They've said many many times that there will be two sets of skills. A PvE set and a PvP set. That way they can balance both sets for their respective uses.
Best news ever.
I'd look at them as versions.
Sorry to burst your bubble but that simply was never said. They've said that certain skills (ie stuns and the like) will have different effects on players and bosses than on standard monsters, but there won't be anything close to entire sets of skills. In fact, after saying that they would balance PvE and PvP separately at Blizzcon 2010, they later were sure to clarify that separate balancing would be used as little as possible, but would be an option.
Yea the word still fits, even though its not necessarily how its used in most games. And for all we know each aura could possibly have a rune that turns it permanent.
They do sound different than the barbs shouts IMO. Shouts seem to be more of a straight buff (and he also has one that debuffs enemies,) while Auras are an instant effect followed by a buff. Seems like enough of a difference as far as buffs go.
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.
My major problem is the visual appearance of gear. A monk, according to the class page, mostly wears rags and tattered vestments. The monk rarely uses his weapon. If you watch the blizzcon video above, you will see that blizzard is happy to flaunt the OVER THE TOP incredible barbarian and witch doctor sets. They look awesome, and go with the flavor of the class, but how can blizzard do this for the monk?
Where do you get that from? The class page says that the monk he encountered was in rags, but that doesn't mean all monks are. Their look is all about robes, not rags. Also, I don't know if anyone has mentioned this, but on each character page they also have some kind of progression concept where you see what their armor looks like at higher levels. The Monk doesn't have anything quite like that, but it does have a concept of a high level female monk.
Yea, but its only recently that anyone has put it up anywhere (went up on B.net about a week ago, and now here) so time isn't a huge issue. As for when it should go up, no idea, but yea we usually don't get anything till around Wednesday.
The only foreseeable thing we'll get is the FB art/screenshots in 4.5k likes, so probably tomorrow or Tuesday. And I gotta believe they'll have some announcement after a week of nothingness.
Mercs were never essential even in d2 and they most certainly CAN be balanced. Who are you to tell blizzard what they can and can't do? Have you ever programmed a diablo game?
A good place for you to start in this debate would be saying something that is true.
And I dont really care if mercs or followers can be used in pvp, but again I'd prefer having the option. If they aren't balanced in pvp, don't use them in pvp.
Well, for starters, I'm not telling Blizz to do anything. Their own playtesting and iterations led them to the current conclusion to the follower 'problem,' and I'm simply pointing out the reasoning behind it.
And I'm honestly sick and tired of everyone saying 'I just want the option.' Of course you do. That doesn't mean that Blizzard should sacrifice quality just so that you have more options. We all know that its not a realistic solution to just have it be a checkmark. If it doesn't work or isn't balanced, it shouldn't be in the game. Period. There are plenty of other options in D3, we don't need more that don't meet Blizz's quality standards.
Again, why should there be options for the sake of options? If something is clearly over the top, why should it be allowed? Theres been plenty of complaints on these forums and elsewhere about too much stuff on the screen, and thats not when you're trying to keep track of your character just to survive or play effectively. I agree that we should have plenty of options, but there has to be a point where it cuts off. And in the case of screen clutter, the cut off point is where the game becomes nearly unplayable. If you just keep asking 'Why isn't this or this implemented?' then of course you're going to think that Blizzard is limiting your play. Not to mention that, if we're going to get into the 4 player limit here, its not only about screen chaos. Its also about balance. But I won't get into that.
Edit: And as for the "screen chaos" argument.. try playing WoW with 25 ppl in a raid fighting bad guys that don't even fit in the screen. It's AMAZINGLY fun to be in the middle of pure chaos.. I was main tank in a very active guild, and I had to find a way to keep everything that was happening under control during extremely complex mechanics. You find a way, and it's exhilarating. I agree with those here, that we should have the option.
And the reason it works is, for one, because of the screen angle, and secondly because of balance. WoW's health system allows for harder hitting monsters, because its someone else's responsibility to heal you. Theres no such thing in D3. Your health goes steadily down until you get a globe. If you had eight players monsters would have to hit insanely hard for it to be a challenge for the group as a whole, but that would also mean that whoever is getting attacked is dying way too quickly. For D3's screen angle and graphical effects, 4 players is chaos, but just the right amount of it. But again, thats not the topic we're discussing.
They might be the majority in terms of raw numbers (and even that's debatable), but they certainly aren't in terms of number of hours played. And I think players who show fidelity to a game and a company should be rewarded, not (as someone said above) "given the shaft".
Its really not debatable in terms of raw numbers. D2 has sold what, 4 or 5 million copies? Theres no way the online community, even if you combined every unique player across the game's life, is or was anywhere near that. SC2 has sold over 3, probably closer to 4 million copies, and even during the game's beginning the amount of players online numbered in, at most, the high hundred thousands. Its a common trend across many games that people just play SP/Campaign or whatever the game offers that isn't online.
Obviously your second point, about hours played, still stands, and we should be rewarded for that. But that doesn't have to be through followers or a similar system. Even if you had something like a box to check to include followers, people would still make builds based around them, and thats just pretty lame. Especially considering the emphasis on character power. Why should it be possible for you to make a build where you intentionally exclude normally essential parts just so that the follower can fill in the blanks?
Followers (both as hirelings in D2 and across many other ARPGs that have included similar systems) are notoriously hard to implement well, so Blizz decided against them. That doesn't mean that we won't see their usefulness expanded in the future, and it also doesn't mean that their restricting our current options. Its just something that (for reasons I've delved into countless times in these threads) is incredibly hard to balance correctly. If you get it slightly wrong in either direction, suddenly one side of the argument is outraged again. You saw how many people were pissed off because they thought followers were essential, and you also see how pissed off people are now that they think their useless (for good reason). So its much easier to simply make it a nonissue but still helpful to a large portion of the people who will end up getting the game. That doesn't mean we're getting the shaft.
Lets put it this way. Suppose WW Barbs are a common, fun build to play. Now suppose that a WW Barb benefits greatly from a Follower's AoE slow skill, to the point where it becomes overpowered. So Blizz nerfs the AoE slow, but it still helps the WW Barb too much, and the follower is still essential to the most effective WW build. What you end up with is ridiculously complicated balancing, where you have to take the followers, which a lot of people didn't want in the first place, into account, instead of directly nerfing/buffing character skills. As we all know, a game like Diablo is incredibly hard to balance, and it will only be harder with the amount of builds in D3. Why make it more complicated by allowing people to supplement their build's weaknesses with a follower?
I'm not saying balancing followers isn't a challenge Blizz wouldn't be able to handle, but clearly it would take a lot of time. And thats not even taking into account the fact that no matter how finely you balance it, people could (and with billions of build possibilities, probably will) find a way to still exploit followers to make builds with very few weaknesses, that are also lame because if your follower is down suddenly your significantly less powerful, and because you, the hero of the game, have to rely on some random guy you rescued.
1
1
2
1
They do sound different than the barbs shouts IMO. Shouts seem to be more of a straight buff (and he also has one that debuffs enemies,) while Auras are an instant effect followed by a buff. Seems like enough of a difference as far as buffs go.
1
4
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.
[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.
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.
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.
1
http://us.blizzard.com/diablo3/_images/artwork/ss95-hires.jpg
1
The only foreseeable thing we'll get is the FB art/screenshots in 4.5k likes, so probably tomorrow or Tuesday. And I gotta believe they'll have some announcement after a week of nothingness.
1
And I'm honestly sick and tired of everyone saying 'I just want the option.' Of course you do. That doesn't mean that Blizzard should sacrifice quality just so that you have more options. We all know that its not a realistic solution to just have it be a checkmark. If it doesn't work or isn't balanced, it shouldn't be in the game. Period. There are plenty of other options in D3, we don't need more that don't meet Blizz's quality standards.
2
And the reason it works is, for one, because of the screen angle, and secondly because of balance. WoW's health system allows for harder hitting monsters, because its someone else's responsibility to heal you. Theres no such thing in D3. Your health goes steadily down until you get a globe. If you had eight players monsters would have to hit insanely hard for it to be a challenge for the group as a whole, but that would also mean that whoever is getting attacked is dying way too quickly. For D3's screen angle and graphical effects, 4 players is chaos, but just the right amount of it. But again, thats not the topic we're discussing.
Its really not debatable in terms of raw numbers. D2 has sold what, 4 or 5 million copies? Theres no way the online community, even if you combined every unique player across the game's life, is or was anywhere near that. SC2 has sold over 3, probably closer to 4 million copies, and even during the game's beginning the amount of players online numbered in, at most, the high hundred thousands. Its a common trend across many games that people just play SP/Campaign or whatever the game offers that isn't online.
Obviously your second point, about hours played, still stands, and we should be rewarded for that. But that doesn't have to be through followers or a similar system. Even if you had something like a box to check to include followers, people would still make builds based around them, and thats just pretty lame. Especially considering the emphasis on character power. Why should it be possible for you to make a build where you intentionally exclude normally essential parts just so that the follower can fill in the blanks?
Followers (both as hirelings in D2 and across many other ARPGs that have included similar systems) are notoriously hard to implement well, so Blizz decided against them. That doesn't mean that we won't see their usefulness expanded in the future, and it also doesn't mean that their restricting our current options. Its just something that (for reasons I've delved into countless times in these threads) is incredibly hard to balance correctly. If you get it slightly wrong in either direction, suddenly one side of the argument is outraged again. You saw how many people were pissed off because they thought followers were essential, and you also see how pissed off people are now that they think their useless (for good reason). So its much easier to simply make it a nonissue but still helpful to a large portion of the people who will end up getting the game. That doesn't mean we're getting the shaft.
Lets put it this way. Suppose WW Barbs are a common, fun build to play. Now suppose that a WW Barb benefits greatly from a Follower's AoE slow skill, to the point where it becomes overpowered. So Blizz nerfs the AoE slow, but it still helps the WW Barb too much, and the follower is still essential to the most effective WW build. What you end up with is ridiculously complicated balancing, where you have to take the followers, which a lot of people didn't want in the first place, into account, instead of directly nerfing/buffing character skills. As we all know, a game like Diablo is incredibly hard to balance, and it will only be harder with the amount of builds in D3. Why make it more complicated by allowing people to supplement their build's weaknesses with a follower?
I'm not saying balancing followers isn't a challenge Blizz wouldn't be able to handle, but clearly it would take a lot of time. And thats not even taking into account the fact that no matter how finely you balance it, people could (and with billions of build possibilities, probably will) find a way to still exploit followers to make builds with very few weaknesses, that are also lame because if your follower is down suddenly your significantly less powerful, and because you, the hero of the game, have to rely on some random guy you rescued.