Bashiok emerged from nearly a week of silence to finally give us some Diablo III stuff to talk about. While most of his posts are short on new information, there are some nice clarifications on item progression in the game and visual item progression throughout Diablo III's difficulties.
While responding to a few questions, Bashiok made clear that the eighteen tiers of items are purely visual.
Official Blizzard Quote:
Without being able to upgrade the item to the next tier, does that mean the lesser tier item is salvage garbage?
Right, going back to the tier thing which I believe was a misunderstanding of me referring to the visual sets. It doesn't have to do with item stats at all really, just cohesive armor looks.
There are better and better items as your progress through the difficulties and they can roll out more affixes as they go higher. So to answer your question, yes, worse items would be sold for gold, salvaged for crafting materials, or otherwise 'traded' away.
However, his explanation does seem to imply that there could be an overlap between the last items in one tier and the first items in the next. As Bashiok later explained, these visual tiers are also divided amongst the difficulties, which means that your character look will be continuously changing throughout Normal, Nightmare, and Hell, as opposed to revisiting old item looks each time you advance a difficulty like in Diablo II
Official Blizzard Quote:
[The item tiers] are distributed through difficulties with each difficulty dropping items of a specific number of visual sets. So, for instance, in Normal you may see set looks one through five dropping. In Nightmare you may see the visual sets six through ten. etc. Just an example, I'm not sure how exactly they were decided to be broken out.
After this explanation, some concerns were raised about whether or not eighteen tiers, which translates into six tiers per difficulty, would feel like enough progression throughout the game, and Bashiok continued to elaborate on exactly how item progression works.
Official Blizzard Quote:
So yeah, this was more or less how I thought you guys had made the system... as you have played the game, does 5/6 set visuals per difficulty feel progression enough?
I think it feels really good. You're not getting whole sets dropping for you so it's a pretty constant upgrading process. You're probably not running around with a complete looking set for long unless you're denying yourself upgrades to make a cohesive look, or just getting bad drops.
Even though thinking of item progression as being divided into tiers may make it seem as though you are only upgrading your look six times per difficulty, it is important to keep in mind that you will most likely spend most of your time in gear comprised of items from different tiers. So while there are technically only eighteen different item looks, your character's look will be changing many more times than that number implies.
In another equipment related topic, Bashiok also had some interesting input about the game's salvage mechanic.
Official Blizzard Quote:
It has a name. It is not Salvage Cube. The name does include Cube, though. The name is sort of a spoiler, which is why we haven't revealed it yet.
Although Bashiok does not divulge the current name of the cube, some of you may remember Jay Wilson called it the Nephalem Cube at the last BlizzCon, which is a name that could certainly be considered something of a spoiler. Bashiok may have simply forgotten the name was already revealed, or the name could have changed since then. If any of you are unclear on the lore implications of the Nephalem, be sure to check out PhrozenDragon'sCosmology of Diablo articles or the first part of Force'sDiablo Lore video series.
Also wanted to add that the cube's graphic even changed to look exactly like the horadric cube from D2.
I think item progression is going to be so much better this time around. I hated going into nightmare and hell and replacing my gear with the crappy leather looking pieces. This will be just one more reason for me to complete the game through hell with each character.
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Lol, that's a lot. Titan Quest felt like a constant change, and it only changed 3-4 times per difficulty. Diablo II's looks were so few that I'm not sure how we could possibly call 18 different armor visual tiers (And probably much more than that with sets and what not at level cap) "only six times per difficulty". This all, of course, stacked on top of the fact that in Diablo II all the different qualities of armor (i.e. elite and exceptional) had exactly the same look as the normal tier, and that the actual variation of look on your character didn't even vary that much with uniques and sets.
Unless, that is, we're foolishly trying to compare the degree of itemization (in visual terms) to that of WoW. Let's remember that those two things are hard to compare visually, because the skins and models of armor in WoW are so invariably simple, compared to the full 3d effects of armor in Diablo III.
Definitely, and the icons will actually look like your gear this time around as well
This is something I'm really happy about. I won't miss dropping a chain mail looking thing, seeing a light mail armor icon in the inventory, and wearing a random looking chest piece with one big shoulder pad which came out of no where..
And hopefully the bonuses from better gear (end-game gear in particular) will enhance the look of the final tiers even more.
I'm hoping for some flashy effects come endgame gear that doesn't even really have to do with stats, like maybe something lore related. Maybe like black fog falling from a chest piece because it is from a powerful demon or something..
“We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about.” - Albert Einstein
I am in love with the ides Bash was sharing (even the dyes to change the armor to look like an earlier set you may have preferred). On this vein (and similar to what Orphion said), I hope the best stuff still has different looks to them.
(and one more parenthetical aside)
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If that made sense to you, Bravo! I think I even confused myself...
now we know there are a whole bunch of equipment 'tiers' but are they strict visual/stat tiers or do they have a separate stat tier system as well? What I mean by this is that if you have the third tier looking equipment could it have stats better than a tier 5 looking piece and the final 3-5 visual tiers all max out at the same point. Has there been any information about this or is everyone just assuming that they are strict and linked to stats?
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If that made sense to you, Bravo! I think I even confused myself...
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While responding to a few questions, Bashiok made clear that the eighteen tiers of items are purely visual.
Official Blizzard Quote:
Without being able to upgrade the item to the next tier, does that mean the lesser tier item is salvage garbage?
Right, going back to the tier thing which I believe was a misunderstanding of me referring to the visual sets. It doesn't have to do with item stats at all really, just cohesive armor looks.
There are better and better items as your progress through the difficulties and they can roll out more affixes as they go higher. So to answer your question, yes, worse items would be sold for gold, salvaged for crafting materials, or otherwise 'traded' away.
Official Blizzard Quote:
[The item tiers] are distributed through difficulties with each difficulty dropping items of a specific number of visual sets. So, for instance, in Normal you may see set looks one through five dropping. In Nightmare you may see the visual sets six through ten. etc. Just an example, I'm not sure how exactly they were decided to be broken out.
Official Blizzard Quote:
So yeah, this was more or less how I thought you guys had made the system... as you have played the game, does 5/6 set visuals per difficulty feel progression enough?
I think it feels really good. You're not getting whole sets dropping for you so it's a pretty constant upgrading process. You're probably not running around with a complete looking set for long unless you're denying yourself upgrades to make a cohesive look, or just getting bad drops.
In another equipment related topic, Bashiok also had some interesting input about the game's salvage mechanic.
Official Blizzard Quote:
It has a name. It is not Salvage Cube. The name does include Cube, though. The name is sort of a spoiler, which is why we haven't revealed it yet.
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I think item progression is going to be so much better this time around. I hated going into nightmare and hell and replacing my gear with the crappy leather looking pieces. This will be just one more reason for me to complete the game through hell with each character.
Find any Diablo news? Contact me or anyone else on the News team
Find any Diablo news? Contact me or anyone else on the news team.
DiabloFans: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Live Chat
Find any Diablo news? Contact me or anyone else on the news team.
DiabloFans: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Live Chat
Lol, that's a lot. Titan Quest felt like a constant change, and it only changed 3-4 times per difficulty. Diablo II's looks were so few that I'm not sure how we could possibly call 18 different armor visual tiers (And probably much more than that with sets and what not at level cap) "only six times per difficulty". This all, of course, stacked on top of the fact that in Diablo II all the different qualities of armor (i.e. elite and exceptional) had exactly the same look as the normal tier, and that the actual variation of look on your character didn't even vary that much with uniques and sets.
Unless, that is, we're foolishly trying to compare the degree of itemization (in visual terms) to that of WoW. Let's remember that those two things are hard to compare visually, because the skins and models of armor in WoW are so invariably simple, compared to the full 3d effects of armor in Diablo III.
This is something I'm really happy about. I won't miss dropping a chain mail looking thing, seeing a light mail armor icon in the inventory, and wearing a random looking chest piece with one big shoulder pad which came out of no where..
I'm hoping for some flashy effects come endgame gear that doesn't even really have to do with stats, like maybe something lore related. Maybe like black fog falling from a chest piece because it is from a powerful demon or something..
Thanks Caniroth for the awesome sig!
(and one more parenthetical aside)
Now I can go collecting every single item variant
Looking at the pic above I noticed two runes on the right looking different from the one hilighted, are they second level?
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Pumpkin Contest Submission:
http://habeasporpoise.deviantart.com/art/Diablo-3-Pumpkin-263477540
IT'S CALLED READ THE DAMN SIN WAR TRILOGY.
If you're a Diablofan who hasn't yet read that book, you are not a true fan and will forever be shunned by the community.*
Everyone else...
SSHHHUUUUNNNNNN!!!!
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