The developers participating in this Q&A round include:
Wyatt Cheng, Senior Technical Game Designer
Travis Day, Game Designer
Don Vu, Associate Game Designer
We're doing things a little differently this time around and will be providing developer answers in several parts spread over multiple weeks. Below are the answers for part 1.
Q. Will all legendaries found on Inferno roll level 63 base stat values (armor and dps values) and level 63 "non-base" (affixes) stat values?
Travis: Yes, our plan is to handle Legendary items in a similar fashion to how we handle Rare items. Legendary items will roll at a level equal to the creature that dropped it. This means that, in addition to a Legendary’s stats rolling at the monster level, the base item stats will also roll at the monster's level. Right now, Rares don't work this way. Instead, their affixes roll at the level of the monster, but their base armor and weapon damage remain unchanged.
Q. "Love Leoric's Signet, but hate wearing a level 17 ring? Me too. Instead of farming Act II Normal to find a Leoric's Signet, let's go farm Inferno and get a level 63 version of the ring!"
Does this mean that every set and legendary item will have a chance of dropping in Inferno?
- Rowechelon#1918 (Americas [English])
Travis: Yes, Legendary and Set items will be valid drops from monsters at whatever point in the level range they are first introduced.
I have seen some people speculate over whether or not this means the experience bonus on Leoric's Signet will increase, and the answer to that specific question is "yes," but how each bonus on a Legendary or Set items scales will ultimately depend on the bonus itself. Some bonuses (such as the +EXP bonus on Leoric’s Signet) scale equally well from level 1 to level 60. On the other hand, some bonuses like procs that generate pets, or procs that deal damage effects, don’t always scale well as you get to the higher levels, but those will be changed wherever possible to scale with the level that they drop at.
Ultimately, we want to make sure the things that make Legendary and set items interesting continue to make them interesting at the end game, and in some cases they already do, so we just need to fix the other stats on the item.
Q. Will there any way for the players to have some control over the item stats. Such as implementing the mystic?
Don: Giving players more control and customization of their item stats is something we talk about a lot in our office. There have been a lot of ideas thrown around here and some great suggestions from the community, but we have not finalized any systems yet.
To give you an idea of what direction we're heading toward, though, here are just a few ideas that we're considering right now:
The ability to change a portion of a particular stat on an item to another stat of your choice
The ability to augment an existing item with a stat bonus of your choice
The ability to create an item with one or several fixed affixes—similar to the Rare recipes introduced in 1.0.7
We've also discussed adding other types of "socketables" with a wide variety of possible affixes that you can put in your socketed items instead of gems
All of these systems have their positives and negatives, so we want to make sure we make the right choice and consider all other changes we plan on making before deciding which systems we want to implement.
As far as the Mystic goes, she's a cunning lady. I’m sure we haven't seen the last of her.
Wyatt: When the game was in development, we actually the Blacksmith had the ability to add a socket to an item. Adding a socket makes the item better, so you pretty much always wanted to do it, and we found adding the socket felt like a small chore that didn’t actually increase the gameplay depth. You already need to insert gems to a socketed item, and felt having to add a socket as well would be a step too many.
With that in mind, there are still some gameplay benefits to adding a socket that we’d still like to capture. Although having to add a socket every time can feel like a chore, if there was a mechanic that made it a legitimate decision, that is something we could explore. Additionally, there’s something to be said for feeling more invested in an item—taking steps to improve an item increases your emotional bond with that it, which is something we could definitely do better at.
So, to answer your question, it’s something that’s definitely on the table for the future, but it likely won’t be identical to the system that was in Diablo II or the early iterations of Diablo III.
Q. Will there be new craft-able items added in the future? I'm thinking weapons and/or legendary items...
Wyatt: It’s hard to say for sure, but I don’t see any reason why not. As we revisit items in general, we’ll be looking at how crafting fits into the big picture, and it’s certainly possible that we’ll add more recipes at that time.
Q. So you have a plan to reduce the number of dropping items but increasing their quality. This will result in a smaller amount of items that can be salvaged into crafting materials for the Blaksmith, With this in mind – do you plan balance the amount of crafting materials gained from salvaging against the material requirements of blacksmith’s formulas?
- Agetriu #2991(Europe [Polish])
Don: Yes, we plan to take all of our future changes into consideration when balancing the amount of reagents needed for crafting recipes. We haven't decided on a number to reduce the number of drops by yet, so we can't go into specifics on how or if existing and future crafting recipes are going to change.
Along those same lines, we’ll also be looking at the cost at which items sell back to vendors, since the reducing the drop rate of items can/will impact a player's revenue of gold.
Should be clear by now that these Q&As aren't really intended for revealing new information. They're just meant to provide more insight on one particular topic, in this case it's the itemization blog post. A lot of the specifics weren't decided when the blog was written and they still aren't now.
Just make a socket quest like in D2..
Some kind of quest line or something similar to the hellfire ring stuff where you have to get a plan and collect certain items and then take them to the blacksmith to get a socket added to your weapon. Give the ability to only do it once per difficulty per character or something like that. So there is an option to add a socket to that nice weapon you found that could be a lot better with a socket, but you have to decide carefully on what you want to use that socket on.
Just make a socket quest like in D2..
Some kind of quest line or something similar to the hellfire ring stuff where you have to get a plan and collect certain items and then take them to the blacksmith to get a socket added to your weapon. Give the ability to only do it once per difficulty per character or something like that. So there is an option to add a socket to that nice weapon you found that could be a lot better with a socket, but you have to decide carefully on what you want to use that socket on.
And when you use it and find an upgrade the next day your curse yourself, or the other extreme where you never use it even though you've had a semi-good weapon for 600 hours of gameplay now. Bad design.
The biggest problem with socketing they mentioned a while ago is that it means every item you find has to first be socketed before it can be considered an upgrade. A socket becomes a no-brainer thing that every piece of gear has, and paying for it starts to feel like a punishment for equipping something new. One-time bonuses have similar problems in that they discourage you from ever taking off that piece of gear for fear of having wasted it.
The best solution is to leave sockets like they are today, and allow you to "socket" your gear using an affix rerolling mechanism like they've discussed.
It begins, blizzard taking ideas from path of exile
Blizzard have been taking ideas for all their games from all competition, always. Just like there are dozens of clones to all their games in the past 15 years.
Which one do you refer to though?
We've also discussed adding other types of "socketables" with a wide variety of possible affixes that you can put in your socketed items instead of gems.
This needs to happen.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the small death that brings total obliteration."
We've also discussed adding other types of "socketables" with a wide variety of possible affixes that you can put in your socketed items instead of gems.
This needs to happen.
Nope, this would not be a good thing at all. 3 sockets for chest and 1 socket for weapon are already mandatory. Introducing more sockets and more awesome gems will just make it more mandatory and just another "must have thing" on an item. If it's something like Ice Climbers or Tasker and Theos, were sockets are optional, it's fine, but any weapon/pants/chest without (max) socket is useless. We need more choice, and less *mandatory* additional stats.
We've also discussed adding other types of "socketables" with a wide variety of possible affixes that you can put in your socketed items instead of gems.
This needs to happen.
Nope, this would not be a good thing at all. 3 sockets for chest and 1 socket for weapon are already mandatory. Introducing more sockets and more awesome gems will just make it more mandatory and just another "must have thing" on an item. If it's something like Ice Climbers or Tasker and Theos, were sockets are optional, it's fine, but any weapon/pants/chest without (max) socket is useless. We need more choice, and less *mandatory* additional stats.
Are you saying that you're satisfied with the current 4 boring gem options? I'll take D2's amount and variety of gems any day.
Absolutely not, but the current way how sockets work (i.e., mandatory on three slots and you don't have the choice between four gems, but two at max) does not cry out for *extending* this.
I'm all in for sockets *as an additional choice*, but just adding MORE sockets to other slots and adding MORE gems like the ones we have (e.g., limited choice between a few powerful gems and a few useless ones) is not a solution.
What they say is absolutely true, sockets right now feel like a must have, how can one even say "yeah, add more sockets because it gives us more choice" - weapon sockets are not a CHOICE, they are a REQUIREMENT. The entire socket/gem system needs to be overhauled, existing things need to be nerfed, gems should roll stats based on class and not based on color, and additional gems adding more stuff rather than just main stat/vit should be made available. Hell, give us a gem with +7 pickup radius. Give us gems with +5% arcane damage. And only one socket per slot, not three as for chests. That'd be choice. Right now it's just "yeaaaaaaah, I got an Echoing Fury, that'll be a huge upgrade as soon as I put my 100% CD gem in that thing!" - identify - "damn, no socket, just another brimstone".
It begins, blizzard taking ideas from path of exile
Lol, What a fool. Because obviously path of exile didnt steal anything from diablo 2, You cant talk at all. Path of exile took there class system from Final Fantasy 10 LOL, this is what happens when you dont go to school.
We've also discussed adding other types of "socketables" with a wide variety of possible affixes that you can put in your socketed items instead of gems.
This needs to happen.
Nope, this would not be a good thing at all. 3 sockets for chest and 1 socket for weapon are already mandatory. Introducing more sockets and more awesome gems will just make it more mandatory and just another "must have thing" on an item. If it's something like Ice Climbers or Tasker and Theos, were sockets are optional, it's fine, but any weapon/pants/chest without (max) socket is useless. We need more choice, and less *mandatory* additional stats.
Isn't that the whole point of the sentence that I've quoted earlier? Choice, and lots of it.
I'm sorry, but adding more affixes that can be socketed into an item could be a great change if it's done right, especially if it can lead to greater build diversity and more interesting styles of play. You are just blatantly saying it's bad without even considering those affixes could ever compete with the 4 measly ones we have at this moment. Yeah, critical hit damage is a mandatory gem for weapons, but they never claimed that this would be the case for the rest of the game's life. Things will probably change drastically when the expansion hits.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the small death that brings total obliteration."
Far too little promised, implemented far too slowly.
These Ask the Dev segments are just dog-and-pony shows meant to buy Blizz some time to hastily scrap together fixes for significant design defficiencies that should have been identified prior to May 2012. JW really dug a deep hole.
I'm really not convinced at all by what they say about adding sockets. It's exactly what Wilson answered to the same question a few time after release. Game has changed and evolved since. Players also know the game better.
It really feels like bs.
All this " it would be a choir thing, you'd have to add a socket to your item each time you find an upgrade".
Well I would believe it if I found upgrades in the first place. An event so rare with the actual state of itemisation, that I don't see how being able to add a socket would tarnish it. I'll gladly put up with it. Without it, there are too big a portion of items that are useless. Especialy weapons.
Between finding items that needs to be improved to be usable, and finding useless ones...
Second, they talk about it like " when a player finds an upgrade, he can equip it right away and go on with his farming. But if he had to add a socket..." well i'm sorry but it's wishfull thinking. Whenever I find an upgrade, most of the time, I must go back to town to proceed to adjustements, exchange pieces of stuff, change gems elsewhere, etc...
So all this " Players woudn't be able to equip it right away and would feel compelled to add a socket" is wishfull thinking. Itemisation is allready designed in a way that forces you to go back to town and tinker with your stuff each time you find an upgrade. Adding sockets wouldn't change anything to that fact. It wouldn't be less or more of pain than now, except, it would give more choice, make most items less depressing to find, and it would be fun.
At your first observation: If you've played something like WoW I think you'll understand what they mean. It's just one more thing that keeps you from actually playing the game. In WoW you have enchanting, gems and reforging. 3 things that you absolutely must do before equipping a new item. This sucks tremendously because you can almost never just equip an item that just dropped.
Diablo 3 is supposed to be fast paced and you're not meant to be sitting in town theorycrafting about 1% CHD and 5 Intelligence. Why do you change gems elsewhere when you find an upgrade? What if you found some gloves? You unsocket the gems in your chest? Helm? Offhand?
Adding a simple button to add a socket becomes an absolutely pointless chore. When you never actually have to take a decision "should I add a socket to this item", then why have the add socket feature at all? Why not just drop the items with their maxed amount of sockets in the first place? It's pointless.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Ha. Bagstone.
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The first part of Ask the Devs is here!
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Travis: Yes, our plan is to handle Legendary items in a similar fashion to how we handle Rare items. Legendary items will roll at a level equal to the creature that dropped it. This means that, in addition to a Legendary’s stats rolling at the monster level, the base item stats will also roll at the monster's level. Right now, Rares don't work this way. Instead, their affixes roll at the level of the monster, but their base armor and weapon damage remain unchanged.
Travis: Yes, Legendary and Set items will be valid drops from monsters at whatever point in the level range they are first introduced.
I have seen some people speculate over whether or not this means the experience bonus on Leoric's Signet will increase, and the answer to that specific question is "yes," but how each bonus on a Legendary or Set items scales will ultimately depend on the bonus itself. Some bonuses (such as the +EXP bonus on Leoric’s Signet) scale equally well from level 1 to level 60. On the other hand, some bonuses like procs that generate pets, or procs that deal damage effects, don’t always scale well as you get to the higher levels, but those will be changed wherever possible to scale with the level that they drop at.
Ultimately, we want to make sure the things that make Legendary and set items interesting continue to make them interesting at the end game, and in some cases they already do, so we just need to fix the other stats on the item.
Don: Giving players more control and customization of their item stats is something we talk about a lot in our office. There have been a lot of ideas thrown around here and some great suggestions from the community, but we have not finalized any systems yet.
To give you an idea of what direction we're heading toward, though, here are just a few ideas that we're considering right now:
As far as the Mystic goes, she's a cunning lady. I’m sure we haven't seen the last of her.
Wyatt: When the game was in development, we actually the Blacksmith had the ability to add a socket to an item. Adding a socket makes the item better, so you pretty much always wanted to do it, and we found adding the socket felt like a small chore that didn’t actually increase the gameplay depth. You already need to insert gems to a socketed item, and felt having to add a socket as well would be a step too many.
With that in mind, there are still some gameplay benefits to adding a socket that we’d still like to capture. Although having to add a socket every time can feel like a chore, if there was a mechanic that made it a legitimate decision, that is something we could explore. Additionally, there’s something to be said for feeling more invested in an item—taking steps to improve an item increases your emotional bond with that it, which is something we could definitely do better at.
So, to answer your question, it’s something that’s definitely on the table for the future, but it likely won’t be identical to the system that was in Diablo II or the early iterations of Diablo III.
Wyatt: It’s hard to say for sure, but I don’t see any reason why not. As we revisit items in general, we’ll be looking at how crafting fits into the big picture, and it’s certainly possible that we’ll add more recipes at that time.
Don: Yes, we plan to take all of our future changes into consideration when balancing the amount of reagents needed for crafting recipes. We haven't decided on a number to reduce the number of drops by yet, so we can't go into specifics on how or if existing and future crafting recipes are going to change.
Along those same lines, we’ll also be looking at the cost at which items sell back to vendors, since the reducing the drop rate of items can/will impact a player's revenue of gold.
To be continued in part 2. . .
Ha. Bagstone.
Ha. Bagstone.
Some kind of quest line or something similar to the hellfire ring stuff where you have to get a plan and collect certain items and then take them to the blacksmith to get a socket added to your weapon. Give the ability to only do it once per difficulty per character or something like that. So there is an option to add a socket to that nice weapon you found that could be a lot better with a socket, but you have to decide carefully on what you want to use that socket on.
And when you use it and find an upgrade the next day your curse yourself, or the other extreme where you never use it even though you've had a semi-good weapon for 600 hours of gameplay now. Bad design.
Ha. Bagstone.
The best solution is to leave sockets like they are today, and allow you to "socket" your gear using an affix rerolling mechanism like they've discussed.
Blizzard have been taking ideas for all their games from all competition, always. Just like there are dozens of clones to all their games in the past 15 years.
Which one do you refer to though?
Ha. Bagstone.
This needs to happen.
Nope, this would not be a good thing at all. 3 sockets for chest and 1 socket for weapon are already mandatory. Introducing more sockets and more awesome gems will just make it more mandatory and just another "must have thing" on an item. If it's something like Ice Climbers or Tasker and Theos, were sockets are optional, it's fine, but any weapon/pants/chest without (max) socket is useless. We need more choice, and less *mandatory* additional stats.
Absolutely not, but the current way how sockets work (i.e., mandatory on three slots and you don't have the choice between four gems, but two at max) does not cry out for *extending* this.
I'm all in for sockets *as an additional choice*, but just adding MORE sockets to other slots and adding MORE gems like the ones we have (e.g., limited choice between a few powerful gems and a few useless ones) is not a solution.
What they say is absolutely true, sockets right now feel like a must have, how can one even say "yeah, add more sockets because it gives us more choice" - weapon sockets are not a CHOICE, they are a REQUIREMENT. The entire socket/gem system needs to be overhauled, existing things need to be nerfed, gems should roll stats based on class and not based on color, and additional gems adding more stuff rather than just main stat/vit should be made available. Hell, give us a gem with +7 pickup radius. Give us gems with +5% arcane damage. And only one socket per slot, not three as for chests. That'd be choice. Right now it's just "yeaaaaaaah, I got an Echoing Fury, that'll be a huge upgrade as soon as I put my 100% CD gem in that thing!" - identify - "damn, no socket, just another brimstone".
Lol, What a fool. Because obviously path of exile didnt steal anything from diablo 2, You cant talk at all. Path of exile took there class system from Final Fantasy 10 LOL, this is what happens when you dont go to school.
Isn't that the whole point of the sentence that I've quoted earlier? Choice, and lots of it.
I'm sorry, but adding more affixes that can be socketed into an item could be a great change if it's done right, especially if it can lead to greater build diversity and more interesting styles of play. You are just blatantly saying it's bad without even considering those affixes could ever compete with the 4 measly ones we have at this moment. Yeah, critical hit damage is a mandatory gem for weapons, but they never claimed that this would be the case for the rest of the game's life. Things will probably change drastically when the expansion hits.
Boom.
These Ask the Dev segments are just dog-and-pony shows meant to buy Blizz some time to hastily scrap together fixes for significant design defficiencies that should have been identified prior to May 2012. JW really dug a deep hole.
At your first observation: If you've played something like WoW I think you'll understand what they mean. It's just one more thing that keeps you from actually playing the game. In WoW you have enchanting, gems and reforging. 3 things that you absolutely must do before equipping a new item. This sucks tremendously because you can almost never just equip an item that just dropped.
Diablo 3 is supposed to be fast paced and you're not meant to be sitting in town theorycrafting about 1% CHD and 5 Intelligence. Why do you change gems elsewhere when you find an upgrade? What if you found some gloves? You unsocket the gems in your chest? Helm? Offhand?
Adding a simple button to add a socket becomes an absolutely pointless chore. When you never actually have to take a decision "should I add a socket to this item", then why have the add socket feature at all? Why not just drop the items with their maxed amount of sockets in the first place? It's pointless.
Ha. Bagstone.