And not a whole lot of people seem to care all that much. No, seriously: I haven’t seen a QQ thread on this yet, and that really surprises me given the nature of the internet. In all seriousness, let’s take a closer look at why Blizzard decided this was a better move than the traditional model.
If you’re not sure quite what I’m talking about, go take a look at the calculators for each class. You’ll notice that regardless of your class, if you’re doing damage, it’s based on attack power. Traditionally, in Diablo II, the damage of the Sorceress and the other classes was based on arbitrary base values that scaled with skill point allocation. For example, Icebolt has a base cold damage of 3-5, and as you allocate points there’s a simple (albeit arbitrary) formula to curve it. (See The Arreat Summit for greater detail).
Now, before you yell bloody murder, allow me to explain why this move is both insane and brilliant. And no, it’s not because I’m a fanboy.
Firstly, it’s very simple and straight-forward. We all know Blizzard loves to make game mechanics and features as straight-forward as possible (this is a positive thing, by the way).
Secondly and more importantly, balancing items against skills across all classes is far and away easier. Let me give you an example of what I mean: If skill ‘A’ from the Demon Hunter does 120% attack power and skill ‘B’ from the Barbarian does 145% attack power, regardless of what item I throw on them, the comparability of the two skills is straight-forward. Now, skill ‘A’ and ‘B’ are two completely different skills with different cooldowns and there’s a whole lot of other factors that go into balancing them (i. e. weapon speed), but we can at least be sure with a brief look at the attack power what the differences are.
Thirdly, it streamlines the idea that, regardless of your class, your weapon is your most important tool against Diablo’s minions. I think that’s pretty compelling. And, there are plenty of non-weapon items in the beta that increase attack (which overall makes you do more damage).
Finally, one of the cruxes of the ol’ Diablo II model which Diablo III has attempted to solve is that if you wanted to increase the damage of one of your abilities as a Sorceress, you had to resort to finding certain really hard-to-find attributes like +1 to skill points and +% to fire damage (which, I theorize, is why there were a plethora of these ‘fringe’ attributes by Diablo II’s downturn). There was no in-game item attribute that increased spell damage across the board and that’s what I think the goal here is for Diablo III.*
To be fair, the penalty for this new model is fairly obvious: Why in the world would wielding a sword increase the Wizard's ability to conjure fire lasers? Also, I think we as gamers are accustomed to seeing the 'elemental class' with some staff or wand, but those items are still viable. But in the end, Blizzard decided that such a minor dissociation from the norm was worth a lifetime of consistently simple gameplay mechanics.
*On a side note, I hate to rat on one of the greatest games of all time (Diablo 2), but let’s turn off our hindsight goggles.
I think it's a great idea. Some people think making D3 "easier" makes it less fun. All this does is make understanding the inner workings of the game easier, not the game itself. I see no reason why making wizards use attack power should be something to get angry about.
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When I grow up, I want to be a frill-necked lizard.
In WoW I was one of those min/max people, always doing all this math crap on every little thing, which I loved to do... but when I was playing the Diablo III beta and looked at the character sheet and saw how simple everything seemed to be, it made me happy. I guess to me it felt the game made more sense without me having to figure everything out, which makes it feel more fun to me. It's straightforward, and I like it. I guess I've seen what a mess WoW has become having to balance a thousand stats on a character in that game.
I like the new system though, and how on your character sheet the DPS number takes into account all your attributes - attack, crit, crit damage bonus, etc.
And I completely agree with MCMXCIX, making it clearer how the game actually works makes it more fun. Or else you're spending all your time trying to figure out numbers, and less time out killing stuff!
So will orbs and wands have increased attack damage? Rather than puny specs? or will there be something to make up for their lower attack damage - like faster cast rate? Either way, their vital stats will probably need to pumped a bit to make them viable - as in, attack might need to only have a few points less than a sword, and then a faster cast rate to even it out.
I think that is what I have been hearing - that cast rate is the main value of orbs and wands/staffs....but like I say - the attack damage will need to be upped cos starve's are generally puny weapons where even in Act 3 of D2 if you hit something you are doing like 5 damage heh
I think the issue is that most of us can't make any serious criticisms because we haven't played yet!!
I couldn't disagree more. With everything. But since any negative opinion is apparently "crying", I'll refrain from giving out more details.
Maka: I didn't mean for that statement to be negative, and now that I look at it it could have been phrased better. You can remove QQ from that sentence and that's what I meant.
So will orbs and wands have increased attack damage? Rather than puny specs? or will there be something to make up for their lower attack damage - like faster cast rate? Either way, their vital stats will probably need to pumped a bit to make them viable - as in, attack might need to only have a few points less than a sword, and then a faster cast rate to even it out.
I think that is what I have been hearing - that cast rate is the main value of orbs and wands/staffs....but like I say - the attack damage will need to be upped cos starve's are generally puny weapons where even in Act 3 of D2 if you hit something you are doing like 5 damage heh
I think the issue is that most of us can't make any serious criticisms because we haven't played yet!!
Orbs are offhand, so they aren't weapons. They just have a bunch of killer mods on them. Wands don't have increased damage (I don't think), but they do allow for much higher FCR, like you said. FCR is determined by weapon speed now, just like spell damage is determined by weapon damage.
So I love this change to patch 5. It made playing the wizard and witch doctor so much more awesome for me! Also, blizzard was telling the truth about having a single handed weapon along with an off hand orb/voodoo doll is much better than carrying a big two handed weapon. I found that a crafted wand and a rare orb did by far the most DPS and the added attributes from the orb (ie plus damage, +1 to all attributes, +9% magic find, +8 from health orbs) really makes it more worth while than just for the DPS. Loving the change. I always felt put out in D2 when I'd find a sweet weapon and the only thing that mattered was if it was going to increase a certain skills points. This is good.
Ok yes, but after playing the patch, I can say that I'm more than a little weirded out when I find myself throwing on a javelin to make my sorc better... it's just strange. I liked that they had their own specific weapons, aka wands, that were good for them. Now, I can totally see situations similar to Diablo II vanilla where classes just used the weapons with the correct mods on them. Obviously for different reasons, but with the same result.
Honestly, I think it more of a case of not wanting to create another delay.
I sure as hell know that even if I was in beta, I wouldnt point out anything that I thought was going to create a delay. Simple put, Im tired of waiting. Tired of going over the skills on paper and have stopped with that until I get the final copy in my hands. I could care less if every single class only used ATT as the only stat in game as long I get to play it before the end of this decade.
what concerns me is that i don't get why skills would work this way (in the game world), and that makes it sound really un-diablo-like to me. why does this belong in the diablo universe all of a sudden? maybe i'll play it and they'll have figured out some way to make it seem natural and appropriate, but i've gotta say i'm worried. maybe it's just me, but i don't care if the game has a simple and scaleable skill system anywhere near as much as i care about the whole thing feeling like a diablo game. i know they've tried to have the same philosophy, but there are a few things about their approach that have me a little concerned and this is among them.
I take Battlefield 3 as an example, its got many issues, little bugs, but its a great amount of fun too. Its playable no question. We know there will be things that are going to be fixed and patched along the way.
If Diablo 3 has little problems that need balancing, Im sure they could be done after release. So, if blizz is happy with the current system, Im happy. Can patch later if need be.
I wouldn't go so far to say there has been no QQing over the subject. A few people here and there haven't seemed entirely happy about this entire affair, mako included.
Personally, I feel it adds cohesion to the classes. In D2 and some other games, physical and spellcaster classes feel disjointed, almost as if they form part from a separate game altogether. The worst part is that sometimes it means that one will function better than the other.
Sure, some might say that it adds diversity, but I'd disagree. I see it as poor choice for developers to create separate systems just to make classes feel different. Blizzard has made an attempt here to build classes that function diversely all on their own merits without resorting to an divergent mess, MF is a good example thereof.
Yeah, some will disagree with me, saying that all classes are the same now, or that Blizzard is unimaginative for not finding a better solution. No, this is the best solution, working from the same system, an item driven system, is still a very Diablo system. Class skills and gameplay set them apart, not how you use their items. Besides, if Blizzard pulls this off just right, it would mean orbs are comparable and in some cases more desirable than melee items, which would still make the popular melee wizard build viable and practical.
Good job Blizzard.
Personally, at first I was a little put off by the change, since it really didn't make sense for the witch doctor and wizard. After the knee-jerk reaction though, I'm starting to like it. It means your caster classes won't be "forced" to use the standard caster type weapons, and you can branch out and use something a bit more unorthodox.
As far as stat balancing goes, I agree that a lot of games seem to be really different between caster and melee stats. Vanilla WoW was pretty bad, especially at lower levels, with almost nothing aside from spell rank and talents contributing to caster damage; you almost never saw anything with +spell damage, +crit, etc until Molten Core. Even after vanilla though, things were still different until they changed Int to give spell power (before Cataclysm, Strength or Agility were key stats for melee, while the Intelligence stat was nothing but a slightly bigger mana pool and a little crit for casters, not something that increased damage by very much). League of Legends also has this problem, with physical classes/builds getting attack damage, attack speed, crit, life leech, and cooldown reduction, while ability power classes/builds getting ability power, cooldown reduction, and sometimes mana/mana regen, if they actually used mana.
I've seen a stream (WD or Wiz from H1pnotiQ if memory serves) where you could clearly see how a more powerful weapon actually was way less effective than a weaker but faster one.
And just looking at the tooltip of the skill while swapping weapon clearly showed the difference.
I liked it a lot.
Yes, we all are accustomed to the idea that a wizard wield staves and not a huge two handed hammer but I trust Blizzard is making both viable.
edit: almost forgot: thanks CherubDown, nice writeup!
I truly believe that there is room in the vast world of Diablo for magical axes and high damage staves, hopefully Blizzard does not rule out the possibilities for such weapons. One of the most important aspects of a game to most players is the ability to feel unique. The developers seem to have done right in this department with this new style of skill and talent allocation but I really hope they don't overlook the ideas that maybe there are some players who want their Wizard to wield a 2h sword and look like a samurai or maybe name their Barbarian Donatello, dye his armor green and wield a staff... Options like these will allow for a more diverse and interesting community.
There's nothing stopping Blizzard from limiting casters to only wands/staffs. They are letting us wield additional weapon types because there's technically no harm in it. For those who don't like this change, you are free to refuse to use melee weapons for your RP (or whatever) reasons.
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If you’re not sure quite what I’m talking about, go take a look at the calculators for each class. You’ll notice that regardless of your class, if you’re doing damage, it’s based on attack power. Traditionally, in Diablo II, the damage of the Sorceress and the other classes was based on arbitrary base values that scaled with skill point allocation. For example, Icebolt has a base cold damage of 3-5, and as you allocate points there’s a simple (albeit arbitrary) formula to curve it. (See The Arreat Summit for greater detail).
Now, before you yell bloody murder, allow me to explain why this move is both insane and brilliant. And no, it’s not because I’m a fanboy.
Firstly, it’s very simple and straight-forward. We all know Blizzard loves to make game mechanics and features as straight-forward as possible (this is a positive thing, by the way).
Secondly and more importantly, balancing items against skills across all classes is far and away easier. Let me give you an example of what I mean: If skill ‘A’ from the Demon Hunter does 120% attack power and skill ‘B’ from the Barbarian does 145% attack power, regardless of what item I throw on them, the comparability of the two skills is straight-forward. Now, skill ‘A’ and ‘B’ are two completely different skills with different cooldowns and there’s a whole lot of other factors that go into balancing them (i. e. weapon speed), but we can at least be sure with a brief look at the attack power what the differences are.
Thirdly, it streamlines the idea that, regardless of your class, your weapon is your most important tool against Diablo’s minions. I think that’s pretty compelling. And, there are plenty of non-weapon items in the beta that increase attack (which overall makes you do more damage).
Finally, one of the cruxes of the ol’ Diablo II model which Diablo III has attempted to solve is that if you wanted to increase the damage of one of your abilities as a Sorceress, you had to resort to finding certain really hard-to-find attributes like +1 to skill points and +% to fire damage (which, I theorize, is why there were a plethora of these ‘fringe’ attributes by Diablo II’s downturn). There was no in-game item attribute that increased spell damage across the board and that’s what I think the goal here is for Diablo III.*
To be fair, the penalty for this new model is fairly obvious: Why in the world would wielding a sword increase the Wizard's ability to conjure fire lasers? Also, I think we as gamers are accustomed to seeing the 'elemental class' with some staff or wand, but those items are still viable. But in the end, Blizzard decided that such a minor dissociation from the norm was worth a lifetime of consistently simple gameplay mechanics.
*On a side note, I hate to rat on one of the greatest games of all time (Diablo 2), but let’s turn off our hindsight goggles.
I like the new system though, and how on your character sheet the DPS number takes into account all your attributes - attack, crit, crit damage bonus, etc.
And I completely agree with MCMXCIX, making it clearer how the game actually works makes it more fun. Or else you're spending all your time trying to figure out numbers, and less time out killing stuff!
I think that is what I have been hearing - that cast rate is the main value of orbs and wands/staffs....but like I say - the attack damage will need to be upped cos starve's are generally puny weapons where even in Act 3 of D2 if you hit something you are doing like 5 damage heh
I think the issue is that most of us can't make any serious criticisms because we haven't played yet!!
Anyway, I'd love to hear your argument.
Orbs are offhand, so they aren't weapons. They just have a bunch of killer mods on them. Wands don't have increased damage (I don't think), but they do allow for much higher FCR, like you said. FCR is determined by weapon speed now, just like spell damage is determined by weapon damage.
I sure as hell know that even if I was in beta, I wouldnt point out anything that I thought was going to create a delay. Simple put, Im tired of waiting. Tired of going over the skills on paper and have stopped with that until I get the final copy in my hands. I could care less if every single class only used ATT as the only stat in game as long I get to play it before the end of this decade.
If Diablo 3 has little problems that need balancing, Im sure they could be done after release. So, if blizz is happy with the current system, Im happy. Can patch later if need be.
The above image sums this whole issue up quite simply.
Honestly I think a Witch-doctor wielding a giant battle axe or poleaxe might look quite BA.
Personally, I feel it adds cohesion to the classes. In D2 and some other games, physical and spellcaster classes feel disjointed, almost as if they form part from a separate game altogether. The worst part is that sometimes it means that one will function better than the other.
Sure, some might say that it adds diversity, but I'd disagree. I see it as poor choice for developers to create separate systems just to make classes feel different. Blizzard has made an attempt here to build classes that function diversely all on their own merits without resorting to an divergent mess, MF is a good example thereof.
Yeah, some will disagree with me, saying that all classes are the same now, or that Blizzard is unimaginative for not finding a better solution. No, this is the best solution, working from the same system, an item driven system, is still a very Diablo system. Class skills and gameplay set them apart, not how you use their items. Besides, if Blizzard pulls this off just right, it would mean orbs are comparable and in some cases more desirable than melee items, which would still make the popular melee wizard build viable and practical.
Good job Blizzard.
As far as stat balancing goes, I agree that a lot of games seem to be really different between caster and melee stats. Vanilla WoW was pretty bad, especially at lower levels, with almost nothing aside from spell rank and talents contributing to caster damage; you almost never saw anything with +spell damage, +crit, etc until Molten Core. Even after vanilla though, things were still different until they changed Int to give spell power (before Cataclysm, Strength or Agility were key stats for melee, while the Intelligence stat was nothing but a slightly bigger mana pool and a little crit for casters, not something that increased damage by very much). League of Legends also has this problem, with physical classes/builds getting attack damage, attack speed, crit, life leech, and cooldown reduction, while ability power classes/builds getting ability power, cooldown reduction, and sometimes mana/mana regen, if they actually used mana.
And just looking at the tooltip of the skill while swapping weapon clearly showed the difference.
I liked it a lot.
Yes, we all are accustomed to the idea that a wizard wield staves and not a huge two handed hammer but I trust Blizzard is making both viable.
edit: almost forgot: thanks CherubDown, nice writeup!
Btw, Monks with daggers = Ninjas