So I posted this on Diablo 3's official forums but it got completely buried in seconds, so lets see what Diablofans thinks of it.
1.0.5 introduced a lot of extra variants in the way Diablo 3 can be played right from the beginning, but there is plenty left in the game that can be added or tweaked to really bring the game alive. Here are some things can be tweaked or added to bring more life and variance into the game:
Elemental What?
Elemental affects have been completely removed from the game on weapons (except cold) and it’s a real shame because now we have all these fancy effects that might as well be categorized as +physical damage instead of the elements themselves. While the damage is still around, the effects of those damages are all that remains from the system that could really help differentiate the bonuses from each of the element types and assist in skill synergies (on weapons only). Here are some suggestions:
Fire – On critical hit has an X% chance to set your weapon ablaze, increasing weapon damage by % of current weapon damage.
Lightning – Fires a chain lightning effect that randomly hits 4-5 targets for X% weapon damage instantly.
Poison – Creates a poison cloud at the point of impact that deals X% (highest) weapon damage over <8-10 secs> while the enemy is in its effect (synergizes with slowing skills and tank style classes)
Holy - % Chance on strike to be granted a physical damage shield (damage absorbed set by level)
Arcane – % Chance on strike to create a single arcane orb that revolves around the target and explodes on contact for X% (10-15%) damage to enemies in a 8 yard range. If after 10 seconds an orb doesn’t strike an enemy, they will implode on the orbiting target for X% (45-55%) damage. Orbs stack up to 3.
Of course these changes would increase the overall damage a player will be able to output, so DPS could be adjusted depending on the effect granted to the weapon itself, so the damage wouldn’t receive any kind of additional damage, but instead would be balanced so the only benefit is the effect itself, instead of the increased DPS.
The Existence of the Auto Attack
Whether we use it or not, the auto attack is going to be in the game, so I say we put some use to it. While the UI may not support adding other classes abilities into the game, the auto attack (which all classes have) takes up an icon space when we don’t have an ability equipped to that slot. So let’s change it and add class abilities instead.
The change will focus on a new affix added to unique, or set items (as a set bonus or an individual piece) granting the ability to use another classes skill. The skill itself will properly translate to another classes resource system and the skill itself will be rune specific… but here is the catch: the rune will be the randomized property, and so would the assigned damage. You can have as many pieces of gear that grant you another classes ability as you want, but you may only use 1 at a time (as it takes up your auto-attack.. and you’ve only got one of those).
For example: The Azurewrath legendary sword would give the user the wizard skill Spectral Blade, but there would be a chance on drop that the sword gives you Deep Cuts, Impactful Blades, Siphoned Blade, Healing Blade, or Thrown Blade, and for each of those rune abilities the amount of damage it would give you would vary. So if it rolled Deep Cuts for example, the damage allocated would vary on Spectral Blade ( 140-165% weapon damage) and also the rune property (30-45% bleed damage.)
How will we work out the resources requirement?
The resource requirement (or granted resource) will translate on a % based system depending on the cost of the skill compared to the BASE amount of resource the owning class has, and it will reflected by the amount of total resource (augmented or not) the receiving character will get. For example:
Resource Spender: Impale costs 25 out of 125 Hatred, which means it will costs 20% of a resource pool to cast. If a Witch Doctor has 950 Mana and uses an item that gives him Impale, it will cost him 190 Mana to cast. If a Barbarian has 100 Max fury it will cost him 20 fury to cast. (so and on so forth).
Resource Generators: Will follow the standard 3-6% resource generation depending on the class. For example if a Monk uses cleave (which generates 5 Fury out of 120 fury, that is 4% total generation), it would generate 4% of 150 spirit (not affected by passives or gear), thus generating 6 spirit a hit. If a wizard would use cleave however, it would cost nothing and gain nothing due to the nature of the class itself.
Although specific animations for each of these skills would be nice, it is not realistic to expect it and therefore all abilities translated from other classes would use the basic auto-attack animation to cast that ability.
There are other idea’s I have but I think these are two of my best, so if it goes well I may post others to see what other people think. In the mean time, tell me what you think of these changes and maybe what you would add to the game to spice it up for you.
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1.0.5 introduced a lot of extra variants in the way Diablo 3 can be played right from the beginning, but there is plenty left in the game that can be added or tweaked to really bring the game alive. Here are some things can be tweaked or added to bring more life and variance into the game:
Elemental What?
Elemental affects have been completely removed from the game on weapons (except cold) and it’s a real shame because now we have all these fancy effects that might as well be categorized as +physical damage instead of the elements themselves. While the damage is still around, the effects of those damages are all that remains from the system that could really help differentiate the bonuses from each of the element types and assist in skill synergies (on weapons only). Here are some suggestions:
Fire – On critical hit has an X% chance to set your weapon ablaze, increasing weapon damage by % of current weapon damage.
Lightning – Fires a chain lightning effect that randomly hits 4-5 targets for X% weapon damage instantly.
Poison – Creates a poison cloud at the point of impact that deals X% (highest) weapon damage over <8-10 secs> while the enemy is in its effect (synergizes with slowing skills and tank style classes)
Holy - % Chance on strike to be granted a physical damage shield (damage absorbed set by level)
Arcane – % Chance on strike to create a single arcane orb that revolves around the target and explodes on contact for X% (10-15%) damage to enemies in a 8 yard range. If after 10 seconds an orb doesn’t strike an enemy, they will implode on the orbiting target for X% (45-55%) damage. Orbs stack up to 3.
Of course these changes would increase the overall damage a player will be able to output, so DPS could be adjusted depending on the effect granted to the weapon itself, so the damage wouldn’t receive any kind of additional damage, but instead would be balanced so the only benefit is the effect itself, instead of the increased DPS.
The Existence of the Auto Attack
Whether we use it or not, the auto attack is going to be in the game, so I say we put some use to it. While the UI may not support adding other classes abilities into the game, the auto attack (which all classes have) takes up an icon space when we don’t have an ability equipped to that slot. So let’s change it and add class abilities instead.
The change will focus on a new affix added to unique, or set items (as a set bonus or an individual piece) granting the ability to use another classes skill. The skill itself will properly translate to another classes resource system and the skill itself will be rune specific… but here is the catch: the rune will be the randomized property, and so would the assigned damage. You can have as many pieces of gear that grant you another classes ability as you want, but you may only use 1 at a time (as it takes up your auto-attack.. and you’ve only got one of those).
For example: The Azurewrath legendary sword would give the user the wizard skill Spectral Blade, but there would be a chance on drop that the sword gives you Deep Cuts, Impactful Blades, Siphoned Blade, Healing Blade, or Thrown Blade, and for each of those rune abilities the amount of damage it would give you would vary. So if it rolled Deep Cuts for example, the damage allocated would vary on Spectral Blade ( 140-165% weapon damage) and also the rune property (30-45% bleed damage.)
How will we work out the resources requirement?
The resource requirement (or granted resource) will translate on a % based system depending on the cost of the skill compared to the BASE amount of resource the owning class has, and it will reflected by the amount of total resource (augmented or not) the receiving character will get. For example:
Resource Spender: Impale costs 25 out of 125 Hatred, which means it will costs 20% of a resource pool to cast. If a Witch Doctor has 950 Mana and uses an item that gives him Impale, it will cost him 190 Mana to cast. If a Barbarian has 100 Max fury it will cost him 20 fury to cast. (so and on so forth).
Resource Generators: Will follow the standard 3-6% resource generation depending on the class. For example if a Monk uses cleave (which generates 5 Fury out of 120 fury, that is 4% total generation), it would generate 4% of 150 spirit (not affected by passives or gear), thus generating 6 spirit a hit. If a wizard would use cleave however, it would cost nothing and gain nothing due to the nature of the class itself.
Although specific animations for each of these skills would be nice, it is not realistic to expect it and therefore all abilities translated from other classes would use the basic auto-attack animation to cast that ability.
There are other idea’s I have but I think these are two of my best, so if it goes well I may post others to see what other people think. In the mean time, tell me what you think of these changes and maybe what you would add to the game to spice it up for you.