So, Bastion is an ARPG available on XBox Live (and soon coming to PC). It's a fantastic little game, with a fascinating storytelling aspect to it - there's a narrator that chimes in as you do various things in game. But the part that interests me compared to D3 is the "skill" system.
In Bastion, as you progress in game, you gain new weapons which do different types of attack. A hammer that has a medium melee range and does a lot of damage. A short range quick blade that can also be thrown. A flamethrower. Dueling pistols. And so on. By the end there are 10 available weapons, but only two slots available to use for them. You can swap in and out between sections (and sometimes during a section of gameplay). This seems a close parallel to how D3's skills will work, except D3 will have a lot more.
But wait, there's more. Each weapon can be upgraded 5 times by finding a special upgrade piece. And when you upgrade, you can choose between column A and column B for each weapon. So for the flamethrower, for example, upgrade 1 might be a choice between spreading the width of the cone and doing more damage. Upgrade 2 might be between a crit upgrade and getting damage reduction while spraying flame. Feels like a limited version of what runes will do.
And there are also passive skills in Bastion (called spirits) where 1 slot opens up per level and you have around 20 to choose from. You can swap out passives for other passives throughout the game.
So my point is that I think Bastion besides being a very good game in its own right, would be a good precursor for someone to play if they wanted to get a feel for how the very basics of a D3-like skill system will work out. I love being able to swap out skills in Bastion. It creates a lot of flexibility. And it creates a replayability factor that I haven't seen anyone mention. Oftentimes, after playing a part with 2 weapons, I think to myself, "I wonder how that would have played with two different ones." I can see myself in D3 going back to play certain sections with different skills just to see how it would have played differently.
Anyway, Bastion is like $14.99 on XBox Live and totally worth the cash if you need something to play while we wait the long days until the beta releases.
In Bastion, as you progress in game, you gain new weapons which do different types of attack. A hammer that has a medium melee range and does a lot of damage. A short range quick blade that can also be thrown. A flamethrower. Dueling pistols. And so on. By the end there are 10 available weapons, but only two slots available to use for them. You can swap in and out between sections (and sometimes during a section of gameplay). This seems a close parallel to how D3's skills will work, except D3 will have a lot more.
But wait, there's more. Each weapon can be upgraded 5 times by finding a special upgrade piece. And when you upgrade, you can choose between column A and column B for each weapon. So for the flamethrower, for example, upgrade 1 might be a choice between spreading the width of the cone and doing more damage. Upgrade 2 might be between a crit upgrade and getting damage reduction while spraying flame. Feels like a limited version of what runes will do.
And there are also passive skills in Bastion (called spirits) where 1 slot opens up per level and you have around 20 to choose from. You can swap out passives for other passives throughout the game.
So my point is that I think Bastion besides being a very good game in its own right, would be a good precursor for someone to play if they wanted to get a feel for how the very basics of a D3-like skill system will work out. I love being able to swap out skills in Bastion. It creates a lot of flexibility. And it creates a replayability factor that I haven't seen anyone mention. Oftentimes, after playing a part with 2 weapons, I think to myself, "I wonder how that would have played with two different ones." I can see myself in D3 going back to play certain sections with different skills just to see how it would have played differently.
Anyway, Bastion is like $14.99 on XBox Live and totally worth the cash if you need something to play while we wait the long days until the beta releases.