Notable Blizzard Quotes on the Auction House
Q u o t e:
but it also has the potential to damage the game economy and overall experience for the many thousands of others who play World of Warcraft for fun
Official Blizzard Quote:
We still think that's true for a MMO in which thousands of players co-mingle in a persistent world and vie for supremacy in eSport competitions or 'world first' boss kills in raids. Neither of these are true though for a co-op action RPG.
The worst that could happen is you open your game up to the public, someone jumps in wearing some awesome gear, and you don't know if he found those items himself. But that'd be the case whether we offered an official way to buy items from other players or not.
Q u o t e:
we feel that players can find ample equipment and money for their characters within the game through their own adventuring and questing.
Official Blizzard Quote:
The same is not true for Diablo in which all items are randomized in both affixes and drop chances from all enemies. We know that trading is necessary in Diablo games to build a solid character as you could play forever and still never see a specific item you're after.
Q u o t e:
Yes - but why oh why the 180?
I always thought that Blizzard games were the last bastion of 'no ingame advantage can be bought for real money'.
Bashiok, I am a big fan of yours and generally agree with what you say. But I cannot express my dislike for this new development strongly enough.
Official Blizzard Quote:
Bottom line is people are going to buy those in-game advantages whether we want them to or not. We have a subscription-based game in World of Warcraft and try as we might we still struggle to keep pace with those looking to turn a profit. Why not bring that in-house, make it secure, make it guaranteed, and provide a safe way for players to sell to other players?
This is specifically only a decent idea in our minds for Diablo III because an in-game advantage doesn't mean you steal a world first, or up your arena rating, or edge out in a competition. Diablo III is a co-op game. If you're buying power it's to jump into games and help your buddies kill demons faster, and guess what, they get more drops in less time. In our eyes that's not buying an advantage as a selfish measure, it's really just kicking more ass in co-op games with your friends. It's apples and oranges, if you will, to something like an in-game advantage in a game like World of Warcraft.
Q u o t e:
Okay...I see your point Bashy. But don't you see why so many people are worried?
The introduction of real money into the system means people wanting top tier stuff will pay a fair chunk of RL money.
When the first guy pays 500$ for an item, things start to inflate. Suddenly, casual players or those not willing to buy with their real money are locked out of it. And the inflation will continue.
If there was some way to strictly limit how much an item can be sold for and curb this effect...then maybe. But I can predict that this is going to go all kinds of pear shaped.
Official Blizzard Quote:
We may have upper limits. We may have minimums. Listing fees are flat so it's not in our best interest to let it get away from us. That said, it's supply and demand, and we want this to be a market run by the players. Every rule we impose could upset that and suddenly it's not players setting market values, but Blizzard deciding how it goes. I still think some limits are likely, though.
I have no doubt that the gold auction house will by-far outweigh the real money auction house in scope and amount of items available. The good thing here is that being able to sell gold for real money will naturally keep the gold auction house economy in-check a bit. Not a lot, but it should be helpful.
Q u o t e:
I love how Bashiok comes in here and cherrypicks some random post in which he'll have an answer to, but doesn't really address the RMAH uproar that has divided the community.
Official Blizzard Quote:
The only way to address it would be to say it won't be in the game, or will be sequestered off to separate servers. Neither of which are going to happen. I've given a lot of reasons why we think it's going to be a fun addition to the game, but I'm not going to be able to suddenly change peoples minds. The best I can do is try to correct misinformation, but the facts seems to be known by most, and there are some healthy discussions going on.
And yes, I'm going to cherry pick posts which I have answers to.
It'd be kind of funny though to instead pick posts I don't have answers to.
Notable Blizzard Quotes on the Removal of Skill Points
Q u o t e:
After a lot of thought about all the new systems I'm pretty happy with them, but I have one issue....
From what I've read it seems as though you unlock all of your skill / passive slots by level 30 so what do you gain leveling from there to 60 besides auto-stats and new loot?
It seems likes there is a whole zone where nothing really happens to your character.
Am I missing something here?
Official Blizzard Quote:
You'll have access to all the systems by the end of Normal, but that doesn't mean you're going to scratch the surface with them.
You'll be leveling your artisans, teaching them to make new items, finding higher quality runes, finding higher quality gems, combining gems, finding loot in Nightmare that doesn't drop in Normal, finding loot in Hell that doesn't drop in Nightmare, etc. and really continuing to max out use of each of the available power adjustments.
Plus the need to really tighten up builds, get a good mix of skills, pick the right passives to support them, and gear out in specific directions becomes more and more important as the game gets tougher.
I don't think having to become a better player and invest more in all the game systems is a "deadzone", it's where the game gets challenging.
Q u o t e:
How dumb do you think the average Diablo 3 player will be? I'm posting here on the internet; my fingers are magically finding the keys and forming words which turn into coherent sentences. Did I just blow past the expectations you have set for me?
Official Blizzard Quote:
So you figured out it's better to pump all your points into one or two skills. What a smart gamer you are.
How long do you think it would have taken even bad players to look up on a website that it's the best way to play a game where skills have to scale with more points?
We've been playing the game, we know what skill points were causing, and it was not interesting and unique builds. It was not meaningful customization. It was maxing out a couple skills, and that's it. It was Diablo II. What we have now actually forces people to make interesting choices, to craft interesting builds based on very strict limitations.
One common mistake people are making is thinking all the class skills are straight damaging attack skills, and they pick six of those, and they're on their way. There's no variety because you just pick the most powerful six, and you're done. You can do that, but you're either going to straight up die, run out of resources and waste time dying or running away, or you're going to have to figure out some godly resource regen stacking gear setup. One of those sounds fun, and challenging, which makes even crazy builds like using six straight damage skills potentially viable if you can game it right.
Q u o t e:
The current iteration of the skill system will work just fine. My only concern is the limiteless ability to change skills (either out in the field, or in town) with no cost. I know you said you are taking a "wait and see" approach.
What I am wondering is if you, personally, can say how you feel while out in the world being able to change skills on the fly. Do you come upon a particularly nasty group that this other skill would just be perfect for, so you hang back, grab that skill, then destroy the group?
Maybe my concern with this is unfounded, but I just like the idea of a character build having more permanence.. so a "Whirlwind/Ancient Spear Barbarian" actually means something, instead of what you feel like playing that day. I understand the need to experiment early.. but can't there be a comprimise in that late game build changing could be more restrictive?
Official Blizzard Quote:
I think that someone choosing to hang back and switch up their build for a specific pack is totally possible, but experience shows that it's not something most players want to spend the time to do. And that's more about build identity than min/maxing.
It's far more lucrative and time effective to create a viable build that can deal with a variety of situations, and we also find that players want to create and stick with an identity even if there's the ability to freely swap. It's generally a matter of finding the way you want to play, and fine tuning. And really we're not talking about skills so specific in function that it's going to be that enticing. You're pretty much either killing enemies, or protecting yourself. There's a ton of variety within offense and defense, but I don't think it's so ideal as to make someone stop and switch out their entire build.
Like I said players inherently want to stick with a specific character identity. You're far more likely to see a player sticking with a build and working to become better at it than constantly swapping around. That's not a rule, it's player psychology so there's going to be a wide range of variables, but it's what we have found to be true not only for Diablo III, but a lot of the games out there with similar free-swapping of builds.
Official Blizzard Quote:
I realize there’s a lot of information spread around, I’m hoping to bring some of it to a single post and hopefully get our point across and reassure you that the changes we’re making are for the betterment of character customization options, and ultimately your long-term enjoyment of the game.
So, why did we get rid of skill points?
(Note: this is a supplementary min/max explanation. There are lots of other reasons which have been touched on in the past such as how players approach our game, supporting the idea of builds, observing how players behaved in internal testing, etc. This is just further explanation that I think will resonate with some of you.)
In Diablo III, we really want to improve the combat depth. Part of having combat depth involves having skills that are useful in different situations. In Diablo II players often used a single skill to deal with almost all situations: Blessed Hammer, Frozen Orb and Bone Spirit to name a few. Players invest 20 points into a single skill and use it as much as possible. The only reason a player would swap away from their primary spam skill is due to monster resistances/immunities. If a monster was immune to your primary spam skill, you’d either skip the encounter completely or fall back on a second skill. Neither of these answers provides the player with much combat depth.
To support combat depth, skills need to have different roles. Here is a very simple example:
•Magic Missile deals 15 damage to a single enemy
•Arcane Orb deals area of effect damage for 10 damage each
With these two skills we’re beginning to develop some combat depth for the player. Use Magic Missile when you’re facing one enemy, use Arcane Orb when you’re facing multiple enemies. But you may also want to use Magic Missile if one enemy is a “high priority target” in a group, and you want it to die quickly. In this simplified example players can still defeat a horde of enemies by casting Magic Missile multiple times, or they could defeat a single large enemy by casting Arcane Orb multiple times, but that wouldn’t be as efficient as a player who uses the right skill for the right situation.
Ok so that basic layout of combat depth out of the way!
With skill point spending your skills get better as you invest points into them. The problem is that this destroys combat depth. If after pumping a bunch of points into Magic Missile it now deals 70 damage to a single enemy, assuming my enemies have any reasonable health, then Magic Missile becomes a better choice than Arcane Orb even in group situations. If after pumping a bunch of points into Arcane Orb it now deals 45 damage, then it deals more damage than Magic Missile to single targets. Now rather than using the right skill for the right situation, I’m using the skill I’ve put all my points into. Skill point spending has eroded away combat depth.
Why did we go from 7 skill choices to 6?
(Note: again, this is a supplementary explanation. We’ve gone over some of the other reasons elsewhere, but this is specifically targeted at those of you here who feel strongly that 7 means there would be more build diversity than 6)
Diablo III emphasizes build customization. We feel that 6 skill choices actually creates more build diversity than 7.
Why? Well for any given set of options, the greatest number of combinations exists when the number of choices you can make is close to half the number of options you have. Some of you may remember a high school math problem like this: There are 12 differently colored marbles in a bag. How many different color combinations can you get by choosing X marbles? Well as it turns out the solution for various values of X are:
•1 marble: 12 different color combinations
•2 marbles: 66
•3 marbles: 220
•4 marbles: 495
•5 marbles: 792
•6 marbles: 924
•7 marbles: 792
•8 marbles: 495
•9 marbles: 220
•10 marbles: 66
•11 marbles: 12
•12 marbles: 1 (there’s only 1 way to choose 12 marbles from the 12 in the bag)
The greatest number of possible combinations happens when you are choosing 6 from a possible 12.
You may be asking what 12 has to do with anything as classes all have over 20 skills available to them...
This is true in theory, but in practice players tend to (and really should) pick up skills to fill different roles so they can be effective. Categories such as single target, area of effect, auto-targeting, debuff, defensive, group buff, escape, crowd control, 2-minute ubers, pet skills, etc. etc. Players generally take at most two (and often one) skill to fill any particular role. For example, the Wizard has Ice Armor, Storm Armor and Energy Armor, but I don’t think anyone is going to take all three (though maybe somebody will take that as a challenge and prove me wrong), most players will choose one Wizard Armor spell (note that this can change dramatically with some rune effects). If we look at each class, depending on how you count, you get anywhere from 8-12 different types of skills. So we err on the high side in our category estimate (12) and that means 6 is a pretty good number to maximize build variety.
It's important to note that we’re not just talking about you and your friend having Wizards with slightly different skills, we’re talking about you and your friend having 6 skills that are different in functionally significant ways.
Closing remark! When we pull math out like this I’m sure somebody will point out that if our only objective was to maximize build combinations we’d have allowed people to also choose 6, 7 or 8 passives rather than just 3. So I’ll counter by saying maximizing build combinations is not our only objective. We also want our system to have aesthetic flavor, to be simple to understand, and to have the passives in particular feel impactful. We have many different goals that we take into account when making any design decision. In the case of active skills, we felt the increase in variety was one of many good reasons to go from 7 to 6.
So how many skill combinations are there now?
Well taking into account 6 active skills, all the rune combinations, and 3 passives we currently expect each class to have roughly 2,285,814,795,264 different build combinations. That’s not taking into account skill types for ‘ideal’ builds, but that’s always been a big part of the fun of experimenting (and longevity for Diablo II) - finding a build that shouldn’t work, and making it.
Notable Blizzard Quotes on the Possilbe Rune Changes
Official Blizzard Quote:
Personally, I love it, and hope it finds a way in.
I'm not so sure about rolling to see which rune effect you get (it could still work), but I *love* the idea of random affixes. That you could have a end-rank rune for the skill you want, with the effect you want, but you still don't have ideal stats on it. That just makes the min/max item hunt that much cooler, and makes runes more important than... "Oh, I found another Crimson rune. Great. /salvage"
Q u o t e:
Yeah, but it makes it harder for me to see everything that could potentially be on my rune. I won't know what "perfect" is without digging into the game and even then, what are the chances of me getting the rune I want.
I don't like the random aspect of this part, I feel like randomizing my skills isn't a great way to go :(.
Official Blizzard Quote:
Pretty unlikely you won't know what's available with an auction house at your finger tips.
And if we're just talking about affixes, we're talking about min/maxing. You're going to know what affixes you want because you're already pretty deep into your build.
I don't expect a new character to pick up a rune, roll affixes, and then throw it away because "ew it has attack instead of defense". Probably not going to care much early on.
Q u o t e:
Ya, I suppose that's definitely true. But you also have to take into account that it'll be randomizing the type of rune as well, correct? So I only have a 20% chance of getting the rune I want, regardless of whatever affix is added.
Maybe if each rune type dropped instead of "unattuned" runes, then I'd at least be able to get the rune I want and hope I get a good affix on it.
Official Blizzard Quote:
Well, like I said I don't know if that part of it will work out... I just want the randomized affixes. Makes runes so much more compelling as an item.
Q u o t e:
I'm confused as to why this was put into place... I have the idea, but it seemed like the 'faced' rune system was better, since we got to know what it was.
The 'defaced' system feels kinda sketchy, and it would seem that some people might not understand that
New player: "oh hey a rank 1 rune"
*socket*
New Player: "neat. does this now"
*kills stuff, finds another rune*
New Player: "oh rank 2? I'll upgrade it then"
*sockets rank 2 rune into previously socketed skill*
New Player: "Hey, how come it's not doing the same thing? now it's doing something totally different? Is it the rank? What is this "multi-shot" thing? It gave me bonuses? Now this rank 2 rune gives a different bonus, and does a different effect?"
*goes into general global channel*
New Player: "HOW DO RUNES WORK!?!?! Someone help! I've found all these runes but it keeps changing my skill around!"
Official Blizzard Quote:
That sounds about right. Well, like he said it's still just hallway discussions at this point.
B.net Features / Banners / Class Crests / Interviews
Notable Blizzard Quote on the 10 Character Limit
Q u o t e:
Basically you dont ever have to level a new character.
Official Blizzard Quote:
You knew that was the case with respecs. Funny enough, even with respecs, leveling characters is fun. There are plenty of games with respecs where people will level many, many characters of the same class, just for the fun of it. And without anything really 'tied' to a character, it's easy enough to dump all items to the shared stash, delete the character, and start a new one.
I will say though it's one area where we're definitely open to expanding, it just seemed like a decent number to go with for now.
Let me know if I have missed somthing or if you feel somthing should be added / taken away in the comments below. Thank you!
-Added DiabloDaily's breakdown of the Battle.net screenshots
-Added Doomscream's comprehensive list of interviews
-Added Doomscream's Ultimate list of Skills and Passives / with pictures
-Added Diablo Cast XX - Discussion of all the topics
-Added Winged's news post on PvP in Diablo 3
I also did a quick rundown video of the Battlenet UI: here (not to compete at all with Force, I love that guy!). But it does go over the screenshots we were given in greater detail.
I also did a quick rundown video of the Battlenet UI: here (not to compete at all with Force, I love that guy!). But it does go over the screenshots we were given in greater detail.
Awesome! I hadn't seen that yet! Added it **EDIT** up at the top In the section on Battle.net features.
Very good job that's some sick dedication you have there, sir.
Please sticky this before it gets trolled by the RMAH haters.
The only one trolling so far is you by preemptively flaming people because of their opinion on a game feature. Yes, some of them are very impolite in expressing their opinion, and I may not agree with what they preach but I'll defend forever their right to say it. Why does everything nowadays on the internet is "trolling"? People don't understand that overusing the expression for everything you don't agree with will make it lose its true meaning?
For the record, I was totally against it, not for your ordinary "the rich will own me" reason, but for reasons of my own - but I'm now convinced it might not backfire as hard as I anticipated.
Sixen's News Post - The Press Event
Diablo Cast XX - Force, Sixen and Tempest Discuss all the August 1st Info
The Auction House
The Press Kit Screen Shots of the Auction House
PhrozenDragon's News Post Explaining the Auction House
Force's Auction House Announcemnet Video
Diablo Cast Live 8/3 - Good Discusion About the Auction House
Official Blizzard Overview of the Auction House
Official Blizzard FAQ on the Auction House
Notable Blizzard Quotes on the Auction House
Q u o t e:
but it also has the potential to damage the game economy and overall experience for the many thousands of others who play World of Warcraft for fun
Official Blizzard Quote:
We still think that's true for a MMO in which thousands of players co-mingle in a persistent world and vie for supremacy in eSport competitions or 'world first' boss kills in raids. Neither of these are true though for a co-op action RPG.
The worst that could happen is you open your game up to the public, someone jumps in wearing some awesome gear, and you don't know if he found those items himself. But that'd be the case whether we offered an official way to buy items from other players or not.
we feel that players can find ample equipment and money for their characters within the game through their own adventuring and questing.
Official Blizzard Quote:
The same is not true for Diablo in which all items are randomized in both affixes and drop chances from all enemies. We know that trading is necessary in Diablo games to build a solid character as you could play forever and still never see a specific item you're after.
Yes - but why oh why the 180?
I always thought that Blizzard games were the last bastion of 'no ingame advantage can be bought for real money'.
Bashiok, I am a big fan of yours and generally agree with what you say. But I cannot express my dislike for this new development strongly enough.
Official Blizzard Quote:
Bottom line is people are going to buy those in-game advantages whether we want them to or not. We have a subscription-based game in World of Warcraft and try as we might we still struggle to keep pace with those looking to turn a profit. Why not bring that in-house, make it secure, make it guaranteed, and provide a safe way for players to sell to other players?
This is specifically only a decent idea in our minds for Diablo III because an in-game advantage doesn't mean you steal a world first, or up your arena rating, or edge out in a competition. Diablo III is a co-op game. If you're buying power it's to jump into games and help your buddies kill demons faster, and guess what, they get more drops in less time. In our eyes that's not buying an advantage as a selfish measure, it's really just kicking more ass in co-op games with your friends. It's apples and oranges, if you will, to something like an in-game advantage in a game like World of Warcraft.
Okay...I see your point Bashy. But don't you see why so many people are worried?
The introduction of real money into the system means people wanting top tier stuff will pay a fair chunk of RL money.
When the first guy pays 500$ for an item, things start to inflate. Suddenly, casual players or those not willing to buy with their real money are locked out of it. And the inflation will continue.
If there was some way to strictly limit how much an item can be sold for and curb this effect...then maybe. But I can predict that this is going to go all kinds of pear shaped.
Official Blizzard Quote:
We may have upper limits. We may have minimums. Listing fees are flat so it's not in our best interest to let it get away from us. That said, it's supply and demand, and we want this to be a market run by the players. Every rule we impose could upset that and suddenly it's not players setting market values, but Blizzard deciding how it goes. I still think some limits are likely, though.
I have no doubt that the gold auction house will by-far outweigh the real money auction house in scope and amount of items available. The good thing here is that being able to sell gold for real money will naturally keep the gold auction house economy in-check a bit. Not a lot, but it should be helpful.
Q u o t e:
I love how Bashiok comes in here and cherrypicks some random post in which he'll have an answer to, but doesn't really address the RMAH uproar that has divided the community.
Official Blizzard Quote:
The only way to address it would be to say it won't be in the game, or will be sequestered off to separate servers. Neither of which are going to happen. I've given a lot of reasons why we think it's going to be a fun addition to the game, but I'm not going to be able to suddenly change peoples minds. The best I can do is try to correct misinformation, but the facts seems to be known by most, and there are some healthy discussions going on.
And yes, I'm going to cherry pick posts which I have answers to.
It'd be kind of funny though to instead pick posts I don't have answers to.
Skill System Changes / No More Skill Points
Force and Sixen - First Reaction
Force's Video - Jay Wilson explains the skill change
Magistrate's News Post on the Removal of Skill Points
Notable Blizzard Quotes on the Removal of Skill Points
Q u o t e:
After a lot of thought about all the new systems I'm pretty happy with them, but I have one issue....
From what I've read it seems as though you unlock all of your skill / passive slots by level 30 so what do you gain leveling from there to 60 besides auto-stats and new loot?
It seems likes there is a whole zone where nothing really happens to your character.
Am I missing something here?
Official Blizzard Quote:
You'll have access to all the systems by the end of Normal, but that doesn't mean you're going to scratch the surface with them.
You'll be leveling your artisans, teaching them to make new items, finding higher quality runes, finding higher quality gems, combining gems, finding loot in Nightmare that doesn't drop in Normal, finding loot in Hell that doesn't drop in Nightmare, etc. and really continuing to max out use of each of the available power adjustments.
Plus the need to really tighten up builds, get a good mix of skills, pick the right passives to support them, and gear out in specific directions becomes more and more important as the game gets tougher.
I don't think having to become a better player and invest more in all the game systems is a "deadzone", it's where the game gets challenging.
How dumb do you think the average Diablo 3 player will be? I'm posting here on the internet; my fingers are magically finding the keys and forming words which turn into coherent sentences. Did I just blow past the expectations you have set for me?
Official Blizzard Quote:
So you figured out it's better to pump all your points into one or two skills. What a smart gamer you are.
How long do you think it would have taken even bad players to look up on a website that it's the best way to play a game where skills have to scale with more points?
We've been playing the game, we know what skill points were causing, and it was not interesting and unique builds. It was not meaningful customization. It was maxing out a couple skills, and that's it. It was Diablo II. What we have now actually forces people to make interesting choices, to craft interesting builds based on very strict limitations.
One common mistake people are making is thinking all the class skills are straight damaging attack skills, and they pick six of those, and they're on their way. There's no variety because you just pick the most powerful six, and you're done. You can do that, but you're either going to straight up die, run out of resources and waste time dying or running away, or you're going to have to figure out some godly resource regen stacking gear setup. One of those sounds fun, and challenging, which makes even crazy builds like using six straight damage skills potentially viable if you can game it right.
The current iteration of the skill system will work just fine. My only concern is the limiteless ability to change skills (either out in the field, or in town) with no cost. I know you said you are taking a "wait and see" approach.
What I am wondering is if you, personally, can say how you feel while out in the world being able to change skills on the fly. Do you come upon a particularly nasty group that this other skill would just be perfect for, so you hang back, grab that skill, then destroy the group?
Maybe my concern with this is unfounded, but I just like the idea of a character build having more permanence.. so a "Whirlwind/Ancient Spear Barbarian" actually means something, instead of what you feel like playing that day. I understand the need to experiment early.. but can't there be a comprimise in that late game build changing could be more restrictive?
Official Blizzard Quote:
I think that someone choosing to hang back and switch up their build for a specific pack is totally possible, but experience shows that it's not something most players want to spend the time to do. And that's more about build identity than min/maxing.
It's far more lucrative and time effective to create a viable build that can deal with a variety of situations, and we also find that players want to create and stick with an identity even if there's the ability to freely swap. It's generally a matter of finding the way you want to play, and fine tuning. And really we're not talking about skills so specific in function that it's going to be that enticing. You're pretty much either killing enemies, or protecting yourself. There's a ton of variety within offense and defense, but I don't think it's so ideal as to make someone stop and switch out their entire build.
Like I said players inherently want to stick with a specific character identity. You're far more likely to see a player sticking with a build and working to become better at it than constantly swapping around. That's not a rule, it's player psychology so there's going to be a wide range of variables, but it's what we have found to be true not only for Diablo III, but a lot of the games out there with similar free-swapping of builds.
Official Blizzard Quote:
I realize there’s a lot of information spread around, I’m hoping to bring some of it to a single post and hopefully get our point across and reassure you that the changes we’re making are for the betterment of character customization options, and ultimately your long-term enjoyment of the game.
So, why did we get rid of skill points?
(Note: this is a supplementary min/max explanation. There are lots of other reasons which have been touched on in the past such as how players approach our game, supporting the idea of builds, observing how players behaved in internal testing, etc. This is just further explanation that I think will resonate with some of you.)
In Diablo III, we really want to improve the combat depth. Part of having combat depth involves having skills that are useful in different situations. In Diablo II players often used a single skill to deal with almost all situations: Blessed Hammer, Frozen Orb and Bone Spirit to name a few. Players invest 20 points into a single skill and use it as much as possible. The only reason a player would swap away from their primary spam skill is due to monster resistances/immunities. If a monster was immune to your primary spam skill, you’d either skip the encounter completely or fall back on a second skill. Neither of these answers provides the player with much combat depth.
To support combat depth, skills need to have different roles. Here is a very simple example:
•Magic Missile deals 15 damage to a single enemy
•Arcane Orb deals area of effect damage for 10 damage each
With these two skills we’re beginning to develop some combat depth for the player. Use Magic Missile when you’re facing one enemy, use Arcane Orb when you’re facing multiple enemies. But you may also want to use Magic Missile if one enemy is a “high priority target” in a group, and you want it to die quickly. In this simplified example players can still defeat a horde of enemies by casting Magic Missile multiple times, or they could defeat a single large enemy by casting Arcane Orb multiple times, but that wouldn’t be as efficient as a player who uses the right skill for the right situation.
Ok so that basic layout of combat depth out of the way!
With skill point spending your skills get better as you invest points into them. The problem is that this destroys combat depth. If after pumping a bunch of points into Magic Missile it now deals 70 damage to a single enemy, assuming my enemies have any reasonable health, then Magic Missile becomes a better choice than Arcane Orb even in group situations. If after pumping a bunch of points into Arcane Orb it now deals 45 damage, then it deals more damage than Magic Missile to single targets. Now rather than using the right skill for the right situation, I’m using the skill I’ve put all my points into. Skill point spending has eroded away combat depth.
Why did we go from 7 skill choices to 6?
(Note: again, this is a supplementary explanation. We’ve gone over some of the other reasons elsewhere, but this is specifically targeted at those of you here who feel strongly that 7 means there would be more build diversity than 6)
Diablo III emphasizes build customization. We feel that 6 skill choices actually creates more build diversity than 7.
Why? Well for any given set of options, the greatest number of combinations exists when the number of choices you can make is close to half the number of options you have. Some of you may remember a high school math problem like this: There are 12 differently colored marbles in a bag. How many different color combinations can you get by choosing X marbles? Well as it turns out the solution for various values of X are:
•1 marble: 12 different color combinations
•2 marbles: 66
•3 marbles: 220
•4 marbles: 495
•5 marbles: 792
•6 marbles: 924
•7 marbles: 792
•8 marbles: 495
•9 marbles: 220
•10 marbles: 66
•11 marbles: 12
•12 marbles: 1 (there’s only 1 way to choose 12 marbles from the 12 in the bag)
The greatest number of possible combinations happens when you are choosing 6 from a possible 12.
You may be asking what 12 has to do with anything as classes all have over 20 skills available to them...
This is true in theory, but in practice players tend to (and really should) pick up skills to fill different roles so they can be effective. Categories such as single target, area of effect, auto-targeting, debuff, defensive, group buff, escape, crowd control, 2-minute ubers, pet skills, etc. etc. Players generally take at most two (and often one) skill to fill any particular role. For example, the Wizard has Ice Armor, Storm Armor and Energy Armor, but I don’t think anyone is going to take all three (though maybe somebody will take that as a challenge and prove me wrong), most players will choose one Wizard Armor spell (note that this can change dramatically with some rune effects). If we look at each class, depending on how you count, you get anywhere from 8-12 different types of skills. So we err on the high side in our category estimate (12) and that means 6 is a pretty good number to maximize build variety.
It's important to note that we’re not just talking about you and your friend having Wizards with slightly different skills, we’re talking about you and your friend having 6 skills that are different in functionally significant ways.
Closing remark! When we pull math out like this I’m sure somebody will point out that if our only objective was to maximize build combinations we’d have allowed people to also choose 6, 7 or 8 passives rather than just 3. So I’ll counter by saying maximizing build combinations is not our only objective. We also want our system to have aesthetic flavor, to be simple to understand, and to have the passives in particular feel impactful. We have many different goals that we take into account when making any design decision. In the case of active skills, we felt the increase in variety was one of many good reasons to go from 7 to 6.
So how many skill combinations are there now?
Well taking into account 6 active skills, all the rune combinations, and 3 passives we currently expect each class to have roughly 2,285,814,795,264 different build combinations. That’s not taking into account skill types for ‘ideal’ builds, but that’s always been a big part of the fun of experimenting (and longevity for Diablo II) - finding a build that shouldn’t work, and making it.
Always Online???
Gameplanet Interview - Jay Wilson Talks About Always Online
Possible Rune System Changes
Force's Video - Jay Wilson on Possible Rune Changes
Kickin_It's News Post on the Possible Rune Changes
Notable Blizzard Quotes on the Possilbe Rune Changes
Official Blizzard Quote:
Personally, I love it, and hope it finds a way in.
I'm not so sure about rolling to see which rune effect you get (it could still work), but I *love* the idea of random affixes. That you could have a end-rank rune for the skill you want, with the effect you want, but you still don't have ideal stats on it. That just makes the min/max item hunt that much cooler, and makes runes more important than... "Oh, I found another Crimson rune. Great. /salvage"
Yeah, but it makes it harder for me to see everything that could potentially be on my rune. I won't know what "perfect" is without digging into the game and even then, what are the chances of me getting the rune I want.
I don't like the random aspect of this part, I feel like randomizing my skills isn't a great way to go :(.
Official Blizzard Quote:
Pretty unlikely you won't know what's available with an auction house at your finger tips.
And if we're just talking about affixes, we're talking about min/maxing. You're going to know what affixes you want because you're already pretty deep into your build.
I don't expect a new character to pick up a rune, roll affixes, and then throw it away because "ew it has attack instead of defense". Probably not going to care much early on.
Ya, I suppose that's definitely true. But you also have to take into account that it'll be randomizing the type of rune as well, correct? So I only have a 20% chance of getting the rune I want, regardless of whatever affix is added.
Maybe if each rune type dropped instead of "unattuned" runes, then I'd at least be able to get the rune I want and hope I get a good affix on it.
Official Blizzard Quote:
Well, like I said I don't know if that part of it will work out... I just want the randomized affixes. Makes runes so much more compelling as an item.
I'm confused as to why this was put into place... I have the idea, but it seemed like the 'faced' rune system was better, since we got to know what it was.
The 'defaced' system feels kinda sketchy, and it would seem that some people might not understand that
New player: "oh hey a rank 1 rune"
*socket*
New Player: "neat. does this now"
*kills stuff, finds another rune*
New Player: "oh rank 2? I'll upgrade it then"
*sockets rank 2 rune into previously socketed skill*
New Player: "Hey, how come it's not doing the same thing? now it's doing something totally different? Is it the rank? What is this "multi-shot" thing? It gave me bonuses? Now this rank 2 rune gives a different bonus, and does a different effect?"
*goes into general global channel*
New Player: "HOW DO RUNES WORK!?!?! Someone help! I've found all these runes but it keeps changing my skill around!"
Official Blizzard Quote:
That sounds about right. Well, like he said it's still just hallway discussions at this point.
B.net Features / Banners / Class Crests / Interviews
Force's Video - Battle.net Features Overview
Gametrailers Rob Pardo Interview - Battle.net Features
Doomscream's Post - Comprehenesive List of Blizzard Interviews / QAs
CherubDown-DiabloDaily's Breakdown of the Press Kit Photos
Press Kit Screen Shots - Banners, Battle.net Features
Force's Video - Class Crests
Press Kit Screen Shots - Class Crests
Near Full List of All Skills and Passives
Doomscream's Post - The Ultimate List of Passive and Active Skills - With Pictures
PvP / Arena Changes
Force's Video - Jay Wilson Explains Diablo 3's Direction for PvP
Winged's News Post - PvP in Diablo 3 - Lots of Blue Quotes
10 Character Limit?
Notable Blizzard Quote on the 10 Character Limit
Q u o t e:
Basically you dont ever have to level a new character.
Official Blizzard Quote:
You knew that was the case with respecs. Funny enough, even with respecs, leveling characters is fun. There are plenty of games with respecs where people will level many, many characters of the same class, just for the fun of it. And without anything really 'tied' to a character, it's easy enough to dump all items to the shared stash, delete the character, and start a new one.
I will say though it's one area where we're definitely open to expanding, it just seemed like a decent number to go with for now.
Beta Info
Magistrate's Beta News Post - The Purpose of the Beta
ScyberDragon's News Post - UPDATE YOUR BETA PROFILE
Force's Video - Beta Gameplay
Force's Video - Beta Screenshots
Blizzard's Official Overview of the Beta
Blizzard's Official FAQ about the Beta
Let me know if I have missed somthing or if you feel somthing should be added / taken away in the comments below. Thank you!
-Added DiabloDaily's breakdown of the Battle.net screenshots
-Added Doomscream's comprehensive list of interviews
-Added Doomscream's Ultimate list of Skills and Passives / with pictures
-Added Diablo Cast XX - Discussion of all the topics
-Added Winged's news post on PvP in Diablo 3
I also did a quick rundown video of the Battlenet UI: here (not to compete at all with Force, I love that guy!). But it does go over the screenshots we were given in greater detail.
Awesome! I hadn't seen that yet! Added it **EDIT**
up at the topIn the section on Battle.net features.The only one trolling so far is you by preemptively flaming people because of their opinion on a game feature. Yes, some of them are very impolite in expressing their opinion, and I may not agree with what they preach but I'll defend forever their right to say it. Why does everything nowadays on the internet is "trolling"? People don't understand that overusing the expression for everything you don't agree with will make it lose its true meaning?
For the record, I was totally against it, not for your ordinary "the rich will own me" reason, but for reasons of my own - but I'm now convinced it might not backfire as hard as I anticipated.
yes, sticky!
Font colors are painful, but good job putting this together.
And stickied. Good job there with this summary!