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Diablo 3 Beta [Beta withdrawal underway!]
- Thread starter maniac-kun
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Unknown Soldier
Member
The beta changes are pretty bad, so it's not hard to imagine why.
ZombieSupaStar
Member
dunno these kinda big changes seem a bit late in the game for a game coming out this year. They don't instill confidence, infact they give me the opposite feeling.
they changed alot from Diablo 2, and it really is looking dumbed down *cough* I mean "Diablo III is designed to be a modern action game, built on the mantra of “easy to learn, difficult to master. -Jay Wilson"
but the hand holding on the ui now just make it look like they are trying to get knuckle dragging retards to buy the game.
they changed alot from Diablo 2, and it really is looking dumbed down *cough* I mean "Diablo III is designed to be a modern action game, built on the mantra of “easy to learn, difficult to master. -Jay Wilson"
but the hand holding on the ui now just make it look like they are trying to get knuckle dragging retards to buy the game.
The only real "negative" is the Rune change and even that is nothing to really be upset over. Everything else is polish polish polish. /shrug
ZombieSupaStar
Member
yeah but there was talk of this level dead zone from 30-50 without a "carrot on a stick" apparently, so the new runes fufill that (and I hate that MMO mentality creeping into my DIBALO!)
Unknown Soldier
Member
I think renaming this "runes" system to something else and introducing the classic D2-style runes would be a good idea.
ZombieSupaStar
Member
I'm more worried about replayability with no hard choices in the game now, and the best loot an encouraged paypal transaction away.
I doubt D2 style runes are coming back. If players assume that rune is something you put into your item just cause it was like that in D2 that's not Blizzard's fault. It's pretty clear what a skill rune is in Diablo 3.
If any system makes a comeback for the expansion(s), expect it to be the Talisman or Enchantment system.
That still has to drop for a player and they still have to want to sell it at an affordable price. You're not going to see all the best items up on the AH a week or probably even a year after the game comes out. I imagine you'll see one pop up here and there, but it's going to take a loooooong time before we see D2 levels of saturation in the market.
ZombieSupaStar
Member
I dunno man, I wouldn't underestimate the gold farmers.
ZombieSupaStar
Member
I feel guilty just sitting on my beta with only like 5 hours played total, and more interested in skyrim modding atm.
*haw*
*haw*
Fallout-NL
Member
Yeah, that is worrying.
This whole situation tends to worry me actually. There's no need to ever roll a new character, they're oversimplifying the game and they seem to lack conviction in pretty fundamental design issues.
That's why I'm giving them "only" a year. They had the benefits of bots in Diablo 2. They've gotten better at detecting bots now with WoW and have improved Warden quite a bit over time. Botting is basically a guaranteed ban now in WoW. This means they're probably going to handle it like they used to handle gold farming in WoW before the days of mass account theft, they'll actually play the game and manually farm their shit in 24/7 shifts. With the low drop rate of the best shit in a Diablo game, even this won't really be enough to utterly flood the market, though.
I don't expect dupes will be an issue either. I'm sure Blizzard was smart enough to have a system to easily delete duped items this time.
I wouldn't. I consider that just a typical RPG thing. It's fun to level up and be rewarded for leveling up. Even more so when you level up and are rewarded with something you can actually use. I can see why they would want to give you that feeling every level to keep you playing.
Edit: Sorry for the double post, I'm being derpy.
ZombieSupaStar
Member
yep people will only have 5 chars now.
I mean I understand the annoyance of having to reroll to make a new barb, necro etc, but also I liked that for instance in Fallout (1 and 2) you couldn't "see" everything with 1 playthrough, and I sigh when I read people playing new vegas or some such that are mad they arent even more of a master of everything than they already are (and was just at a heinous level in Fallout 3).
I'm 30 years old now, and I feel like I need to be fathering out a few kids soon or something so I like and relate to these design changes.
Actually I could totally see people rolling new characters for guaranteed rares on first boss kills, especially since Blizzard said rares are programmed to have the potential to be more powerful than the best uniques. Those fresh Inferno runs could have the potential for mass profit.
Ideally, each skill rune should be useful so you'd still be incentivised to keep leveling.
That's just old school design. And what we've been used to for many years. But it's silly to assume that it is the best model. It's flawed to say that people should play the same class over and over again to get the full experience of the game. The game is end game loaded (inferno, arena, new future additions) now so you just keep playing the same character to get the full experience rather than starting over and over. Besides, you're quoting single player games - I feel that blizz is pushing D3 to be more of an online game than D2 was.
That and the ability to level up skill runes to a point. Even if everyone ends up the same at 60 with the only real customization being how you're geared, at least the level progression can be somewhat unique to each person. That UI has got to go, however. It's a total mess.
I'm still holding onto the hope of a Q2 release. Only because every time the closed beta gets a big update like this it feels as though it's a version that's already been play tested months ago internally, and has progressed beyond what we're playing; A rudimentary version of the more fleshed out mechanics. That's just how it feels.
Runes may have been a logistical nightmare, but they're back to standardizing character customization. I hate standardization because it makes devs lazy and accountants happy. Reinforcing negative behaviors.
You go from a diverse/complex system to a rigid/fixed one.
With them rapidly changing major mechanics so late in the development cycle one can only wonder why.
You go from a diverse/complex system to a rigid/fixed one.
With them rapidly changing major mechanics so late in the development cycle one can only wonder why.
The rune system was already a carrot on a stick in Diablo II.
And it is Blizzard's Diablo, not yours. They do whatever they want with it 
Also...
Nothing can stop me from replaying with new chars in this game either. I just love doing that, regardless if I could try a new spec with my main simply. Levelling a new char is fun. It is a fresh start. The AH only rewards that, not punishes it.
Runes were not diverse/complex, the only mechanical difference is 'do I need to harvest 1000 items to find the runes I want for my current set, clog up my stash with backup runes, and trade for more when I run out' or 'pick the rune I want from the menu'.
Does the latter remove choice? No. Gameplay? Yes, but I'd comfortably argue it wasn't good gameplay (did you really farm up high end runes in D2 yourself? That game runs on a botfarm economy now).
The game design issue they talked about in their blog post of 'too many runes to itemize' is a bit of a dodge - there are obvious easy methods to get around that (generic runes levels 1-X that work for all classes) and preserve the itemization, but I agree with the decision they made.
For my part, I'll have more fun choosing the customized abilities I want, whenever I want, than I would scavenging for particular runes to get my abilities to where I want them to be. That sort of thing is very very cool the first time, and very, very tiring after that.
They took a similar route with WoW talents recently, and while in that case I think they oversimplified the number of choices, I still agree with the heart of the thought process that took them to that point - a great many builds were very standardized, and I have never, ever been excited by +1% to anything, in any rpg.
Being able to quickly choose between a broad set of abilities and runes to customize those abilities boils down to 'here's a very large set of functionally different toys to play with, have fun', vs having some portion of those toys locked off behind the roulette of item finding.
I realize some people play Diablo entirely for that gradual character growth and the pavlovian surge of joy at seeing some sparkly gold item drop, but I never did - my interest was in playing different characters and using different abilities, against challenging enemies in the higher difficulties with friends.
Making choices about equipment (in Diablo, WoW, or other similar rpgs) is interesting, but not more interesting to me than, you know, actively playing the game
Again, I totally respect that some people enjoy that aspect of the game(s) a lot, but it's not the core draw for me anymore. Once you break that mental chain of loot-delight, all that's left is the core gameplay... and in this particular case, their decision has made accessing that gameplay easier for me, so obviously I approve
(and I still enjoy the loot... just not as much as the play)PantherAttacks
Member
Don't think Blizzard really know what they're doing. New changes sound pretty bad, every character of the same class is going to progress the same way on every play through. Doesn't sound like Diablo to me.
Fallout-NL
Member
Yeah, I agree with that general idea Victrix. But there's a fine line between trimming the fat and dumbing things down. All these big changes at this point in the development make it seem like Wilson and Co aren't really sure what it is they're doing either.
CarbonatedFalcon
Member
Okay, after reading this, I think I could deal with the new rune system, but not as is. The system would be vastly improved with:
a) Choosing which rune to unlock each level (adding a sort of pseudo-talent tree effect to leveling, especially with level-up stat allocations being automatic)
b) Rune Skill-Ups
So you choose what you want to play with when, and the more you use it, the more powerful it gets. So you have different levels of power, as with the old rune system, bringing an entire aspect of advancement and character tailoring back. So it might start as splitting into two magic missiles, but you could level it up to 7 splits, or what have you.
Another thing that it wouldn't necessarily have to based on usage of the skill. You could still have pickup items that cause the leveling, or a combination based on usage and items, with the items being a sort of bonus boost to the level of a rune.
Now the rune levels could also have their own sorts of scaling experience bars, or be advanced in a more discrete fashion, level-by-level.
So eventually everyone would have everything powered up completely (which was going to happen with the old system anyway), but now you specialize in what you want and could possibly be much more powerful with your chosen set of abilities than someone else with the same class who has a different playstyle. One Barbarian's massive cleave that kills half the room might be another's weak noodle, even using the same weapon, but that other barb will have something that leveled up that's weak on your end as well.
Addendum:
If going with a hybrid item/use system or pure item system, you could still have the highest rank(s) of a rune be only unlockable via items in Inferno, ala the skillbooks you used to need in WoW for a few of the highest ranking abilities. The advantage would probably be fairly slight, but worth going after for dedicated players. Even with that basic framework, there are still at least several ways such a system could be implemented - which would require too much explanation to merely list here.
Say this ain't so...
To paraphrase Bashiok, "We're not making Diablo 2.5, we're making Diablo 3".
Could you elaborate? Your statement seems pretty general and you don't back it up with anything.
Mengy
wishes it were bannable to say mean things about Marvel
For my part, I'll have more fun choosing the customized abilities I want, whenever I want, than I would scavenging for particular runes to get my abilities to where I want them to be. That sort of thing is very very cool the first time, and very, very tiring after that.
Being able to quickly choose between a broad set of abilities and runes to customize those abilities boils down to 'here's a very large set of functionally different toys to play with, have fun', vs having some portion of those toys locked off behind the roulette of item finding.
I realize some people play Diablo entirely for that gradual character growth and the pavlovian surge of joy at seeing some sparkly gold item drop, but I never did - my interest was in playing different characters and using different abilities, against challenging enemies in the higher difficulties with friends.
Making choices about equipment (in Diablo, WoW, or other similar rpgs) is interesting, but not more interesting to me than, you know, actively playing the game
Again, I totally respect that some people enjoy that aspect of the game(s) a lot, but it's not the core draw for me anymore. Once you break that mental chain of loot-delight, all that's left is the core gameplay... and in this particular case, their decision has made accessing that gameplay easier for me, so obviously I approve
For the most part, I actually agree with Victrix here.
But to be honest, I only agree after playing the beta with the new changes for a good part of the weekend. When I first read the patch notes Friday night, I agreed more with Zombie and the "haters". I ddn't like the direction the patch notes implied the game was going, I wanted the loot hunt of the old rune system. But now, after a lot of hours with the wizard and barbarian in the new rune system, I admit I like it and think it was a good move by Blizzard. It was fun to see skills you have been using for a few levels change along the way, at my whim. I liked having the choice of using a new sparkly more powerful magic missile or choosing to have my missiles split into many. But what made it fun was having the choice instantly and not having to farm for an item to do so. If I needed an item to unlock the skill options then it would make the levelup a tad anticlimactic and unrewarding.
Look at it this way: we are only allowed 10 character slots in Diablo 3. That means (for most people) one of every class in softcore mode and one of every class in hardcore mode. We aren't going to be able to have 4 of each class this time. I won't be able to have a skellimancer, a bonemancer, and a poisonmancer. I won't be able to have a shout barb and a whirlwind barb and a frenzy barb. In Diablo 3, if we want to play a class in a different build we are going to have to regear our already high level character of that class.
Now, think of how we are going to actually do that in game. Every character gets access to all of their classes skills and runes simply by leveling up. There isn't any stat point allocation, there isn't any skill point allocation, and now there isn't any new and different runes to collect or hunt for. You can change the build of your character within the span of a few minutes, completely. However, you still need to regear. Blizzard has already said there will be high level gear with skill bonuses on them, so the ideal hydra wizard in D3 will need gear with bonuses that boost hydras.
This is where Blizzard is leading us to. Easy respecs with access to any skill or skill rune we need to do so, but we still need to acquire the gear on our own. Whether we hunt for it or farm the gold to buy it, but a viable build in Inferno will need the gear to support it. They are essentially eliminating our need to reroll constantly to try out new and creative specs.
This new rune system was designed with that goal in mind, simply less characters per account. Instead of having many characters of the same class, we are going to have many gear sets for each of our high level classes. And you will be able to switch between builds easily, once you have collected the gearsets to let you do that.
Now, whether the limited characters per account is a good or bad thing is another topic for debate. But in light of what we are going to get in D3 I think this way of runes works better than the old one. And I've only come to that conclusion after playing beta patch 13 quite a bit and seeing (and feeling) the new rune system in action.
Here's what we had, here's what we got:
I've posted this but it got buried in another thread and didn't get much attention or counterpoints.
1) You don't get to chose which skill variants to use until you level to that point (in some cases, near max level, at hell difficulty) or the order you get them in. In old system, all lower level runes would be available/common while playing through on normal difficulty. I.e. Jay had stated that they would "drop like candy" on a normal playthrough.
2) The new system has 1 power rank spread over 4 difficulties. The old system was 7 power ranks, 1-4 over 3 difficulties and the last 3 for inferno.
What are we getting to customize/increase the power individual skills instead?
Additionally, with no more ranks, visually, how will the skill look more powerful now? Previously, Bashiok had said higher ranks would potentially look cooler/more powerful like having more magic missiles (Wizard) or more rockets (DH). Now what?
I've posted this but it got buried in another thread and didn't get much attention or counterpoints.
1) You don't get to chose which skill variants to use until you level to that point (in some cases, near max level, at hell difficulty) or the order you get them in. In old system, all lower level runes would be available/common while playing through on normal difficulty. I.e. Jay had stated that they would "drop like candy" on a normal playthrough.
2) The new system has 1 power rank spread over 4 difficulties. The old system was 7 power ranks, 1-4 over 3 difficulties and the last 3 for inferno.
What are we getting to customize/increase the power individual skills instead?
Additionally, with no more ranks, visually, how will the skill look more powerful now? Previously, Bashiok had said higher ranks would potentially look cooler/more powerful like having more magic missiles (Wizard) or more rockets (DH). Now what?
CarbonatedFalcon
Member
What they've done is traded one problem for a whole set of others. Neither the old system, or this one, are completely sound. They're both half-baked and don't say "polish" to me. Both system were/are good foundations, but you definitely get the vibe that rune implementation has been reworked from scratch multiple times, rather than evolved to perfection.
It's a reiteration on my part, but I sincerely hope that the current will undergo some major renovations, as it doesn't add much. Now, I don't mean the runed skills themselves, but the system as a greater whole. There are no consequences anymore, for good or ill, regarding runes. As is, they've cut out an entire aspect of choice, risk, etc., which is extremely damaging to the game (at least for me). The only real consequence is that you're boned if you need a rune that unlocks at level 60 for your build and you have to wait until then for it (how many hours or days of played time there?), especially considering all the runes were supposed to be considered equal in power.
I think the one biggest and easiest modification they can make to the overall system if the runes are truly considered equal in power is to allow the player to pick what rune they unlock for a particular skill as they hit that level required on the way to 60.
I am very disappointed if the runes are set to unlock the way they are based on power.
Mengy
wishes it were bannable to say mean things about Marvel
I'm not sure, but I'd wager that the way we will increase skill (and consequently rune skill) power will be by gear. A wizards off-hand orb that increases Arcane Orb damage by 15%, for example. And higher difficulties will have gear with larger bonuses. Since the rune skills mostly seem to be percentages of skill power, any gear that effects the base skill would also effect rune skills. That's just my guess, it makes sense from a game design standpoint though.
As for the visuals improving with skills, I have no idea. The rune skills change the graphics, but I don't know if the graphics will scale with skill power or not.
I don't really get this argument. They haven't cut out choice at all, in fact they are giving you choice openly and freely. The new system will allow all kinds of builds to exist, and if the rune skills are relatively equal in power as they claim then all creative builds will be both accessible and viable. Frankly that sounds incredible to me as a gamer.
And the argument that some builds aren't possible until late game, well that is what the carrot in front of the leveling curve is all about: progression. Why should every build be available in Act I of normal? It surely wasn't in Diablo II. I would have loved to have a teleporting frozen orb sorceress right at the beginning of the game, but I had to play and earn my way there. This is really not that different?
thetrin
Hail, peons, for I have come as ambassador from the great and bountiful Blueberry Butt Explosion
I loaded up the beta yesterday to check out the changes, and everything seems really rigid now. It's kind of weird.
How does elective mode work? Does it take away the rigidity of this new skill system?
How does elective mode work? Does it take away the rigidity of this new skill system?
Ploid 3.0
Member
It lets you put abilities where you want them. Also it seems like the only way I can equipt runes. I think it should always be on, but it is disabled when you reload apparently.
You do make a good point about the carrot and progression.
With the rune stone system that was in place you would have been able to essentially create any build at level 30 once you unlock all the skills and acquire the necessary runes.
As the rune system currently sits, this won't be the case so the variety in builds as you level up to 60 is more limited than what it was but maybe that is intended since I could see myself being more tempted to try out every new rune as I level up and unlock them.
If I had the choice to cherry pick the rune I unlock then I may be less likely to experiment with the skill runes that didn't interest me as much at first and never really experiment with them.
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
Let's all agree to hang out in the "Witch Doctor Chat" public chat room. It's the very first chat room on the dropdown list. Be careful because there are two of each chatroom, so be sure to pick the first one.
To access the public chat rooms, look at the bottom right corner of the screen, and click the button that has the chat bubble icon. It's the second button from the right. To view a list of members currently in that chat channel, click on the cog icon to the left of the chat channel name, and select "Show Channel Members"
If you are having issues with players' names not showing up correctly, or if you get battletag related errors, your battletag ID might be borked or something. To try to reset it, go to your battlenet account page via your webbrowser, and reset your password. Doing that fixed some issues for me.
To access the public chat rooms, look at the bottom right corner of the screen, and click the button that has the chat bubble icon. It's the second button from the right. To view a list of members currently in that chat channel, click on the cog icon to the left of the chat channel name, and select "Show Channel Members"
If you are having issues with players' names not showing up correctly, or if you get battletag related errors, your battletag ID might be borked or something. To try to reset it, go to your battlenet account page via your webbrowser, and reset your password. Doing that fixed some issues for me.
Pixel Pete
Member
haha, yeah you should. I played over 300 hours of skyrim and still checked for a beta key every day during that time.
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
For some reason, when I look at the status of the offline people in my "recently played with" list, it says that they've all been offline for 369,381 hours and 44 minutes lmao
Fallout-NL
Member
Well, I could have pointed you to these, fairly detailed, impressions I wrote last month. But half of what's in there no longer applies. I think that in itself is pretty telling. Balancing a product prior to release, usually consists of moving a few numbers around, not constantly changing major systems.
On the other hand I do admit that my statement sounds general, because it is. I am not in the best position to judge whether their decisions are good or bad, because what little content there is in the beta doesn't serve as a good indication of how this stuff is going to work. But it does feel like the guys developing this are unsure of themselves. That's simply how this looks to me.
I think the main idea behind these changes was to eliminate build permanence, to be honest. This seems to be the direction Blizzard is headed. They don't want anyone to be stuck with skills that aren't as good before a given boss, so they are eliminating any roadblocks to this.
The 3000 runestones problem seems to be a strawman to divert attention away from this design choice. I just think they should be up front and honest about what they want to do. The previous iteration where there were 35 runestones which didn't lock to a given skill would have worked fine in this regard.
They could have attached a gold sink to pulling runestones out of the slots to add some permanence and avoid the inventory size issue. No skill locking of runestones was ever needed, nor was there ever any explanation given as to why skill locking runes was a good idea.
The 3000 runestones problem seems to be a strawman to divert attention away from this design choice. I just think they should be up front and honest about what they want to do. The previous iteration where there were 35 runestones which didn't lock to a given skill would have worked fine in this regard.
They could have attached a gold sink to pulling runestones out of the slots to add some permanence and avoid the inventory size issue. No skill locking of runestones was ever needed, nor was there ever any explanation given as to why skill locking runes was a good idea.
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
In a way, this is basically like having a character have 120 unique skills (if you consider each rune variant to be its own skill) that gradually unlock until level 60.
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