Diablo III Wild Speculation and Rumor Mongering Abounds

[waffel]

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.

All I ever wanted from D2 was to allow players to buy a single stack of 50 potions of the same type AND allow dropped potions to stack in the same way. I didn't exactly enjoy micromanging my fucking potion belt and trying to remember how many health potions I have left, used, and need to pick up to get my belt full.

Other than that, I honestly had no problem whatsoever with the potion chugging game over D2 and thought it worked well. I'm going to be sad to see it go.

[Tebonas]

People should be playing together because its fun for them, not because they are needed to fullfill a certain role. If somebody has fun playing an oddball Barbarian that plays like a crossdressing Amazon, more power to him.

[ajax34i]

People should be playing together because its fun for them, not because they are needed to fullfill a certain role.

This sounds good on paper, but doesn't happen that easily in reality.  What do you think will happen if you walk up to a group of strangers and say "let's go to a bar?"   Take any MMO where classes (or characters) are designed with the ability to play solo well, what happens?  People don't group, they solo, and when they try to group, they get rejected.

[Tebonas]

Which might indeed be a problem for a MMOG. Luckily WoW is the MMOG in the family and Diablo doesn't have to carry that particular burden.

[Yegolev]

What do you think will happen if you walk up to a group of strangers and say "let's go to a bar?"

This is why I only ask friends to go to the bar.  They are generally fine with me acting in a non-standard way since they know how I play Bar.  Otherwise I go solo and meet people in the dung-... bar.  Trouble with soloing Bar is that you can't solo as a DD.

[Malakili]

People should be playing together because its fun for them, not because they are needed to fullfill a certain role.

This sounds good on paper, but doesn't happen that easily in reality.  What do you think will happen if you walk up to a group of strangers and say "let's go to a bar?"   Take any MMO where classes (or characters) are designed with the ability to play solo well, what happens?  People don't group, they solo, and when they try to group, they get rejected.

We don't need to use analogies for this shit.  In D2 people played in games together all the time.  Most of the time it was Cows4Fun10 gogogogogo or whatever, but people joined, killed shit, and then joined the next game.  People often chit chatted while doing this.  There was no "oh we better stick together" or anything else.   You'd also see plenty of "Diablo normal mode" or whatever, where someone would be killing him,and some other folks that wanted to kill him would join, and then they'd kill the guy.    No bullshit aggro mechanics, or grouping mechanics.  Just plain not needed. 

This is the one thing that scares me about D3 more than anything I have to admit.  If they try to make this game more WoW like in terms of its mechanics, I'm going to like it less.  I've always though the D2 meta game was way more fun AND accessible than the WoW meta game and the last thing I want to be worrying about is "LFG Barbarian, Act 4 bosses."  I don't think it will come to that, but I liked the way it used to work even with a full group.  It became about joining a GAME, not about joining a PARTY.  Maybe the difference in subtle, but I think it matters.

[Mosesandstick]

Did anybody here play 1.10 and after? I think I stopped playing sometime early after 1.10, and my personal experience as far as I remember is that unless you were playing one of the soloable builds partying up in hell was pretty damn advisable (unless you're MFing). Not necessary, but unless you were playing an optimised solo build (which brings us back to the issue of respeccing...) Hell could really suck without partners. TBH I mainly played with friends, so I rarely soloed. Other people might have different experiences (I played paladins  ).

[Typhon]

Making classes that have synergies in the way that Guild Wars is describing seems like it would make grouping up a richer experience.  I hope they do something like this.

Shoe-horning D3 into a holy trinity game would suck, and suck badly.  I pray that they don't do this.

I can easily see them applying what they learned from the WoW dungeon finder to D3, making it easy to get into a group.  They've already talked about you only seeing your own loot, which addresses the downside of having Sir Clicksalot hoovering up all the loot. (SOJ?!)  If they make co-op entertaining and the loot continues to be better in multiplayer, it would seem to be a decent addition to the franchise.  What I hope they do not add is a "leaver" penalty.

[Shrike]

Did anybody here play 1.10 and after? I think I stopped playing sometime early after 1.10, and my personal experience as far as I remember is that unless you were playing one of the soloable builds partying up in hell was pretty damn advisable (unless you're MFing). Not necessary, but unless you were playing an optimised solo build (which brings us back to the issue of respeccing...) Hell could really suck without partners. TBH I mainly played with friends, so I rarely soloed. Other people might have different experiences (I played paladins  ).

Yeah, I played after 1.10. This was the point they (Blizzard) tried to put an end to characters able to solo easily in 8-player hell diff. It ruined a lot of subclasses.

It was still very possible to solo in hell, but there were a few caveats. You'd better have good resists. You'd better have substantial leech and/or recovery. You'd better be able to deal with physical immunes somehow and most elemental immunities (i.e. no one-trick poinies). You'd better be ranged or have a shield (goodbye spearazons...hello strikazons). Soloing in an 8-player game was very difficult. My dedicated witchyzon was capable of this, but it was slooooowww.

Regardless of whatever version you played in, the best games were always with friends. The best times I had were with Amazon Basin. These were groups that actually worked together. You'd have a tank of some sort (usually a tankazon, maybe a spearazon or defiance pally beofre 1.10; javazon after). We almost always have a fanaticism pally to support the bowazons. If life was reallly good, we'd have a conviction pally to support the mageazons (didn't see these too often) or javazons (serious boom! in cow runs). Then we'd just go to town. Fanaticism pumped arrow storms were always a hoot to watch. Bowazons with amplify damage goodies were simply devastating even after 1.10.

[Mosesandstick]

Thanks for the input Shrike. If D2 1.10+ is the sort of thing Blizzard is aiming for then I think what we've seen or heard so far could be pretty consistent. 1.10 hell was a completely different game then what came before. I don't think I'd play D3 without friends.

[Sophismata]

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.

He meant the Barbarian gets hit a lot because he's in the monster's face, which makes playing a ranged guy a tad easier since you have a block between you and the enemy. None of the demo builds, interviews or anything else have suggested holy trinity gameplay or taunt mechanics, and much of the early material specifically denied their inclusion.

Also, the Diablo2 metagame was bullshit and I'd like to see it go. Boss runs were stupid.

[Musashi]

Boss runs were stupid.

[Margalis]

This sounds good on paper, but doesn't happen that easily in reality.

Really?

I played Diablo 2 with people. I played Contra with people. I played Teenage Mutant Ninja turtles with people, I played Darius with people. I play Starcraft 2 team games. One of the reasons so many games are including half-assed co-op modes these days is that playing with other people is just fun, doubly so if you know them.

I don't think getting people to play together in co-op games has ever been a problem. MMOs are a bit of a special place in that yes on one hand they are super multiplayer, but on the other hand everyone is working on different specific goals and organizing is annoying as the world is so unconstrained.

[Sophismata]

What animal is that?

[Ratman_tf]

What animal is that?

I think that's Jimmy Durante.

[Lakov_Sanite]

What animal is that?

I think that's Jimmy Durante.

Ha-cha-cha-cha

[Teleku]

What animal is that?

I have no idea, but I cannot stop laughing at it.

[Shrike]

There wasn't any aggro as we understand it from conventional MMRPGs like EQ or WoW. Monsters basically attacked what was closest to them. So any heavy melee that could take (or avoid) hits was a viable "tank".

The main thing was to keep stuff from hassling the ranged dps so they could hold still and do whatever it is they'd do. This is one reason valkyries were so effective (when they weren't running away from their amazons). Big concentrated knots of vermin were ideal targets for fun things like lightning fury, frozen arrow, or old-school immolate. Player characters were--usually--a lot more durable than decoys or even valks (well...maybe not, but valkies could be squirrely on occasion), so that meant bigger packs before the dupe, err, tank would get into trouble. Bigger packs, bigger booms! More fun was had by all, except maybe the tank.

One memorable feature of classic D2 (before LoD) was the old school lightning fury graphics. This was...really impressive. So much so that really large, concentrated packs of vermin--like you'd find in the Chaos Sanctuary swarming around all those pallies and bubbas--were just asking to get ripped by some BrianDNA javazon's lightning fury. The only fly in this ointment was the fact that when that sucker went off, the propagation was so huge that anyone at ground zero (melee and sorcies without a clue) would have their framerate drop to slide show speeds. Usually, this meant some collateral damage. Fun!   

[Mosesandstick]

A friend and I used to go around herding cows, he'd use Lightning Fury whilst I'd use Goldstrike arch (% chance to fist of the heavens) with multishot. Funny thing was watching other people go "WTF LAG?!?!?!"

[Sjofn]

What animal is that?

Elephant seal, I believe.

[Shrike]

A friend and I used to go around herding cows, he'd use Lightning Fury whilst I'd use Goldstrike arch (% chance to fist of the heavens) with multishot. Funny thing was watching other people go "WTF LAG?!?!?!"

Ahh, yes. Godstrike Arch. My 1.09 speedazon had one of those. Such a broken character. She was lots of fun. Yep, it wasn't a show stopper like lightning fury, but it could put a whammy on low end rigs, what with all the cows and other spell effects. This thing, combined with high end FA, Razortail, and a substantial amount of pierce, had me getting accused of cheating in about every thirid cow run. People just didn't know what the hell it was, and the fact frozen cows were keeling over in job lots just got them all hot and bothered.

Saw a lot of that in classic with the early javazons, too. A lot of people (we call them window lickers in WoW) just didn't have a clue about game mechanics or what sort of weirdo unique items and effects were out there. Crushing blow was a real mystery to most and it'd really piss people off when you'd throw that cracked javelin on the ground in response to "what weapon are you using?" questions.

[K9]

This rune system does sound like a lot of fun

[Malakili]

This rune system does sound like a lot of fun

Sounds promising.

[birdsguts]

http://us.blizzard.com/diablo3/world/systems/health.xml

Health explanation up.
About what they already said, yes? Ever so slightly more detail.

[Shrike]

Sounds like life leech (and presumbably mana leech) might be gone. I know Blizzard wasn't really happy with totally self-supporting builds and nerfed leeching repeatedly over the course of the game. There were leech tanking amazon builds as late as 1.09. Even in 1.10, you could still rely on leeching to keep you going; it just wasn't easy (no more getting in Big D's face with guided arrow) and you needed a LOT of very difficult to get items like rings, amulets, gems, and runes--possibly at the expense of other abilities.

I'm sure this orb thing will probably work out OK (not like it hasn't been done before), but I kinda liked the tradeoffs and the "oh boy" feeling of finding a really good rare leech ring or a unique amulet with leeching. I like fiddling with characters. Removing that removes some of the character construction fun that was basic to the game. On the other hand, this stuff could be very hard to find later on. Most of my characters worked from a supply of equipment that I'd been stockpiling since vanilla.

[Malakili]

The "we want you always pushing forward" line along with things like the removal of town portals make me a little nervous on account of I like being able to set my own pacing, and I recall time spent in town often as fondly as time out killing stuff.  While the mass carnage is a big part of what makes the ARPG genre fun, browsing shops, gambling, visiting my stash, etc, is also a big part of it.  Now, we don't have enough information yet to really know how the pacing will be, but some of what they've said does make me a little weary.  Granted, I've said this before in this thread, so this isn't new information, but that line about pushing forward instead of retreating sort of renewed that apprehension.

[Shrike]

My guess would be it'll be sort of like Torchlight. You can push as fast as you want, but still have an option to bail and screw around. Admittedly, the loss of town portal makes me a little nervous, but as long as a relatively easy to use substitute is there I think it'll be OK.

I still think the reasoning behind dropping TP is a little contrived. I'd generally leave one near where you knew a knockdown-dragout fight was going to occur, but mostly as a conveniance in case I screwed the pooch. Trying to TP zerg bosses down was mostly just stupid. If you couldn't beat him/it/them the first time, hitting a portal and having your nemesis right in your face wasn't what'd you call a real good idea. At a discreet distantance to cut down travel time? Sure. Otherwise, not so much.

[Malakili]

My guess would be it'll be sort of like Torchlight. You can push as fast as you want, but still have an option to bail and screw around. Admittedly, the loss of town portal makes me a little nervous, but as long as a relatively easy to use substitute is there I think it'll be OK.

I still think the reasoning behind dropping TP is a little contrived. I'd generally leave one near where you knew a knockdown-dragout fight was going to occur, but mostly as a conveniance in case I screwed the pooch. Trying to TP zerg bosses down was mostly just stupid. If you couldn't beat him/it/them the first time, hitting a portal and having your nemesis right in your face wasn't what'd you call a real good idea. At a discreet distantance to cut down travel time? Sure. Otherwise, not so much.

I don't think its the zerging they are so worried about as it is they felt like the ability to just pop out and replenish your entire potion supply (which of course they also got rid of), and basically using them as get out of jail free cards. Of course, its having that get out of jail free card in my back pocket that made me willing to dive headlong into a huge horde in the first place.

[Ratman_tf]

Of course, its having that get out of jail free card in my back pocket that made me willing to dive headlong into a huge horde in the first place.

Fo sho.

[Draegan]

Release date 6/28/2012?



Most likely a fake
http://leakerz.net/wp/2010/09/14/diablo-3-healing-system-and-release-date/

[Soulflame]

Two more years of Torchlight or Diablo 2?  I may well break down and cry.

[Demonix]

I dunno, announced in 2008 I gave it 3 years until it came out.  I could see it going back to 2012 though.

Oh how I laughed at the people who thought it was coming out for xmas, lol. 

[Malakili]

Two more years of Torchlight or Diablo 2?  I may well break down and cry.

I'm actually looking forward to Torchlight 2 as much as I am Diablo 3 at this point.

[Ingmar]

2012 would not surprise me even the tiniest bit. I think that's what my group has been assuming since they announced it. I'm still kind of surprised SC2 came out already. 

[Ironwood]

Technically, only a third of Starcraft 2 came out.