Diablo III Wild Speculation and Rumor Mongering Abounds

[K9]

Respecs are necessary; I'm down with the Ding grats, but the original Diablo system was unforgiving in an unfun way.

[Malakili]

Respecs are necessary; I'm down with the Ding grats, but the original Diablo system was unforgiving in an unfun way.

Respecs are necessary given the way that they are likely to be building the game.  In the original if you were that unsatisfied you really good build a brand new character from scratch in a day.  Then again, I have a feeling that Diablo 3 is going to be a lot different than D2.   Its kind of like, Starcraft really.  Starcraft became popular for reasons totally unintended by blizzard, and I think D2 did as well.   It wasn't the games themselves, but the meta games that were (surprisingly, even to Blizzard would be my guess) deep and robust.   If D3 can't duplicate the Diablo 2 meta game, its going to have a harder time I think.  I mean sure, it'll still be a fun game to play, but I'm talking about being a game I want to play for several years, you know, and being simply fun isn't enough to keep interested over the long term.

To be fair though, Starcraft 2 does seem to be developing a pretty solid meta game, though whether it can maintain itself over the long term like SC remains to be seen.  The pro gaming scene in SC2 seems pretty vibrant already, so they might have struck gold there.  Though I think SC2 is less popular in Korea because of SC1s popularity, ironically. 

[Ironwood]

What ?

[stu]

Blizzard games have unintentional longevity. (?)

[Malakili]

Blizzard games have unintentional longevity. (?)

My point is that its their meta games that kept them going for so many years.  In the case of Starcraft, and probably Diablo 2, I think the meta games were less designed and more emergent.  To replicate that success they are going to need to design them intentionally this time around, I think they did a decent job of it with Starcraft 2, we'll see how well they do with D3.

[Yegolev]

Ha!

[Ratman_tf]

I agree. SC2 was built from the ground up to have great single player and great multiplayer, looking at why SC was so sucessful.

You know what I'd like to see in TL2, and D3 and games of that category? More stuff similar to Descent: Journeys in the Dark. And Desktop Dungeons for that matter. More time management, more traps and dungeon features that actually matter to gameplay. More of a "Living Dungeon" feel to it.

[birdsguts]

More of a "Living Dungeon" feel to it.

YES.
I would love to see the maps be more than just the "backdrop".

[Malakili]

Well Torchlight did have a fair amount of things that you interacted with.  Secret rooms, bridges that required you to hit a lever, traps (though of the oh, this thing was trapped, I better run while it explodes, variety) etc.  Granted, it didn't play a huge role in the game but there was some of it. 

D3 is supposed to have some destructible parts, but I've always gotten the feeling they are part of set pieces, or aren't a big deal. 

Oh lastly, what do you mean specifically about "time management"

[lamaros]

Am I the only person who hates crafting, gems and sockets and runes crap? I'm sick of adding boring farming not my games. Give me the loot straight up as I kill shit and I am a happy man. 'quests' should be for story reward only in a game like diablo. I'm sick of 'gameplay' devolving into over complicated grindy mmo shit.

[Ratman_tf]

Oh lastly, what do you mean specifically about "time management"

I don't know if you've played Descent, but one player is the Overlord who 'runs' the dungeon. If the adventurers dink around, it give the OL time to amass cards and points to play against them. Another example is the board game version of Space Hulk, where the Genestealer player gets more forces, and the Marines are usually under a tight time constraint to finish their mission before they get overwhelmed.

[Malakili]

Oh lastly, what do you mean specifically about "time management"

I don't know if you've played Descent, but one player is the Overlord who 'runs' the dungeon. If the adventurers dink around, it give the OL time to amass cards and points to play against them. Another example is the board game version of Space Hulk, where the Genestealer player gets more forces, and the Marines are usually under a tight time constraint to finish their mission before they get overwhelmed.

Ok.  I thought you would mean something along these lines (I was thinking of Gauntlet's pure time limit).  I wouldn't mind having some specific dungeons with a time element (possibly optional stuff that gives a nice reward), but I don't think as a standard mechanic I would like it too much.

[K9]

Am I the only person who hates crafting, gems and sockets and runes crap? I'm sick of adding boring farming not my games. Give me the loot straight up as I kill shit and I am a happy man. 'quests' should be for story reward only in a game like diablo. I'm sick of 'gameplay' devolving into over complicated grindy mmo shit.

I see your point, but I like the added depth. Certainly in the single player game too much metagaming and customisation can be a serious detractor from the plot; however for a game which is fundamentally an RPG, I think the more avenues of character diversification you can have the better. I don't think any of those elements necessarily translate into farming, any more than you have to farm xp to max out all the skills in the tree that you want. I'm particularly excited about the skill runes, since they sound like a lot of fun, and potentially quite gamestyle-changing.

I think the other caveat is that Diablo III will be accessible (all Blizzard games are) and there won't be an obligation to farm to see the game. Obviously the counter-caveat to that is, as in any game where RNG is an element in gameplay, maxing out will require farming; but whether or not you need to max out isn't necessarily a reflection on the quality of the game I think.

[Ratman_tf]

Ok.  I thought you would mean something along these lines (I was thinking of Gauntlet's pure time limit).  I wouldn't mind having some specific dungeons with a time element (possibly optional stuff that gives a nice reward), but I don't think as a standard mechanic I would like it too much.

Certainly. It would have to be a fun addition to the gameplay, and not just adding a ticking clock to existing quests. 

[birdsguts]

IGN interview with information (albeit vague) about many topics including "flow" and pacing and some bits about the organization.
Really they run the gamut.
Sounds very very much like D2 so far....

http://pc.ign.com/articles/111/1117225p1.html

Honestly it's similar size to Diablo II. There are some differences here and there, exterior environments are a little more diverse, dungeons are about the same. Even the way the Acts increase in length and then scale down. We intentionally did that again because we thought, some of that was done to ship Diablo II, but we thought it had a good feel to it to reduce the length of later acts so that you feel like you're accelerating towards the finale.

Some bits about questing later....
Skill system looks slated for reveal at Blizzcon in Oct. Bits about that in there...
Nothing shocking really.

Big general overview of the game plans.
About what you'd expect.
Sticking to the formula with small tweaks here and there.
Safemode.

A great example is, the barbarian has some good skills for essentially allowing him to run into enemies and get the attention of a lot of enemies, which is great when coupled with a ranged class who probably doesn't want to get hit a lot. Whereas a lot of the ranged classes have a lot of great control skills that reduce damage or control enemies such that they're not attacking as often, and that's a great combo with the melee class. We try to design within every class ways that they complement each other, such that when you play with other characters your class feels a lot more diverse.

With shades of WoW?
Alright...

[Ironwood]

Ah well.

 

[Tebonas]

Each character better be overpowering masses of enemies on his own, regardless of class. The synergies with other classes should be a nice bonus, nothing more.

I'm getting a "Group of 5 Looking For Enchanter" flashback, not a good feeling.

[K9]

With shades of WoW?
Alright...

Don't be silly.

[Ratman_tf]

With shades of WoW?
Alright...

Don't be silly.

From just before the quoted bit.

You'll find that we dynamically tune the game so that it get a little harder when you have more people in, so you really need to stick together and use your skills together

[Mosesandstick]

I think we'll have to see how the game turns out before we make any judgement. Even in D2 whilst every class could solo, some builds sucked balls, usually paladins. Necros were also often a lot more effective partied than solo.

[Teleku]

Yeah, I don't know why you guys are panicking.  D2 had several class's that were specifically designed to be group based.

[K9]

With shades of WoW?
Alright...

Don't be silly.

From just before the quoted bit.

You'll find that we dynamically tune the game so that it get a little harder when you have more people in, so you really need to stick together and use your skills together

So they're building a true co-operative mode, rather than just a massively-parallel singleplayer game, and you're upset? Designing in synergy between classes in co-op is a good thing. In a game balanced for groups there should be benefits to grouping; unlike MMOs where a lot of content doesn't scale down to the single player, in Diablo all the content scales up from the single player. Thus this is all fine and good.

[Lakov_Sanite]

You mean you might need to use tactics in the hard modes when playing multiplayer?

God forbid.

This game is doomed to failure.

Green.

[dusematic]

You mean you might need to use tactics in the hard modes when playing multiplayer?

God forbid.

This game is doomed to failure.

Green.

Lol.  I know right?  What's the point of multi-player if you don't have to work symbiotically?  Oh right.  People are just scared they can't set the number of players to 8 and then solo it by themselves.  Boohoo.

[birdsguts]

Yeah, I don't know why you guys are panicking.  D2 had several class's that were specifically designed to be group based.

I agree no panicking needed. It looks like they are incorporating ideas from that other game they have and putting it into this new thing.
They did that with SC2 as well... with the "tech tree" and the bits of customization that occurred with unit upgrades. Just pointing out they are dong it again... they seem to be into that lately. I don't think it's "silly" to call it "shades of wow" when you consider the people working on the game.

End result? Who knows. Might be cool might not.
Yes the "scaling quote" is important to this topic. That's why people should read the interview if the quote grabs them. I just quoted one part that was relevant to the posts above it and the one part that jumped out at me as a bit "interesting" as far as prognostications about the future go... which is what this thread seems to be mostly so far.

My view on the plans?
Having aggro management skills in a Diablo game sounds really funny (as in "odd") to me, but hey if they make it work they make it work. I'm not completely closed off to the idea. Increasing the benefit of grouping is a great idea... just scale the game up enough so that it feels even more intense.
Hell if they make the game get crazy hard enough I'm sure I'll prefer grouping.

[ezrast]

Diablo 2's barbarian had a taunt.

[Mosesandstick]

I was resisting the urge to bring that up  

Blizzard's obviously been introducing DIKU mechanics on us slowly...

[birdsguts]

Right.. It's the plural "skills" and the bit about management skills from the other classes that makes it "funny" to me. Plus the bit about re-enforcing group cooperation. I understand Diablo was always an RPG with co-op elements and always had qualities of that game type. I just assumed since taunt was so rarely used in D2 it would get cut and they wouldn't bother with adding more stuff for other classes in that line of thought. Turns out that guess was wrong, they chose to enhance those things. That's fine I just wouldn't have bet on it before.

[Mosesandstick]

I think as has been said before, we should wait to see how these things are actually implemented. Skills like holy freeze, terror, frost nova, valk/decoy, etc. filled these roles whilst soloing or partied already. We don't know how much they're changing the dynamics at this point.

[ezrast]

Exactly. It's easy to speculate, but they haven't definitively indicated any departure from Diablo 2's design since "no potions". Which is as it should be.

[Paelos]

It sounds like there is an active effort to remove the cheese that was bypassing some of their content like TP escapes and potion chugging to victory. Can't say I'm displeased with that if they tune things correctly since stacking potions to the roof was never what I considered "fun" gameplay.

[Fabricated]

Also it may let them tone damage down. I sure enjoyed having to make belt-fulls of the rejuvenation potions since those gave me 100% health instantly.

Also, "OH NO GROUP STRATEGIES"? Hello? Paladin class? Remember them? Auras? Thorns + Necromancers?

[Ratman_tf]

With shades of WoW?
Alright...

Don't be silly.

From just before the quoted bit.

You'll find that we dynamically tune the game so that it get a little harder when you have more people in, so you really need to stick together and use your skills together

So they're building a true co-operative mode, rather than just a massively-parallel singleplayer game, and you're upset? Designing in synergy between classes in co-op is a good thing. In a game balanced for groups there should be benefits to grouping; unlike MMOs where a lot of content doesn't scale down to the single player, in Diablo all the content scales up from the single player. Thus this is all fine and good.

'

Who me? I was just pointing out that they were designing teamup games to require teamwork, not peeing on the solo game. I think I was agreeing with you.

[Ratman_tf]

Also it may let them tone damage down. I sure enjoyed having to make belt-fulls of the rejuvenation potions since those gave me 100% health instantly.

It's an easy design trap to confuse making things challenging for the player = making things easier for the monsters.
If they remove potion-chugging, but leave the monster design the same, it's just going to make things frustrating.

[Margalis]

A great example is, the barbarian has some good skills for essentially allowing him to run into enemies and get the attention of a lot of enemies, which is great when coupled with a ranged class who probably doesn't want to get hit a lot. Whereas a lot of the ranged classes have a lot of great control skills that reduce damage or control enemies such that they're not attacking as often, and that's a great combo with the melee class. We try to design within every class ways that they complement each other, such that when you play with other characters your class feels a lot more diverse.

I'm not a big fan of this style of design. I think it's cool when a game makes using a variety of classes and abilities make sense organically rather than specifically building it in. Obviously it's a fine line, but it's the difference between "this class is a good tank because enemies in our game attack the closest player and this guy has a lot of armor and can wade into a group of enemies" vs "this class is a good tank because we gave him a taunt ability because we wanted him to be a tanking class."

I don't like the feeling that a designer somewhere has figured out the "right" way for me to play my class. Maybe it's because the games I played growing up were more "choose the character you like and play with your buddy who chooses the character they like" than "you're a damage dealer so now we need a healer."