I'm hearing a lot about how the game is trying to "dumb it down"
But I think a point that some people aren't seeing is that, aside from inventory issues, the Runestone system was going to end up being a frustrating and ultimately non-rewarding element of the game. Just imagine leveling your character all the way to the Max while still not being able to make the most of your skills. As for the auction house, forget it. High level runes would be available, of course. But their pricing would have been ridiculous. It would have come down to the (realistic) situation of saying "Well, I have played this game for 50+ hours since release, and I still haven't found a level X rune". You hop on to the auction house, and whadya know, there IS one. Except it will cost you XX amount of gold (or RM), and you have to make that judgment of "Is it worth it?".
All this to just try a skill at a certain power?
No thank you. There is loot-finding, and then there is just grinding away to find something that should be a relatively basic part of your character. Loot will always be a major part of this game, difficult to find rune trinkets should not be.
The way it seems now, is that every level will reward you in one (or more) ways. You will immediately feel more powerful. And you should be reaching lvl 60 when? End of Nightmare? End of Hell? Man that is a lot of playtime before you are in a situation where loot is the only way to upgrade your character.
Anyways sorry for the rant, but I definitely see the point of this.
Really bummed they got rid of runestones, but I understand their reasoning. Lots of issues in the old system such as not being able to find the rune you need for the build you want and having to lug around piles of runestones.
There's a lot of fixes they could have implemented I suppose, but having a key character customization aspect tied to drops isn't very fun. Essentially you'd find all the runes you need sooner or later, (likely sooner) and by that point you're throwing out runes left and right. They could have put affixes on the runes perhaps, but that's not really the most exciting form of customization. i.e.: +3% Firebats damage. Wow. Cool. (I think hardcore Diablo 2 nostalgics would have loved this though, lol) The important aspect was the major and meaningful affect each rune had on a skill, and that's still alive and well.
But still! Finding runes to socket into skills was just so cool!
Could they not just make runes universal? we don't need rainbow skittles dropping everywhere, just different tiered skittles.
I think the problem here would be you'd be limited by the highest ranked runes you find. If you have a level 1 Obsidian and a level 7 Alabaster, you'll probably use the Alabaster. I guess you might use the Obsidian if you really like effect, but for most players they'd likely want to use the rune with higher bonuses. Beyond that, the whole excitement of finding runes would disappear as soon as you found rank 7 runes of every color, making it an appealing part of the game for about all of a month or so.
For myself I was always hoping the Rune system was going to force a certain amount of locking of character builds. That is that once you socketed your rank 7 rune into a skill that in order to use another rune type you'd be forced to destroy the existing rune. I realize this doesn't allow people to experiment much with the skills at high level but I guess I was hoping lower rank runes would drop frequently enough earlier on for people to discern a build before rank 7 runes started dropping. I guess my thought was rank 7 runes would be the equivalent of the rare runes in Diablo 2. (Vex ++) and thus finding a rank 7 was going to be a big deal and sorta force you into deciding what type of character you were going to play. In this aspect rerolling barbarians would've made sense since you might not want to sacrafice your high rank 7 runes to experiment with another build. Ah well...Blizzard seems to think they know best so until I play the game I guess I'll have to take their word for it. On paper I think the change is a simplification of the character customization I enjoyed in D2.
Wilson will become Ghostcrawler for Diablo III. This guy is an idiot and so are his ideas way to ruin a great franchise.
Can't believe I loved Blizzard back in the days, they turned into a complete shitty company run by carebears and shareholders.
Talk about making a game with no customization save for gear lol
If 'ruining' the franchise gets rid of the mouth-breathers who can't even articulate a proper counter-argument and whose only nonsensical yapping is the equivalent of "HURPA DURP BLIZZARD U R TEH SHITTIES U R CAERBARES AND SHARHOLDUHS OMGZ" to stop playing Blizzard games, then please Blizzard, keep ruining franchises.
Wilson will become Ghostcrawler for Diablo III. This guy is an idiot and so are his ideas way to ruin a great franchise.
Can't believe I loved Blizzard back in the days, they turned into a complete shitty company run by carebears and shareholders.
Talk about making a game with no customization save for gear lol
Here's a fun technique to try next time you feel like expressing yourself like this.
1. When you're feeling angry and want to tell someone why, draft a post like the one you did above and then ask yourself, "Which parts are facts that even someone who doesn't share my opinion would agree with? Which parts are my opinion?"
2. In front of the sentences that state your opinion instead of facts, try signposting this by adding words like, "I think that..." or "It just seems like..."
3. That's it! Enjoy your lively debate, secure in the knowledge that whilst you can be completely and utterly wrong about factual statements, no one can tell you that your non-factual opinions and preferences are incorrect even if they're completely stupid and baseless. Warning: may still result in people linking you to videos of Susan Boyle singing "Cry Me a River", especially if your opinions are incredibly stupid and baseless. For example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CB3coG_FjvE&feature=youtu.be&t=3m56s
That system was only tested internally for a relatively short time, it never looked as if it was going to be the final form; so, nobody's asking for that system back.
I liked the idea of random affixes on runes A LOT. Sadly, it did have inventory issues, and maybe server storage issues, which probably were unsolvable.
The actual rune system of old surely did not have as much of an inventory issue as people are trying to claim to defend their point of view.
i was happy back then when i read that there gonna be changes in skill system and rune system, but it turns out it's just for rune system
judging from game's current condition i can tell that playing D3 is now like playing D2 with character editor minus lvlup.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything.
Wish specific runes would only drop from specific bosses (high %chance or 100% to drop). That way you would still collect them at an approximate level, but it is more of a physical item that will fill your skill slot space when you activate it (also, remember running the countess for runes in D2). I do like the new traditional look of the runes without rank. To make a obscure comparison: Metroid other M; you have all your items from the beginning, but you can't activate them until your captain says its okay. It really sucked the metroid feel out of metroid. Similar feel in D3; its like you have all the runes, but they aren't activated. At this point you cant tie the runes into the story so its either activation or drops without dialogue.
What they should have done and keep these changes but instead of unlocking as you level, make "skill runes" books or scrolls, with ranks that once use are permanent to your characters skills.
This way you still have the hunting for runes factor, you have no inventory issues because the items are 1 time uses, you still keep ranks on runes etc.
This idea has popped up a couple of times, and it had to have come up in Blizzard dev meetings. I don't see what the downside is to this. It's like having your cake... and eating it too!
The rune changes don't sit super well with me either. It has a Communist, "everybody gets the same no matter what" feel to it. Give us back the HUNT! That's what has driven Diablo for so long.
Scrolls would be super easy. If you don't want them taking up slots, make them non-tradable. If having ranks is too many items, make all scrolls of the same flavor the same item, but each one advances your rank +1. Or take out ranks altogether like you did and just make it 1 scroll per flavor of rune, just don't give them to everybody for free (leveling)!
The elective mode should satisfy all you haters. As for the runes I think its no fun to get them automatically. I think it should be an item, however you don't need thousands of them just runes that are more generally satisfying.
new skills UI is the worst UI ever. confusing, especially for people new to the beta - my friend came over to try and couldnt figure it out, and i couldnt explain it well enough to him because i dont get it either. makes me not want to play the beta anymore, and so far ive been an addict and logged probably 100 hours - i dont grow weary of it. if they dont make huge changes to the skill UI... ill be very disappointed in blizzard. Theres no way they could allow that garbage to ship.
edit: to clarify, i dont mind the rune/skills changes - not the best but it works. its mostly the UI, skill grouping, and inabilty to swap stuff around quick an easy. not fun for beta when i like to switch around and play with every skill. and moving a skill to a different spot on your bar is annoying. you have to use a 3rd skill to swap in and out if you want to change the position of 2 skills. clunky.
Why are people so concerned about the rune change? D3 team did it for a reason after testing all difficulties and playing for thousands of hours. They are diablo fans more than we can ever be Have some faith in them and wait for the finished product!!
I had faith in them, and still mostly do, but this change was unecessary. If they really wanted to keep the runes the way they were and satisfy the player base that actually plays and grinds through inferno, they would have simply reverted to the first iteration of runes, IMHO THE BEST, and made the types stackable. Then made a good rune sink, maybe make them actually worth a decent amount of gold or salvageable for some nice mats for super cool armors.
They didn't need to take them away as items. They could've easily dealt with their "inventory" problems with my solution. Plus it allowed for a fairer overall game experience. They repeatedly stated that they wanted everyone to experience all the rune changes and test them to see which fit their style best. They also said casual new players won't reach inferno. Yet here they are making it so casuals can't experience the end game runes because they'd have to farm normal or nightmare thousands of times over to get to 60. It makes no sense.
At least with the old system I can make a choice of which runestone I want asap, Jay said they "dropped like candy" so anyone saying oh well you might not have found the right runestone is complete bullshit, This new system though just forces a player into a set path, it's not right I should have a little freedom when choosing my build and gear. What's next I can only use fire items past level 20?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Not even Death will save you from Diablo Bunny's Cuteness!
Reading this makes me even more excited for the game to come out... I wasn't necessarily thrilled at the though of having 7 different levels of skill runes to find/trade for/buy. This system seems like it will be a lot more fun, which is what I'm looking for in a game.
Even tho ''old system'' looked for sure more exciting and more ''grind going'' for sure this way is better for the game or they wouldn't have changed it, i am pretty sure game will be hard enough way it is, so dont need to worry about that either. I mean they really went on on how game will be challenging so they gonna bring us that, tho for me older system does look better, but we didn't play like them so that can judge.
I am not very happy with these changes... This is not what I was expecting for sure! Worst thing of all is that they are going to delay the game again... and the only thing I want is to PLAY it.
Both Diablo, and Diablo 2 were great games and I think I will enjoy Diablo 3 also.... but WHEN? I wish they will release the game before June...
But I think a point that some people aren't seeing is that, aside from inventory issues, the Runestone system was going to end up being a frustrating and ultimately non-rewarding element of the game. Just imagine leveling your character all the way to the Max while still not being able to make the most of your skills. As for the auction house, forget it. High level runes would be available, of course. But their pricing would have been ridiculous. It would have come down to the (realistic) situation of saying "Well, I have played this game for 50+ hours since release, and I still haven't found a level X rune". You hop on to the auction house, and whadya know, there IS one. Except it will cost you XX amount of gold (or RM), and you have to make that judgment of "Is it worth it?".
All this to just try a skill at a certain power?
No thank you. There is loot-finding, and then there is just grinding away to find something that should be a relatively basic part of your character. Loot will always be a major part of this game, difficult to find rune trinkets should not be.
The way it seems now, is that every level will reward you in one (or more) ways. You will immediately feel more powerful. And you should be reaching lvl 60 when? End of Nightmare? End of Hell? Man that is a lot of playtime before you are in a situation where loot is the only way to upgrade your character.
Anyways sorry for the rant, but I definitely see the point of this.
There's a lot of fixes they could have implemented I suppose, but having a key character customization aspect tied to drops isn't very fun. Essentially you'd find all the runes you need sooner or later, (likely sooner) and by that point you're throwing out runes left and right. They could have put affixes on the runes perhaps, but that's not really the most exciting form of customization. i.e.: +3% Firebats damage. Wow. Cool. (I think hardcore Diablo 2 nostalgics would have loved this though, lol) The important aspect was the major and meaningful affect each rune had on a skill, and that's still alive and well.
But still! Finding runes to socket into skills was just so cool!
I think the problem here would be you'd be limited by the highest ranked runes you find. If you have a level 1 Obsidian and a level 7 Alabaster, you'll probably use the Alabaster. I guess you might use the Obsidian if you really like effect, but for most players they'd likely want to use the rune with higher bonuses. Beyond that, the whole excitement of finding runes would disappear as soon as you found rank 7 runes of every color, making it an appealing part of the game for about all of a month or so.
Oh Odin...
If 'ruining' the franchise gets rid of the mouth-breathers who can't even articulate a proper counter-argument and whose only nonsensical yapping is the equivalent of "HURPA DURP BLIZZARD U R TEH SHITTIES U R CAERBARES AND SHARHOLDUHS OMGZ" to stop playing Blizzard games, then please Blizzard, keep ruining franchises.
Here's a fun technique to try next time you feel like expressing yourself like this.
1. When you're feeling angry and want to tell someone why, draft a post like the one you did above and then ask yourself, "Which parts are facts that even someone who doesn't share my opinion would agree with? Which parts are my opinion?"
2. In front of the sentences that state your opinion instead of facts, try signposting this by adding words like, "I think that..." or "It just seems like..."
3. That's it! Enjoy your lively debate, secure in the knowledge that whilst you can be completely and utterly wrong about factual statements, no one can tell you that your non-factual opinions and preferences are incorrect even if they're completely stupid and baseless.
Warning: may still result in people linking you to videos of Susan Boyle singing "Cry Me a River", especially if your opinions are incredibly stupid and baseless. For example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CB3coG_FjvE&feature=youtu.be&t=3m56s
The actual rune system of old surely did not have as much of an inventory issue as people are trying to claim to defend their point of view.
judging from game's current condition i can tell that playing D3 is now like playing D2 with character editor minus lvlup.
This idea has popped up a couple of times, and it had to have come up in Blizzard dev meetings. I don't see what the downside is to this. It's like having your cake... and eating it too!
The rune changes don't sit super well with me either. It has a Communist, "everybody gets the same no matter what" feel to it. Give us back the HUNT! That's what has driven Diablo for so long.
Scrolls would be super easy. If you don't want them taking up slots, make them non-tradable. If having ranks is too many items, make all scrolls of the same flavor the same item, but each one advances your rank +1. Or take out ranks altogether like you did and just make it 1 scroll per flavor of rune, just don't give them to everybody for free (leveling)!
edit: to clarify, i dont mind the rune/skills changes - not the best but it works. its mostly the UI, skill grouping, and inabilty to swap stuff around quick an easy. not fun for beta when i like to switch around and play with every skill. and moving a skill to a different spot on your bar is annoying. you have to use a 3rd skill to swap in and out if you want to change the position of 2 skills. clunky.
They didn't need to take them away as items. They could've easily dealt with their "inventory" problems with my solution. Plus it allowed for a fairer overall game experience. They repeatedly stated that they wanted everyone to experience all the rune changes and test them to see which fit their style best. They also said casual new players won't reach inferno. Yet here they are making it so casuals can't experience the end game runes because they'd have to farm normal or nightmare thousands of times over to get to 60. It makes no sense.
At least with the old system I can make a choice of which runestone I want asap, Jay said they "dropped like candy" so anyone saying oh well you might not have found the right runestone is complete bullshit, This new system though just forces a player into a set path, it's not right I should have a little freedom when choosing my build and gear. What's next I can only use fire items past level 20?
Both Diablo, and Diablo 2 were great games and I think I will enjoy Diablo 3 also.... but WHEN? I wish they will release the game before June...
Greetings from Greece...