What is the point of the leveling system without the ability to choose how you want your character to be stronger?
You choose how you want your character to be stronger by choosing which skills you use and by choosing which Rune effects you want to place in those skills and choosing when, why, and how to utilize those skills most effectively for the playstyle and build you've chosen.
Why not increment your abilities based on what part of the game you're at? Since we're going to be max level around the time we hit the end of the game, why not just remove levels and then every time we hit a rebirth fountain (or whatever they're called) we get stronger?
The leveling system offers a sense of character progression. If you've defeated Hell difficulty and you decide to go back into a normal game for one reason or another, is your character and all his/her skills supposed to get weaker? What's the point in that? What's the difference between hitting a rebirth fountain and gaining a level? Ignoring the fact that this system would be a nightmare to actually implement into a game for the reasons mentioned above, it devalues the character. A character created 10 seconds ago could be of equivalent power to one created 2 years ago just because they're in the same zone? That doesn't make sense.
So, what you're saying is that, if my Barbarian spins around like a whirling dervish, using two weapons at once... he's going to get identical stat gain to a Barbarian who uses huge two handed axes and big, brutal attacks? It doesn't fit thematically and it's an arbitrary decision.
Here's what this system really is. This isn't some next-level game design. This is almost identical to Final Fantasy 1.
ETA: And you still had to make all of the same decisions in Diablo 2 about your character (what skills you were going to use, how you were going to use them, etc) but you also had to consider many more things.
Don't be naive by thinking there's more customization here. There's not.
ETA: In the search for simplicity they've made something completely foreign and alien.
Whoa dude. Go have a beer, sit down, close your eyes for a few mins, and then get back to thinking about diablo or whatever.
The descriptions given weren't crystal clear, but I think the system JW was hoping would get in would be a good one.
Think of runes as acting like charms in d2, except you've got a 6 slot box that can only hold charms. Ok, so that covers the stat bonuses.
From what JW said, it sounded like the stat bonuses applied to your character, rather than the spell. I could have misinterpretted that. Either way it doesn't really matter. Either you or that skill have a bonus just for having ANY rune in that skill.
Ok, so now we go for the rune effect. It seemed to me like JW never said that the effect was randomized and that sixen (was it sixen? i'm terrible with voice recognition without a face to put to it) thought the effect of the rune was randomized while it SEEMED like JW was only referring to the bonuses being randomized. I think they were talking passed each other a bit.
Even if the particular effect is randomized, you'll have about a 20% chance of getting the right effect (there are about 5 different rune effects right?) and then you can worry about stats after that.
I'm assuming that's the perspective most players will take as it would seem the effect has a bigger impact than however many point bonus the rune would give.
With a high level rune (lets say lvl 7 is the highest, i dunno where i'm getting that from) all i'll REALLY be looking for is the right effect until i have all my skills with a lvl 7 rune with the right effect. Once i have that i'll start worrying about stats.
Really, runes are just small charms+. they're not foreign or alien, but another mechanic to allow for character and playstyle customization.
I don't think you have runes right.
Runes fundamentally modify your skills.
All I'm saying is that this system is weird. It seems arbitrary.
ETA: Runes in this game are going to have the same problem as last game. Incredibly rare runes are going to drop incredibly rarely. Zod, etc.
Comparing runes to zod is silly because you are ignoring the Mystic rerolling the level 7 rune as many times as you have gold which is much easier to find than another lvl7 rune.
I don't think it is. The only people going after Zod runes were min/maxers looking for a specific runeword to compliment their build. The same thing is going to happen with runes where you'll be looking for specific stats with a specific colored rune.
Let's be real. We've played Diablo. How many hours did we spend looking for a specific item and never finding it? The entire game revolves around randomly generated loot. Even unique and rare items have variance in the stats that they can have. We should expect nothing different here.
Expecting to sit there and magically get your rune by paying a merchant money to change it is slightly less absurd than expecting the perfect rune for you to drop. It increases the chances of it happening, but realistically it just won't.
Which is fine, but this is why runes will go unchanged from D2 to D3 in terms of rarity.
ETA: And if they don't then there's a fundamental problem in the longevity of Diablo 3 since the core of character customization is going to revolve almost entirely around drops.
Right, and the fact that you had to explain to me that the game spends my points for me (thanks, I really enjoy automatized) is a needless complexity.
It's easier to say "You level up, you get a point, you spend the point in what you want and then you can find runes which modify your skills" than it is to say "You can choose X number of skills and you get no points and then there are these runes that you can put in your skills to modify them but they're locked in to the skill you put it in but you can take them out."
That's where the confusion is. There's needless complexity in a system that isn't complex, and it's foreign to both Diablo and the genre.
I guess I have to disagree. The process of gaining a level, which awards you a skill point, which you then have to choose between 24 possible choices on where to spend it, and then actually manually, physically doing so is actually quite a bit more complicated than "as you level up, you get stronger." That's how the system works. The higher your level, the stronger your skills. How is that needlessly complex?
The 6-Skill cap is there to create and encourage build diversity. Diablo 3 (like its predecessor) is a game largely built on character customization. Passive Skills, Runes, attributes & itemization, etc. all play into this as well. Having customization systems with depth is what this game is all about. It may be difficult to grasp the concepts since we're all on the outside looking in, but I think once you're actually playing the game, it will make much more sense and your feeling that all these systems are "needlessly complex" will be out the window. They may be complex, but it's actually a necessity for the game.
I don't know.
To me, there is nothing simpler than having a point to spend when you level up.
To me, there is nothing more boring than a game like Final Fantasy where, when my character levels up, he automatically gets stronger, but not how I want them to.
The next step is simple. What's the point of having levels since everything is automated for you? Why not increment your abilities based on what part of the game you're at? Since we're going to be max level around the time we hit the end of the game, why not just remove levels and then every time we hit a rebirth fountain (or whatever they're called) we get stronger?
What is the point of the leveling system without the ability to choose how you want your character to be stronger?
ETA: In the search for simplicity they've made something completely foreign and alien.
Whoa dude. Go have a beer, sit down, close your eyes for a few mins, and then get back to thinking about diablo or whatever.
The descriptions given weren't crystal clear, but I think the system JW was hoping would get in would be a good one.
Think of runes as acting like charms in d2, except you've got a 6 slot box that can only hold charms. Ok, so that covers the stat bonuses.
From what JW said, it sounded like the stat bonuses applied to your character, rather than the spell. I could have misinterpretted that. Either way it doesn't really matter. Either you or that skill have a bonus just for having ANY rune in that skill.
Ok, so now we go for the rune effect. It seemed to me like JW never said that the effect was randomized and that sixen (was it sixen? i'm terrible with voice recognition without a face to put to it) thought the effect of the rune was randomized while it SEEMED like JW was only referring to the bonuses being randomized. I think they were talking passed each other a bit.
Even if the particular effect is randomized, you'll have about a 20% chance of getting the right effect (there are about 5 different rune effects right?) and then you can worry about stats after that.
I'm assuming that's the perspective most players will take as it would seem the effect has a bigger impact than however many point bonus the rune would give.
With a high level rune (lets say lvl 7 is the highest, i dunno where i'm getting that from) all i'll REALLY be looking for is the right effect until i have all my skills with a lvl 7 rune with the right effect. Once i have that i'll start worrying about stats.
Really, runes are just small charms+. they're not foreign or alien, but another mechanic to allow for character and playstyle customization.
I don't think you have runes right.
Runes fundamentally modify your skills.
All I'm saying is that this system is weird. It seems arbitrary.
ETA: Runes in this game are going to have the same problem as last game. Incredibly rare runes are going to drop incredibly rarely. Zod, etc.
There aren't skill points, but there are skills. Now we simply pick the skills and they automatically level up for us?
Basically, your character has access to all his/her class skills. However, you can only actively use 6 of those skills at a time. Choosing those 6 skills from your pool of skills (I believe each class has 24) is the essence of building your character. Your skills will then scale either with level (which is really no different from D2, except that in D2 when you leveled up, you got a skill point to increase your skills. Now it's just automatic. Think of it as the game spending your skill point for you, except that it can put a point in all of your skills instead of just one.) or based on weapon damage. Your attributes will further increase the effectiveness of your skills.
There are runes but the explanation of what they want to do with them doesn't make any sense.
What is it that you're confused about?
Right, and the fact that you had to explain to me that the game spends my points for me (thanks, I really enjoy automatized) is a needless complexity.
It's easier to say "You level up, you get a point, you spend the point in what you want and then you can find runes which modify your skills" than it is to say "You can choose X number of skills and you get no points and then there are these runes that you can put in your skills to modify them but they're locked in to the skill you put it in but you can take them out."
That's where the confusion is. There's needless complexity in a system that isn't complex, and it's foreign to both Diablo and the genre.
This entire thing is getting out of hand. Needless difference for the sake of simplicity in a game with systems that are already incredibly easy to understand.
Cool, we start off with runes being flavor to skills, and then we'd still put points in to the skills.
Now, I don't even understand what anything is. There aren't skill points, but there are skills. There are runes but the explanation of what they want to do with them doesn't make any sense.
The game is steering incredibly far from D1 and D2. I mean, even in D1 we had leveled spells via books. Now we simply pick the skills and they automatically level up for us?
ETA: In the search for simplicity they've made something completely foreign and alien.
Level cap is arbitrary. It could be 60 or it could be 500. When it's 60, as Bash, claims it works well with increasing your power each time you level. If it were 500 you'd get levels every few minutes and be getting minuscule improvements each time -- this would be ultra lame. 99 doesn't work for D3 so we get 60... that's completely fine with me and to be honest the WoW comparisons here are really misplaced. Next people will be like "ZOMG I saw the color red in Diablo, but they used the color red in WoW too! WTF Blizzard stop cloning WoW!"
If level caps are arbitrary then why have a level cap? You yourself are putting arbitrary limits on what a level constitutes. The reality is that you're putting an arbitrary limit on something that you claim is arbitrary in itself.
The reality is that level cap is not arbitrary and it tells you a lot about the game. For example, the level cap is Titan Quest is 65 and was raised in an expansion. As a result, Titan Quest has a much different type of character structure, character design, and character progression than Diablo 2. This is ignoring the obvious differences in class design but that's a rather moot point as both share the common characteristic of having multiple trees.
You are partially right in saying that you would level up much faster in a game that has 500 levels ONLY IF the game is designed to get you through all 500 levels when you reach the end of the game.
In both Titan Quest and Diablo 2 you are not designed to reach the level cap by the time you beat the game. In fact, you're not supposed to be close to it. In TQ you're usually 15-20 or so levels lower than the cap after you've beaten the final boss. In D2 you're usually around 30-40 levels lower than the cap after you've beaten the final boss.
Of course, these numbers are arbitrary because D3 isn't being designed with this in mind. The end game, according to Blizzard, won't revolve around the same things that Diablo 2 and TQ did. Seeing as how the end game in D2 and TQ revolved around killing X boss over and over or going through Y area over and over, this tells me that... I'll be level 60, or very close to it, by the time I fight the final boss on the hardest difficulty.
The alternative is being level 45-55 by the time we fight the final boss.
In other words, we can make two assumptions with the second assumption having two more assumptions:
1. Because we know that the end game will not primarily feature killing bosses and monsters for loot, we have to assume that the end game will functionally be the end of the game and levels will functionally show us how much time we have left until we beat the game.
2. We will reach the end game at a level that is lower than almost any other ARPG and, because of how skill points currently work, our characters will have fewer points to spend.
A. This means that our characters will be highly specialized with points spent to modify single, powerful abilities (similar to the metagame of D2 but very different than TQ).
B. Our characters will have a hand full of skills we can spend a few points in to and then modify if we so desire, effectively defaulting our characters to a jack of all trades and master of none (due to the lower character level).
Anyway, level cap tells us a good deal about the possibilities on the content of the game. Having no level cap tells us that killing monsters endlessly will be the end of the game. Having a level cap doesn't tell us much. However, having a characteristically low level cap coupled with what has been said and what we have seen, we can tell a great deal about the game.
In fact, I'm sure if a group of us sat down, tossed away expectations, and went in to a discussion about everything that has been revealed, we'll have a concept of the game that is close to what to expect along with a few other possibilities incase X or Y is revealed.
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So, what you're saying is that, if my Barbarian spins around like a whirling dervish, using two weapons at once... he's going to get identical stat gain to a Barbarian who uses huge two handed axes and big, brutal attacks? It doesn't fit thematically and it's an arbitrary decision.
Here's what this system really is. This isn't some next-level game design. This is almost identical to Final Fantasy 1.
ETA: And you still had to make all of the same decisions in Diablo 2 about your character (what skills you were going to use, how you were going to use them, etc) but you also had to consider many more things.
Don't be naive by thinking there's more customization here. There's not.
I don't think it is. The only people going after Zod runes were min/maxers looking for a specific runeword to compliment their build. The same thing is going to happen with runes where you'll be looking for specific stats with a specific colored rune.
Let's be real. We've played Diablo. How many hours did we spend looking for a specific item and never finding it? The entire game revolves around randomly generated loot. Even unique and rare items have variance in the stats that they can have. We should expect nothing different here.
Expecting to sit there and magically get your rune by paying a merchant money to change it is slightly less absurd than expecting the perfect rune for you to drop. It increases the chances of it happening, but realistically it just won't.
Which is fine, but this is why runes will go unchanged from D2 to D3 in terms of rarity.
ETA: And if they don't then there's a fundamental problem in the longevity of Diablo 3 since the core of character customization is going to revolve almost entirely around drops.
I don't know.
To me, there is nothing simpler than having a point to spend when you level up.
To me, there is nothing more boring than a game like Final Fantasy where, when my character levels up, he automatically gets stronger, but not how I want them to.
The next step is simple. What's the point of having levels since everything is automated for you? Why not increment your abilities based on what part of the game you're at? Since we're going to be max level around the time we hit the end of the game, why not just remove levels and then every time we hit a rebirth fountain (or whatever they're called) we get stronger?
What is the point of the leveling system without the ability to choose how you want your character to be stronger?
I don't think you have runes right.
Runes fundamentally modify your skills.
All I'm saying is that this system is weird. It seems arbitrary.
ETA: Runes in this game are going to have the same problem as last game. Incredibly rare runes are going to drop incredibly rarely. Zod, etc.
Right, and the fact that you had to explain to me that the game spends my points for me (thanks, I really enjoy automatized) is a needless complexity.
It's easier to say "You level up, you get a point, you spend the point in what you want and then you can find runes which modify your skills" than it is to say "You can choose X number of skills and you get no points and then there are these runes that you can put in your skills to modify them but they're locked in to the skill you put it in but you can take them out."
That's where the confusion is. There's needless complexity in a system that isn't complex, and it's foreign to both Diablo and the genre.
Cool, we start off with runes being flavor to skills, and then we'd still put points in to the skills.
Now, I don't even understand what anything is. There aren't skill points, but there are skills. There are runes but the explanation of what they want to do with them doesn't make any sense.
The game is steering incredibly far from D1 and D2. I mean, even in D1 we had leveled spells via books. Now we simply pick the skills and they automatically level up for us?
ETA: In the search for simplicity they've made something completely foreign and alien.
If level caps are arbitrary then why have a level cap? You yourself are putting arbitrary limits on what a level constitutes. The reality is that you're putting an arbitrary limit on something that you claim is arbitrary in itself.
The reality is that level cap is not arbitrary and it tells you a lot about the game. For example, the level cap is Titan Quest is 65 and was raised in an expansion. As a result, Titan Quest has a much different type of character structure, character design, and character progression than Diablo 2. This is ignoring the obvious differences in class design but that's a rather moot point as both share the common characteristic of having multiple trees.
You are partially right in saying that you would level up much faster in a game that has 500 levels ONLY IF the game is designed to get you through all 500 levels when you reach the end of the game.
In both Titan Quest and Diablo 2 you are not designed to reach the level cap by the time you beat the game. In fact, you're not supposed to be close to it. In TQ you're usually 15-20 or so levels lower than the cap after you've beaten the final boss. In D2 you're usually around 30-40 levels lower than the cap after you've beaten the final boss.
Of course, these numbers are arbitrary because D3 isn't being designed with this in mind. The end game, according to Blizzard, won't revolve around the same things that Diablo 2 and TQ did. Seeing as how the end game in D2 and TQ revolved around killing X boss over and over or going through Y area over and over, this tells me that... I'll be level 60, or very close to it, by the time I fight the final boss on the hardest difficulty.
The alternative is being level 45-55 by the time we fight the final boss.
In other words, we can make two assumptions with the second assumption having two more assumptions:
1. Because we know that the end game will not primarily feature killing bosses and monsters for loot, we have to assume that the end game will functionally be the end of the game and levels will functionally show us how much time we have left until we beat the game.
2. We will reach the end game at a level that is lower than almost any other ARPG and, because of how skill points currently work, our characters will have fewer points to spend.
A. This means that our characters will be highly specialized with points spent to modify single, powerful abilities (similar to the metagame of D2 but very different than TQ).
B. Our characters will have a hand full of skills we can spend a few points in to and then modify if we so desire, effectively defaulting our characters to a jack of all trades and master of none (due to the lower character level).
Anyway, level cap tells us a good deal about the possibilities on the content of the game. Having no level cap tells us that killing monsters endlessly will be the end of the game. Having a level cap doesn't tell us much. However, having a characteristically low level cap coupled with what has been said and what we have seen, we can tell a great deal about the game.
In fact, I'm sure if a group of us sat down, tossed away expectations, and went in to a discussion about everything that has been revealed, we'll have a concept of the game that is close to what to expect along with a few other possibilities incase X or Y is revealed.