen on 'normal' difficulty.

[MrHat]

I've looked at it as an inverted system.  Rather than use skills to balance stats they've just put it on loot.
In beta I went pretty heavy on +block on my wizard to deal with close-in dmg., so I needed to find the loot and/or craft it to make that happen.  When I was loot-hunting I went "+magic item luck."  Etc.  If I wanted to carry all this loot I'd need to boost my stash, requiring a lotta coin (10k?)... which in itself I believe is a loot-stat (+2 gold/kill or something).  So, throw on the +gold gear.

Above all this a few times I had to swap runes/skillslots dependent on situation, which I liked... one of which saved the party from a TPK.  It allowed me more flexibility given the game is a 2-button ARPG.  Had it been a traditional system I would've had to bind more keys, set a macro, and/or respec.

I think the system works.  People will just have to get used to finding utility in the different loot they find...  and that likely won't happen on 'normal' difficulty.

Its fine for just this reason.

My biggest gripe is that you continue unlocking skills all the way to L58.  They should've compressed it a bit more to make it so that at L50 you get your last unlock and 50-60 is just the loot grind in Hell-Inferno.

[amiable]

There is still some weirdness in the system..  For example elemental damage is added to total dps so that it will increase the damage for skill activation.  The odd thing is that the elemental effect does not seem to be carried over for the special attack.  Eg.  If you have a dagger that adds +2 poison damage and you use the skill "Bash" the damage will be converted to physical.

Which begs the question:  why put in elemental damage at all?   You will pretty much never be auto-attacking on any class (Monks, Barbs and Sorcs have basic skills that generate resources, eveyone else will have at least one low usage default attack-primary skill that can be spammed forever).

[kildorn]

elemental damage makes the weapon glowy. It's pretty.

(seriously, there's no other reason for weapons to exist beyond being pretty)

[Phred]

Spend some time with the skill calculator, the runes change up your abilities quite a lot.  As to making them drops, that was a bad idea from the start, even if you don't like the current system, having your powers be directly related to anything RNG is a mistake of EQ2 magnitude.

They could have kept the current system and added more depth but honestly I really don't see a downside to things as they are.

To add to that for people complaining about how much the new system limits choices I ran across this article.  http://www.diablofans.com/blizz-tracker/topic/221423-diablo-iii-the-customizability-story/#post405

[Malakili]

Spend some time with the skill calculator, the runes change up your abilities quite a lot.  As to making them drops, that was a bad idea from the start, even if you don't like the current system, having your powers be directly related to anything RNG is a mistake of EQ2 magnitude.

They could have kept the current system and added more depth but honestly I really don't see a downside to things as they are.

To add to that for people complaining about how much the new system limits choices I ran across this article.  http://www.diablofans.com/blizz-tracker/topic/221423-diablo-iii-the-customizability-story/#post405

Thanks for the link.  I wonder how much of this customization is tied up in the idea that people want to be able to do things other people can't do.  Now anyone can respec to anything, which in some sense takes away the ability to  "customize" - but when looked at from another perspective it allows people to freely experiment to a much greater degree.  It may be that some people are talking past each other in this case.

Either way, my friend and I decided to do a playthrough of Diablo 2 before Diablo 3 comes out and we started playing last night.  After playing Diablo 3 it immediately felt a little awkward to have to save skill points and keep a pool of stat points open in case I needed to pump strength for a new item, etc.  I don't mind it (probably because I got used to it for years), but you can sort of see why they didn't want to implement such a skill system this time around, it leads to some really unintuitive things being optimal.

[Xanthippe]

I think what annoys people is that you have to level to get the runes.  Were they drops then there would be a game in making due with what you have and another in acquiring the ones you want.  Now the solution to get the rune you want is to... level.  Loot is the draw of Diablo, not leveling.  Especially since they nixed skill points.

I have never cared about leveling as a mechanic. Nothing worse than playing a game that isn't fun at the moment because I have to level so that I can have fun once I'm level <whatever>.

Loot though? Loot has always been the draw for Diablo for me. I love Diablo loot.

[Merusk]

<SNIP>

The only class that felt "Right" to me is the barbarian and that's because I imagine they designed them first.

Sorcerer has always felt good to me, but I agree that they're hiding the shitty skills later for the classes that felt weak.  Except on Scorc they moved some good skills later in the tree, bringing some of the weaker ones to the fore.

Disintegrate was the bomb and used to be where frost ray is.   IIRC Frost Nova and the Wave of Force were swapped at that point, too, while electrocute - which did suck - was moved beyond the beta.

[Sky]

I dunno, on reflection I think the streamlining worked pretty well but is hobbled by the clunky UI.

On my monk, I had two basic modes: avoidance and close. In avoidance 'mode', I'd use the runed kick that knocked everyone away from me and then used the medium ranged attack; repeating as necessary to keep distance from mobs that exploded or whatever. Then I'd use close 'mode', the lightning attack that was runed to blink me to the target along. For either I'd also be using that zippy ability to close or widen distance as needed.

It felt like a fairly different way of playing, even at level 9 with only a couple things unlocked. If they had made it so I could have set up both ability sets as presets so I could switch on the fly it would've been a really flexible and fun class. Stopping to manually switch everything was total shit, though.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Actually since switching has an internal cooldown on the new skills 'locking in' I would also like to see some sort of presets/dual spec ability pretty much the same as town portal. Maybe a 3-4 second channel.

[Draegan]

I really like the stat change.  What I really dislike is the illusion of choice taken away with the lack of "talent trees".  Character progression seems too linear to me.  Thou I suppose with gear/stat boosts you can spec your character in different ways.

I always liked creating builds and deciding what points go where and how can I spread things across different trees to make new builds.  That's kind of taken away now and all you do is get levels and play around with skill/rune/passive combos.

It's not terrible, it just seems dumbed down a bit.