No, not really. But the "only six skills? SHIT SUX" people were starting to get extremely annoying so it's good to have math on your side. However I'd like to think that most (if not all) skills are viable now since there are no more prerequisite skills you need to grab to get to the good stuff and that you can craft a build at least somewhat to your liking.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Diablo 3 Beta [Beta withdrawal underway!]
- Thread starter maniac-kun
- Start date
- Status
No, not really. But the "only six skills? SHIT SUX" people were starting to get extremely annoying so it's good to have math on your side. However I'd like to think that most (if not all) skills are viable now since there are no more prerequisite skills you need to grab to get to the good stuff and that you can craft a build at least somewhat to your liking.
aliencowz7
Member
to be fair, Paladin was my favorite class and I never ever had the gear to make a hammerdin work, so I always went Zealadin. My fave was getting a 3 man team of holy fire/shock/freeze auras.
If unable to get an enigma then hammerdin loses a TON of its overpoweredness, and had runes never been duped and become the currency I do wonder just how things would have been different build wise without so many runewords.
Battle plan:
Get off at work at 5:30. Nap Until 10:30. Wake up, Eat food, go to midnight launch. Pick up game. Nap until 2:40. Shower, game at 3:00. Awww yeah.
CarbonatedFalcon
Member
I've been thinking. The real ironman challenge for this game will be beating Inferno, solo, in a 4-player game. As in, one person doing all the killing, while other people lounge around in town. Making the game as difficult as possible.
I'm curious to see how long it is before people start doing this, or at least trying to do so. It'd be even more amazing on hardcore, though personally, I'm not likely to take any hardcore characters into a multiplayer game in the first place. Maybe if I was feeling like taking a risk. But I don't intend to focus on hardcore so much - it'll probably always be secondary to me unless I shift my focus a few years down the line, if the thrill of death is the only way to get a challenge anymore.
I'm curious to see how long it is before people start doing this, or at least trying to do so. It'd be even more amazing on hardcore, though personally, I'm not likely to take any hardcore characters into a multiplayer game in the first place. Maybe if I was feeling like taking a risk. But I don't intend to focus on hardcore so much - it'll probably always be secondary to me unless I shift my focus a few years down the line, if the thrill of death is the only way to get a challenge anymore.
aliencowz7
Member
I think stuff like that will take place much faster then it did in diablo 2 since it has carried on into other blizzard games like WoW and has become more prevalent in online game communities. I wouldn't be surprised if stuff like that shows up right from launch.
fluffydelusions
Member
I guess I'm glad I got the digital version. No point in waiting at gamestop for a midnight launch if you're on east coast =\
fluffydelusions
Member
Yes, the closed one is till May 1st
Would you need to do that, I'm going to assume that a /players command will show up in this at some point allowing you to manipulate the difficulty further. Or is that not going to happen?
They always claim things like that. I'm sure they were saying similar things about D2 vs. D1.
Won't show me because I already have it.
It's a ridiculous £44.99. The price on Amazon must have gone up, the regular edition was about £25 only a few days ago.
CarbonatedFalcon
Member
Alright. Major work goes in starting this weekend. Until now, I've mostly been been prepping some text and gathering resources that I want to include or link to.
At the moment, I have a sort of collection of disparate things, but I'll really start putting them together in the next few days. Graphics I'll work on this weekend.
It will be up on the 8th!
aliencowz7
Member
I'm actually surprisingly happy about how the WoW annual pass free copy turned out for me, since I already have CE on preorder at gamestop. Can play the night of launch with the digital copy then upgrade it to the CE the next day when I pick it up and get all the bonuses and get months knocked off my wow sub from the annual pass.
Burger
Member
£44.99?! Sweet jeebus. I'm sure I saw it on Amazon for around £25 also, but I checked my preorder placed on Sunday and sure enough it's £33.90. Nevermind. I'm not paying a tenner more for less product.
So theres no public demo/beta right?
I'm in the same boat. Feels good man!
It's a sad state of affairs in the game industry these days where developer comments are immediately thrown out as disingenuous, lies, half-truths, etc...
While some developers have earned this (Moleneux, Bioware recently)... are we so quick to throw Blizzard / Jay Wilson there as well?
Was just gonna post the same thing. Blizzard deserves our confidence at this point.
I don't think it's any of those things (disingenuous, lies, or half-truths). I think it's plain and simple underestimating the collective intelligence, drive, and creativity of their userbase. And I feel that this isn't unreasonable given the way they designed the game.
right. public beta was last weekend only
Glad I'm not the only one that feels this way. I hate how people only believe what they want to believe.
Just curious about what you think Blizzard should have done to make a game worthy of our intelligence and creativity. As it stands, D3 seems to lend itself to far more creativity than D2 ever did. Neither game (or any in the genre) requires much intelligence. We have high level SC2 for that.
I don't have the time for a game to require "drive" so I'm thankful that I will never have to reroll a character to try a new build.
Collective is the key word here. In a few weeks, this game will be played by millions of people and they *will* find and disseminate maxed builds at a rate much faster than Blizzard anticipates (which I'm sure Blizzard will nerf just as quickly as they tried to in the early D2 days). Just like they'll get to Inferno much faster than they anticipate. It seems natural for game devs to think they know everything about their own game, but the truth is once you put it in millions of peoples' hands everything they know about it goes down the drain.
That doesn't address the issue. The issue is whether or not D3 will have more hell viable builds than D2. Blizzard, through countless manhours spent testing, knows that there are more hell viable builds in D3 than D2. At least they are stating so and no one has any reason to doubt them at this point.
You're talking about optimal builds. I agree with you that it is likely that people will discover optimal hell builds. However, that doesn't mean that D3 will not have many more hell viable builds than D2 has. As long as the "suboptimal" builds are not vastly inferior to the "optimal" builds, only hardcore mode players should even care.
In D2 it wasn't necessarily a matter of the optimal build, it was more often than not a matter of "if you don't put all points into vit and choose these skills you're going to be in trouble come hell."
This.
Jay Wilson stated - at Blizzcon 2011 iirc - that they know that there will be optimal builds and that they are fine with it as long as they are in like a 5% range to a viable build. He said problems would start if a build was like 50% more powerful.
FrontalMonk
Banned
Considering that I started the conversation on the basis of the idea that there wouldn't be much *actual* build diversity no matter how many raw builds there might be based on a simple calculation of skills and slots, it's a bit silly for you to be telling me I'm not talking about what I'm talking about.
I frankly don't think most players of D2 cared about actually getting to Hell, let alone through it, but the fact that other people had figured out optimal builds gave people something to work towards. I don't see D3 being different from that no matter how they modify the skill system.
Actually, this particular argument started with your post #10811 where you make it clear that you don't necessarily believe Blizzard when they state that D3 will have more viable skill builds than D2. Which I responted to with positive evidence to the contrary. So yes, I know exactly what you are and are not talking about.
Now, to address your separate argument that there will not be much actual build diversity. I can't disagree with you there. We will have to see as time goes on. I am leaning toward that the majority of people couldn't care less whether one build is 5% more powerful than another and that we will see a large variety of actual builds.
I think we're arguing past each other here. I think there were a shitton of viable builds in D2, but I don't define viable as "works through hell" because, frankly, in 12 years of playing the game only one person I actually know bothered to go that far. Most of the builds I played wouldn't be considered viable by that standard, but I had a hell of a lot of fun with them.
But I think everyone will still be chasing some dream build like the hammerdin. I don't think the flexibility of the skill system really changes that. People chased hammerdin because people told them it was cool and would be awesome eventually, not because they had a hope in hell of finishing hell.
But I think everyone will still be chasing some dream build like the hammerdin. I don't think the flexibility of the skill system really changes that. People chased hammerdin because people told them it was cool and would be awesome eventually, not because they had a hope in hell of finishing hell.
aliencowz7
Member
A large part of what made hammerdins so popular was botting and that they could do great damage with relatively crappy gear + couldn't be resisted at all. They were practically non existant prior to enigma coming around. The fact that you could run a bot and solo hell baal was a large part of what ended up causing a giant amount of them popping up online.
The idea behind chasing a dream build is valid though, its inevitable in a loot game like diablo but how bad it will be is yet to be seen. When you take diablo 2 as a complete game from start to finish there was some weird balance issues with alot of builds that ended up with them completely dropping off in hell but if they can keep even the lesser performing builds capable enough to hang with the best at least somewhat then I dont think it will be as large a issue.
In the end it's still a wait and see type of thing though.
Wait, what?
In 12 years you never completed Hell? _Everyone_ I ever played with finished Hell..
yeah, same thing here except I'm getting my CE from amazon.
I should have added that! CE May 15 release day delivery from Amazon!
There is going to be a started edition for D3 but the details of when it will be released are unknown. There is messaging already in current builds regarding a starter edition so I don't think it will be long after launch.
I still can't decide if I should buy this game. Can someone help me decide? I played the open beta, but I only got to play for a few minutes. I've never played D1 or D2. I liked what I played of it. I've never played any type of game like this. I'm debating whether I should pre-order it, so I can get into the beta.
aliencowz7
Member
I don't think it has a preorder beta incentive. But if you had fun with what you played i can't see any reason not to buy it. Should you enjoy it you will definately get your moneys worth.
If you liked what you played, buy it. It may possibly demolish any social life you have or will have, though.
Joe Shlabotnik
Banned
The beta ends in five days. No one is getting in anymore.
MrPing1000
Member
May 15th is my Dad's birthday.
Hmm...
Hmm...
FieryBalrog
Member
D2 was basically abandoned by Blizzard compared to the kind of ongoing support they gave WoW. A build like Hammerdin in WoW would never have survived for very long (we know, because semi-equivalent things arose occasionally and were dealt with). Of course they supported it significantly more than other companies might have (1.10, various ongoing tweaks, patches even now adding thigns like respecs).
Now I certainly don't expect D3 to get the same level of support as WoW, but I do expect it to get a hell of a lot more than D2 did.
helloresolven
Member
So... to stop beating the dead horse, who is preparing to play hardcore from the beginning?
I think I am. Going to create a new character on launch-night get it to 10 (just past SK) then create my first HC Wizard and go from there.
I think I am. Going to create a new character on launch-night get it to 10 (just past SK) then create my first HC Wizard and go from there.
Brofist.
- Status
Similar threads
- Locked