Best datamined info I read was all the passive unique qualities that might be in the game. I was skeptical that legendaries, etc, could be build changing, but reading through some of what they are proposing, I saw a few things that might make me think long and hard about putting on a new piece. Ex: guaranteed crit hits below a certain % life
I'm guessing the "unattuned rune" idea is that whenever you change skills, the skill you just added loses the rune effect for some time? That sounds like a pretty smart way to go about it.
Jay Wilson discussed an idea they were going to toy around with when they released the removal of skill points & the RMAH.
He said they were going to toy with the idea of runes dropping as "Unattuned" runes which basically are gray runes with no visible stats, only a level. Once you put that rune into a skill, it becomes "attuned" to that skill and that skill only. So, a rune put into frenzy is now only usable in frenzy. That rune also will become one of the 5 color runes we already know about (randomly, and gain the effects on that skill) and may gain another couple modifiers, again randomly.
He also discussed the idea of having an artisan able to wipe the rune back to an unattuned state.
Now, if this were to happen, it would make the high level runes you have really important and valuable to the skills they are in, and only those skills. If there's a huge cost to reattune the rune, do you risk re-rolling the rune in a new skill if you like what you have? It's another wealth gaining system, and I personally love the idea. I hope they implement this.
haticK is onto it up there I believe. I think that runes will be important and difficult to get/expensive (for the good ones) but also necessary to play hell/inferno competitively. Through Normal/Nightmare, you'll find which skills you like based on your play style and their power, and you'll have to use mostly those in the later levels, because un-runed or poorly-runed skills won't help you survive.
This would be especially true if the new "unattuned rune" idea that Jay Wilson discussed comes to fruition. Yeah, you can change your skills on the fly, but there's no reason to until you're rich enough to have the correct rune for that skill with the better modifiers. Also, if you have a top of the line rune that you worked hard to get, are you going to swap away from that skill? No, otherwise you wouldn't have worked so hard for that rune.
Obviously, a ton of this will depend on the scarcity of upper level runes and the actual difficulty of hell/inferno. But these are things that Blizzard can easily balance for. I have to believe that they have truly thought this through.
Now, this doesn't address the legitimate problem of "why would I level a new witch doctor?" The "leveling" of the new one will actually be just finding the runes for that new "build" you want.
Similarly, hopefully your armor/weapons/gear will make changing skills at a whim harder as your gear isn't as effective anymore.
Luckily I don't think they're going to change drops significantly and channel them toward your character type given how much they have emphasized a trading economy, stash improvements, and end-game focusing on item-chasing instead of leveling.
If they'd tailor drops toward your character, that would undercut all of these things and remove the randomness that Blizzard has made its calling card. I was just watching the BlizzCon2010 Q/A and they really emphasized that it's a core part of their beliefs that a system that doesn't drop what you want is just as much a part of a well-designed random system as one that gives you the goods.
Making this change would be a deal-breaker in my mind.
Here's another interesting take on these fake accounts, and it adds another (possibly fake) teaser about major changes:
Fake Info Leaks from Blizzard Irvine
Posted 28 July 2011 by Flux
In an inevitable development, a new twitter account, @D3Anonymous, has popped up, run by someone who claims to have been at the media event at Blizzard Irvine today. He’s tweeting up a storm, with more than 60 posts in the last 4 hours, and while most of them are on previously-known info, there are a few with new revelations/predictions.
It’s DiabloWikiD3Here on Twitter! Not the same guy, but the same principle. This time the deception won’t live nearly as long, since we’ll find out everything from the attendees when their NDA expires on August 1st. If not sooner.
As most of you guys know, I am not typing this from Irvine, since Blizzard PR, in their infinite wisdom, elected not to extend an invitation to a representative of the largest, oldest, and most trafficked Diablo fansite on the internet. As a result, I’m not bound by any NDA, and when people who actually were at the event today send me info, there’s nothing legally stopping me from posting it. For instance [tease snipped by request].
Based on what I’ve heard tonight from actual event attendees, this D3Anonymous guy is entirely, 100% fake. (And looking back, D3Here was definitely fake as well.) Both of them were peddling old info with a few new predictions, and none of their deceptions even scratch the surface of the big, major, huge, shocking changes that have been made to D3 since we last saw the game at Blizzcon 2010.
In short, nothing in these new tweets even approaches the level of big news revelations we’ll soon be able to share with you guys. (And I am not at all sure that the changes will be popular. We’re talking major reworking of numerous game systems.)
That disclaimer given, here are a few of the more interesting tidbits Mr. D3Anonymous shares. As far as I know, none of them are true, except perhaps by accident. Take them purely for entertainment purposes.
One of the Monk tier 7 abilities, called Avatar of Azurewrath, 2 minute cooldown, Monk turns into a weapon of light and looks like a yellow-white light shadow figure that grants a MASSIVE attack speed and movement speed increase. Most awesome thing I’ve seen.
monk can now use shields, has a new smite ability that stuns + knockbacks enemies in front of him to make shield more viable for monk
You can click on players portraits in the battle.net interface and view what they have for sale, as well as full search funct. AH for mats.
And the news everyone has been waiting for….. Beta on the 15th of August.
players are placed in channels based on their level, and all have portraits, and an instant search bar at the bottom
DH has some awesome new skills, strafe: DH kind-of jumps and does a spin with arrows spewing out from every direction very rapidly #diablo3
At least claiming that there are major changes to major systems that people might not like is a bold claim. And this guy puts his name/rep/website on the line with it, so this will stick with him. It's not going out on a huge limb or anything, but it has been awhile since we've seen anything concrete about the game through video, so it's entirely possible.
I wonder what major changes to existing systems might have happened...?
Best datamined info I read was all the passive unique qualities that might be in the game. I was skeptical that legendaries, etc, could be build changing, but reading through some of what they are proposing, I saw a few things that might make me think long and hard about putting on a new piece. Ex: guaranteed crit hits below a certain % life
0
0
Jay Wilson discussed an idea they were going to toy around with when they released the removal of skill points & the RMAH.
He said they were going to toy with the idea of runes dropping as "Unattuned" runes which basically are gray runes with no visible stats, only a level. Once you put that rune into a skill, it becomes "attuned" to that skill and that skill only. So, a rune put into frenzy is now only usable in frenzy. That rune also will become one of the 5 color runes we already know about (randomly, and gain the effects on that skill) and may gain another couple modifiers, again randomly.
He also discussed the idea of having an artisan able to wipe the rune back to an unattuned state.
Now, if this were to happen, it would make the high level runes you have really important and valuable to the skills they are in, and only those skills. If there's a huge cost to reattune the rune, do you risk re-rolling the rune in a new skill if you like what you have? It's another wealth gaining system, and I personally love the idea. I hope they implement this.
0
This would be especially true if the new "unattuned rune" idea that Jay Wilson discussed comes to fruition. Yeah, you can change your skills on the fly, but there's no reason to until you're rich enough to have the correct rune for that skill with the better modifiers. Also, if you have a top of the line rune that you worked hard to get, are you going to swap away from that skill? No, otherwise you wouldn't have worked so hard for that rune.
Obviously, a ton of this will depend on the scarcity of upper level runes and the actual difficulty of hell/inferno. But these are things that Blizzard can easily balance for. I have to believe that they have truly thought this through.
Now, this doesn't address the legitimate problem of "why would I level a new witch doctor?" The "leveling" of the new one will actually be just finding the runes for that new "build" you want.
Similarly, hopefully your armor/weapons/gear will make changing skills at a whim harder as your gear isn't as effective anymore.
0
If they'd tailor drops toward your character, that would undercut all of these things and remove the randomness that Blizzard has made its calling card. I was just watching the BlizzCon2010 Q/A and they really emphasized that it's a core part of their beliefs that a system that doesn't drop what you want is just as much a part of a well-designed random system as one that gives you the goods.
Making this change would be a deal-breaker in my mind.
0
http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/fake-info-leaks-from-blizzard-irvine
At least claiming that there are major changes to major systems that people might not like is a bold claim. And this guy puts his name/rep/website on the line with it, so this will stick with him. It's not going out on a huge limb or anything, but it has been awhile since we've seen anything concrete about the game through video, so it's entirely possible.
I wonder what major changes to existing systems might have happened...?