DiabloFans

Quote from egg3rs

keep dangling that carrot, maybe your player base will stick around for another couple months

Comments like this sort of confuse me. They seem to suggest that this game was intended to be an mmo. Sure it has a good deal of replay value, but at some point you WILL run out of things to do. The same thing happened in D2... it just so happened that more people seemed more content to go about repeating the same thing over and over and over again (Hell I remember being in a string cow level games that got to "kow killers 43").

Quote from maka

Quote from GladHeHasBeta

no one should be hindered while leveling with builds. period. absolute freedom should be the case. with the billions of choices you have at your disposal it would be nothing short of fail city if there was ANY form of permanancy while leveilng and experiencing the game. you MUST be one of those few like maka whos greatest satisfaction in the game was re-leveling the same class over n over n over just to try different builds.

now with leveling put aside. this system completely removes the possibility of people switching skills in combat in order to tackle individual situations, they would be gimping the hell out of their farming potency by switcing anything therefor your "reward" for sticking to your build is more loot/better loot. thats THE greatest reward ANYONE could ask for in diablo. period. you act like im close minded and ignorant to the system when you cant even wrap your mind around any of this. you gave nothing supporting your statements just anger.

you want a reward for sticking to your build. you have it now. stop bitching about NOTHING and get over yourself.

PS. happy 2000th post!

Thanks for naming me, looks like I made an impact.

On the topic, this does nothing to reward people that stick with their build. It just rewards people for sticking with their build for the duration of that game. That person can then leave the game, create a new one and completely change their build. Permanence? Please...
And you say that absolute freedom should be the case? Well, where is it? Why is it that I have to start with Magic Missile? Why do I have to unlock Ray of Frost at level 2? What if I want Electrocute instead? Where's my freedom?
The truth is, you only shout "FREEDOM!" when it suits your ridiculous arguments. For everything else, you play(?) dumb.
The one good thing that this brings is that it promotes exploration instead of rushing (if it's implemented just right), and that's a really good thing.

Sure, there ARE limitations as you level. But that is the case for almost every single RPG out there. It is a necessary function that forces players to try differant things throughout the leveling process. Not to mention, you will already have all of your base skills by level 30, leaving only runes to unlock, and by that time you will have a pretty good idea of how these spells behave and you can anticipate how the runes will work in conjuction with your other abilities. So what is the problem here?

As to the whole permanence debate, I think it is just silly. A desire to go back to a time of nostalgia. But the problem is that once you do, you realize that it wasn't quite as good as you remembered it to be because you have had better things since. I played a LOT of diablo 2. I loved it. But there were also some painful hurdles. I remember leveling my first necromancer back before LOD came out and I wanted to make a skeleton army. Then I found out it was completely worthless and I would have to start over. That wasn't fun. So I did some research and I made an iron maiden/blood golem necro. Then came patch 1.09, and Blizzard broke that combo. But my necro was already level 99 and skill resets hadn't been brought into the game yet. So I basically lost that necro and all the time put into him. That wasn't fun either.

As things stand with this new feature it allows for enormouse flexability. There is no need to make things permanent outside of the instance of the game you are already playing. I agree that swapping spells on the fly was a bit much, but now if you want to truly be a cut above the average players, you can set up your skills in such a way that you don't have to swap them around and you will get the most milage.

More importantly, Diablo 3 is very much a multiplayer experiance. Now you can also set up your skills around the group that you are in, rather than what would work best solo. And because there are more classes than are allowed in a group, it means that most groups you are in will be differant. This adds a layer of strategy that is far deeper than anything that was in Diablo 2, and if you really want to be the elite, this is going to be how you will play. And you will be rewarded for it by actually being able to clear all the elite monsters and bosses without deaths and skill swaps, because you and your team know what is up. I really don't see the problem with this.

Quote from Molster

Though your correct in the point "we just don't know" I have to say I'm pretty sure won't be like that at all, the whole point of doing it this way is so you can farm what you want, also they want to keep it social and make sure you can play with your friends at any time, if they beat inferno, they need to be able to jump into your game, regardless of where you are

Actually, the entire point of Inferno was so that you didn't have to farm any more. With Diablo 2, it became infinite boss runs that were essentially a race to the finish. Inferno aims to make this rush-through mantality impossible. What I suggested above would still work, even within the framework of multiplayer. You simply couldn't jump passed where you were currently at. If you want to play with friends, I don't see the problem with sacrificing a little to join their game if they are a little behind. If they don't implement a system like this, we would essentially see the same sort of thing happen as in Diablo 2... people would simply queue up for the final act of Inferno, and that is all we would ever see any more. Which is exactly what Blizzard wants to avoid.

One thing I think a lot of people are assuming is that Diablo 3 endgame is going to be like Diablo 2 (in that you get waypoints, and just jump to where you want to go to). We don't actually know how Inferno mode will work... perhaps it might work that it saves your act/quest progress, but only lets you continue from that point onward (or go back to an ealier point, at the cost of loosing progress). If it works like this, then even when you beat the game, it would simply reset and you would be back at square one, climbing that ladder again. This would make sense since Inferno is intended to be viable no matter what gear you get in the game.

Now, if you add this to the fact that Blizzard has tried to pace the game so that you are max level by the time you reach Inferno, then idealy people will only be running through normal/nightmare/hell once each. So if Blizzard has made killing champions/rares increase the boss loot table, it only makes sense that you would do the entire level, along with bosses because you will be forced to kill the bosses any way (assuming you want to progress, and thus get even better loot).

Quote from Intodia

"The designers have been working on and testing a system that actually ties the rare/champion pack kills to boss kills quite nicely"
I cannot imagine how they tie one thing to another?

Perhaps they might do something like the more rare/champion packs that you kill in the level, the better the bosses loot table becomes.

WOOO! Got my invite today and I am downloading the client right now!
Was so excited that I ran in circles around my apartment! I hope that there will be more invites for those outside the US though; I know loads of people are dying to play this game.

Quote from Ferret

Quote from socialcockroach

Could there be some sort of in-game message that is displayed for everyone in the chat pane when Legendary/Uniques and Set Items drop:
"Player 1 has uncovered a Legendary Bow."

It may have the chance of increasing player trading outside of the AH, but there is also a downside to it. Assessing the situation honestly, how long do you think it would until a person gets fed up with not getting the drops he wants for himself and additionally having other people's luck constantly rubbed in his face? At this point, even the D2 looting system was better; as long as you could react faster than other people and their pick-it, at least you had a shot of getting items that actually dropped.

In addition to that, it also depends on how the MF mechanic works. I think (I'm not sure) it works like this: your own drops are affect by your own MF. If you're in a game with a Wiz that is doing noticably less damage than you but consistently getting better drops, it creates bad blood when the other players are consistently reminded of that.

The way it works right now is better because it doesn't create drama. While you will never know if someone found an item you could actually use, at least it'll be safe to assume that it will be posted on the AH unless he doesn't already have intentions for that item. That goes the other way as well; with you finding items and selling them. Besides, people who are genuinely interested in helping you out will ask you if you need the item he just found but can't use.

Well, as far as MF goes, from what I read it will be the MF of the person to last-hit the boss/mob that will apply for all other players. As some one else suggested earlier, there very well may be teams of people who designate one as the MFer and the others as DPS and let the MFer get the last hits. I am not totally sure about this though so I could be completely wrong.

Quote from saltybawls

There is also currently no loot management in place in Diablo III. If you were player two and you wanted that legendary bow, you would need to talk with that player one and hope that they are willing to trade it to you for either a price or even for free if you are lucky : )

But say Player 1 is more advanced and wealthy than Player 2 and has no need to even bother picking up the "legendary bow."
Unless P1 spoke up out of the goodness of his heart, P2 would never even know about the "legendary bow" that dropped.
P1 doesn't need the item, and doesn't care if P2 needs it (let's face it, not everyone will care), so the item goes to waste and disappears into the void of forgotten items with my old nerf guns and batman action figures.

Could there be some sort of in-game message that is displayed for everyone in the chat pane when Legendary/Uniques and Set Items drop:
"Player 1 has uncovered a Legendary Bow."

I'm no game designer, and I trust the D3 dev team, but I think that this would encourage player interaction and cooperation.
It also would wipe away the constant feeling that that shiny new item that you really need right now just dropped for someone else, but you'll never know.

I think that if you include a feature like that, there would be NO downside to the new loot system. Anyone else feel strongly about this?

I sort of like your idea but I don't think the scenario you are speaking of will come to pass. At least, not usually. True, in Daiblo 2 and 1, there would be situations where you simply wouldn't care about an item because your gear is so much more powerful so you would leave it but with the addition of the auction house, it would be sort of silly to pass up on something you are sure some one else could use (and thus, pay you gold/money so you could purchase something that will directly benifit you).

Also, because of the auction house, I think that your suggestion would cause more harm than good as one of your party members might feel insulted that you would rather sell the item then help them out. But then again, the same would apply to them so I guess it could even out.

It seems to me that the people most interested in Diablo 3's release date would be fans of Diablo 1 & 2. If you fall in to this group, then you have been a follower of Blizzard's work for more than 10 years. If this is the case, then it should stand to reason that you should recognize that Blizzard has had a long history of pushing out release dates until "it's ready" and you should be pretty familiar with Blizzard's favorite word: "soon." Conclusion? Move along, nothing to see here. No conspiracy nor failure on Blizzard's part. Just Blizzard doing what they have always done; making great games. Think of the extra development time as sort of a savings account... the longer it is worked on and allowed to mature, the more value it will have in the long run. There is a reason that many of Blizzard's older games are still played 10+ years later and it is because they put in that extra effort

Sort of obliquely related to the Best-Buy thing, but I noticed on the IGN website that they have listed Diablo 3 release date as both March 31, and simply Q1. The March 31st date is kind of hard to notice, but it is listed on their home page under "Top Games Coming Soon" section. The Q1 listing is in the header of the Diablo 3 page.

http://www.ign.com

http://pc.ign.com/objects/714/714955.html

Not really, no. Diablo 3's 'end-game' is struggling through difficult content for elite items to do better at the difficult content. This will be not be invalidated, because this gear will be the same as the gear you'll need to farm Hell to get into Inferno. So technically, you'll need this gear to do the expansion content.

And you can't compare Diablo 3 to an MMO, you need to compare it to D2. In D2 each boss and each act is only one step above what came before. You take small steps to improve, so just like LoD, Act 5 isn't miles away from Act 4 and Baal isn't ten times harder than Diablo.
In WoW, you can use Lich King gear to solo Illidan (or just ask a healer friend to tag along). This is not a fair comparison. Moreover, in WoW you could skip expansions, but in D2 you'll still need to clear each act and kill each boss to progress, and you WILL NEED the gear from a previous difficulty to progress to the next one.

Instead of being at the wrong end of the tunnel like the other person...you're just in the middle of it.

END GAME. End-game is AFTER Inferno where you've beat the full game (all difficulties) once but grind in some fashion to get better and better gear. When the next expansion comes out, everything from AFTER Inferno has been beaten the first time becomes invalidated because then level 60 just becomes any other level that isn't max level...something you aren't in very long, and something you don't spend a ton of time working on perfect gear for because...well there's better gear when you level.

You're also looking at WoW completely wrong. They are basically taking AWAY content (while not actually removing most of it from the game...just most of the compelling reasons to complete them after newer content is released) and replacing it with other content. Until end-game, WoW's content is simply levelling. Sans the odd concept of DKs starting at 55 (a great example of a new, absurd concept poking around at fundemental design). You can't buy Cataclysm and skip leveling from 1-80. So just like Diablo...you have to go through old content to get to the latest stuff. Raids and dungeons when they were max level (60, 70, 80) are not levelling content.

Diablo 3.1 (or whatever you want to call the expansion) is not going to require gear that you farmed post-beating Inferno in the first version. Everything you've done post-beating Inferno then becomes invalidated thanks to power creeping. Like I said before, I don't think it's going to have quite the impact power creeping has on traditional MMOs, I certainly agree with PA that this just simply happens everywhere, and no one (including Blizzard) has figured out how to avoid it (and again, like PA said, I agree money is the main motivator).

While I do understand what you are saying, and the inherent problem reaching the penicle of gear, one thing that really helps protect Diablo 3 from the problem of power creeping is the fact that the best gear is going to be randomized. What this means is that there is going to be a certain level of grey area in terms of what is "best" that simply doesn't exist as much in most MMO's since those games are usually designed around a set tier of equipment. Even when expansions for Diablo 3 are released, it wont be like WoW in that suddenly all gear is worthless compared to the new stuff. In fact, it really might take quite a bit of time before a true upgrade is found. And really, the problem can also be sort of avoided by adding lateral improvements to the game (i.e. new items to fit in sockets, or perhaps a return of the talisman idea).

I am not going to say that Diablo 3 is immune to this problem. No game that expands on its content can be 100% safe. But the way that the systems in Diablo work naturally provide protection from these specific problems. And even if you truly do have all of the best items in the game and a new expansion opens a new tier, it isn't like your current gear is suddenly worthless. You can still sell it for quite a hefty price as all the randomly rolled stats will still make it highly desirable. If anything the new top-tier stuff will just be that much harder to obtain, and thus cost just that much more.

While I do understand what you are saying, and the inherent problem reaching the penicle of gear, one thing that really helps protect Diablo 3 from the problem of power creeping is the fact that the best gear is going to be randomized. What this means is that there is going to be a certain level of grey area in terms of what is "best" that simply doesn't exist as much in most MMO's since those games are usually designed around a set tier of equipment. Even when expansions for Diablo 3 are released, it wont be like WoW in that suddenly all gear is worthless compared to the new stuff. In fact, it really might take quite a bit of time before a true upgrade is found. And really, the problem can also be sort of avoided by adding lateral improvements to the game (i.e. new items to fit in sockets, or perhaps a return of the talisman idea).

I am not going to say that Diablo 3 is immune to this problem. No game that expands on its content can be 100% safe. But the way that the systems in Diablo work naturally provide protection from these specific problems. And even if you truly do have all of the best items in the game and a new expansion opens a new tier, it isn't like your current gear is suddenly worthless. You can still sell it for quite a hefty price as all the randomly rolled stats will still make it highly desirable. If anything the new top-tier stuff will just be that much harder to obtain, and thus cost just that much more.

Quote from Gheed2010

Another torchlight feature...

Lol what? Gems and gem enhancements were part of Diablo 2, which was released some time early 2000. Torchlight came out on October 27, 2009. I am not great at math, but I think Diablo 2 was around first, meaning that this particular feature is definitely NOT borrowed from torchlight.

Quote from Valkray

I really dont agree with what blizzard has done with gems, They really should of added more of a gem selection because theres no resistance gem, there isnt leech, or how about some other spicy effect they could of tryed and come up with? I mean come on ruby helm isnt even END GAME EFFECTIVE! its a waste...

I think you are getting upset a little prematurely. One thing I noticed about the socketting page was that weapons were NOT included among items that could have a socket added. This says one of two things to me:

1) Weapon sockets haven't been added yet and are on the to do list, or the ability to socket weapons doesn't come until a higher jewel crafting level.

2) Weapon sockets wont be added until the first expansion, and with it there will probably be new items with which to fill those sockets. Remember, when Diablo 2 first came out there were only gems. After LOD, jewels and runes were added.

Also, remember that there is the Mystic Artisan that will do item enchantments. We will probably see a lot more variety in modifiers from this particular artisan.

Quote from -Mephisto

I like being in control of my character. They're completely ruining this game as they progress through the development. I'm actually, and for the first time ever, giving serious thought as to whether I'm gonna buy this game or not. They're pretty much shitting on the hardcore fans of the series (Well, a vast proportion of them) and justifying it by saying "well, we thought the D2 version was shit, this will be way better". I mean, what the fuck?

No... they are simply shitting on those people who fear change and don't have much imagination for what Blizzard's proposed system could be. Diablo 2 did many things different than Diablo 1. And before its release, there was just as much controversy as there is now in regards to skills ("What?! They don't have to find their abilities? WTF!!!!"). Did that make it a bad game? Hell no... it is still played today and has many loyal fans (myself included). Now, like its predecessor, Diablo 3 is changing things up. But that isn't a bad thing... it just means that it is a different game. Not simply an expansion pack to Diablo 2 with better graphics.

This doesn't mean that I feel Blizzard is infallible in their decision, but I am not going to freak out and froth at the mouth until I actually see how things pan out.