Quote from Bleu42
Also on the soulstone part; The crushed soulstones sent the souls to the void, a place that has been in the lore forever, Where Lilith was banished. But she found a way to escape way back then, who's to say Adria didn't find a way to get IN to the void to capture the souls needed for the black soulstone.
Who's to say? Well, I might have a thought on that... Let's ignore the lore in the book completely for a minute.
Diablo 2 winning the game recipe:
1) Collect ze soulstones - mephisto, diablo and baal have one, andariel and duriel have not
2) Crush ze mephisto soulstone on hellforge = "diablo must have sensed the trembing in hell" - this is ze advice given by deckard cain, the lore incarnated - supposedly it did something really nasty to him
3) Kill diablo (he has his soulstone at this time and is very much alive before killing takes place) - normally, a hero would destroy his soulstone at hellforge while at it - it's just one waypoint away
4) Kill baal - nothing is said about soulstone, though he clearly has one with him, nothing is known about this one - it is perhaps destroyed in hellforge, and perhaps not
Again, we are ignoring lore books and stick to the game
- Now, ze andariel and duriel have no soulstones vith them - it is unclear what happens to them after killed - but deckard cain obviously doesn't worry much
- All three prime evils have soulstones with themselves - ze same ones created by horadrim to contain them, but not powerful enough
- Soulstones can exist apart from body - example ist baal and his soulstones - again, very much alive even without one which he acquires at the end of game
Most important:
- Leah ist born years before The Wanderer lost his fight - on that topic, he was exceptionally strong willed and defyed Diablo (in a form of soulstone) for years - that's major flaw in your reasoning - he vasn't immediately made by Diablo to do things, he couldn't have been - he fighted till the very end
- Diablo ist in der soulstone in the head of The Wanderer at game time, and therefore NOT in Leah (or her soul). His connection with Leah ist... questionable
-----------------
On OP - slow moving voman and spider queen are no one. They are just between a hero and a khazra barricade, where staff ist ze meaning to enter. My real question ist: "WHO IS KHAZRA?". Clearly, something unholy ist happening with goatmen und cultists and Khazra is some sort of:
- symbol
- gott
- sorceror
- warrior/hero
- cult leader
- plural for goatmen
Is he alive or dead or resurrected or waiting to be resurrected? There are references on Khazra-magic, suggesting sorcerer or goatmen in total. That I don't unterstant
1
why the least competent of mortals dare to comment divine thought?
the grammar - well, divine native is latin, and it was noted in the post that english is not - but The God speaks several languages, and his english is far better than any language that you may know (apart from your native), if any. being acceptable at own language is not something to brag about, wouldn't you know? the 'published author' information is true, so The God feels no obligation at all to discuss divine literacy with you...
"Where do you come up with this shit?"
by playing, when you were little. 'lore' was only invented later, but you wouldn't know that, either.
"Edit; To expand on my point slightly, you seem so hell bent on hating Blizzard..."
you have no point at all. good and bad points of each storyline were given - some things were quite good, as noted, other were not. the post may be a bit more concentrated on flaws of current game - with hope that kind of stuff won't plague expansions
writing in uppercase is not sign of hatred, since heavenly being is beyond love and hate, but rather an old habit in accenting things - back in the days we didn't have a 'space', let alone lowercase letters, though i did tried to reform alphabet once. but it's the matter for people with actual education...
and, unlike you, The God actually tries to do something to make game better.
feeling educational, I, Clavdivs, The God and the published author will enlighten you about writing a bit - the base of GOOD storytelling is establishing characters, rules, places BEFORE making actual story, and sharing them with the reader/player at proper time, often offering a possibility of various things happening within established rules. that makes reader/player immersed into story, because he can speculate what will happen next.
exactly opposed is trying to fill up the holes with later invented 'lore', just because someone felt something outside the rules should have happened, so he's writing back to 'explain' how it was done and why it was logical and possible in the first place. that kind of storytelling is for vertical scrolling shooters, or soap operas...
The God can compare parts of diablo I storyline with later 'lore' and find numerous inconsistencies - to have an actual lore is... The God decides there is no point talking to you anymore
1
as a trial, The God did similar test with dexterity and %dodge, though this test is doomed to be unreliable and misleading. for that reason, I, Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, The God, will INTERPRET the test results, rather then post them and mislead the mortals:
- the higher HP is, the more useful %dodge is - The God advise absolutely no investment in dexterity until vitality is less then CD (and the level is LX, due to differences in HP formula)
- possible investment shouldn't, in any case be greater than D (or XX% dodge) - while additional percentage can't actually hurt, in most cases direct investment in vitality pays more
- %Life items favor %dodge investment
- both armor and resistance favor %dodge investment
as a conclusion, The God advises 'accidental' dexterity - some is gained through leveling, and some is usually found on items anyway. pure build, consisting of only vitality and primary, would be in most cases somewhat weaker than build mixed with up-top-D-or-whatever-luck-would-have build. remember, mortals, dexterity is lesser value early-game, and grows in power only in lategame scenarios, where it can achieve several percents advantage over vitality INVESTMENT - not replacing it as first choice, but rather 'having some will help some', following the rules above
1
3
being a game designer is far from "living your dream". there are deadlines, overtime work, always unfinished stuff. and there are "fans". like a crows, like a murder of whining crows: i don't like this, i want to, this is imba, this should be like, my friend's brother who is also a moron said that, this is too high, this should be left - YOU ARE TOO BLAME JAY WILSON
two names? not a royalty? or conqueror? well, nevermind, i had freedmen in my service, too. so, this jay person is probably having a worse time of his life, probably plays for XV minutes a week and is pressured constantly
OF COURSE HE MADE WW BARBARIAN IMBALANCED SO HE COULD DO IN THAT XV MINUTES WHAT THE REST OF US CAN IN WEEK
"a conflict of interests", really! he gets paid for his job, but The God is sure that, at this moment, he wishes about two months unpaid leave or that he would pay someone to be jay wilson instead
use your head next time. and if you want to play imba class, there is always ww-barbarian for you. not that hard to level
1
1
The Perks - the first and so far last replayability hope of diablo III is being worked on in divine mind. in short, they should favor a certain playstyles to a degree that it changes typical ones - therefore tripling the diversity. divine intellect is still not full in agreement enough to give any details, but one, ROUGH and probably never really proposed by me, would be regarding AN ABOMINATION, GOD FORSAKEN MELEE WIZARD WHO....
[calmed] ...would get II int, I str, I dex, III vit per level. this ABOMINATION would progress in following manner each int point = 1% damage (as normal) and each III vitality = +1% damage, apart from normal bonus. this favors investment in high HP, while keeping same dps bonus. as this is probably imbalanced toward just-massing-vitality, and applying bonus to a str or dex would spread too thin attributes (if they are not balanced well, as The God proposed), the right ratio should be found, somewhere between above and something like two int = two and a half %damage, and III vit = half %damage.
this is just a rude rude and unworthy example, for satisfying curiosity. of course, all should relating existing builds and gamestyles, which are currently under a heavy change with each successive patch
I, Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, ACCEPT THE OFFER OF A MORTAL WHO OFFERED DESIGNING OF A WEBSITE. EVEN MOST CRUDE ONE WILL DO. The God will supply all material written so far, and spread a heavenly blessing upon a brave mortal soul who does it!
2
BAD!!! NERFING INFERNO BUT INCREASE LAG BETWEEN:
I) ONES WITH NO LIVE, EXPLOITERS AND BOTTERS
II) NORMAL FOLKS PLAYING PERSISTENTLY LIMITED TIME OF DAY
PATRICIANS SHOULD, OF COURSE, HAVE BENEFITS OVER PLEBEIAN SCUM, BUT FIXING THE MF RATE??? DIVINE WISDOM CLAIMS THAT I% OF I) ALREADY HAD THEY FILL. GAME SHOULD BE THE SAME FOR EVERYBODY! NO SHORTCUTS! LIKE LOWERING TAXES FOR I% OF RICHEST PEOPLE IN GAME!
on a separate note The God decided to fix the blog. or not. or just the ugly color, and ugliness becomes The God's trademark? I, Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, shall ponder on this also, only to a much lesser degree...
1
adding /players into the game is very bad idea, it will only make the gap between players greater. really geared players will use harder but more rewarding parameters, and get even more powerful. that will be felt soon both on AH and in future PvP - about opposite of what should happen. less geared people will farm for more geared, and process will go on forever...
i deliberately use 'more geared' instead 'better' players, because large amount of supposedly 'best' players were, in fact, exploiting some of numerous bugs and exploits game had (unlimited experience from quests, 'god mode' - only The God is allowed to use it) etc. The God also suspects a number of them are, or are connected to beta testers, who purposely kept in secret exploits they found during test phase, to use themselves after the game starts. this is not a conspiracy theory, it actually happened to me during the time i was a game designer. it is a likely scenario...
ok, there are people who are really good and/or invested huge amount of time in farming but how many of them are in, say best D or M is real question....
THE PROMISE WAS MADE, AND GOD WILL SHORT UP THE WIZARD
wizard is probably class suffering the least changes in current and future patch, so Blizzard must consider it a paramount of balance. well, it is not. it suffers from a number of flaws:
I Tiered skills - what is EXACT difference between Wall of Force and Explosive Blast? basically, nothing. X runes + II pure skills for something that does basically the same thing - damages all around caster for... wow, about CC+ damage of PHYSICAL. are they similar? no, not at all [irony]. yes, they can be triggered at different times, but shorten cooldown, and use only TRULY DIFFERENT runes would compress them both nicely in one, diverse skill. search for more tiered skills or look into the blog. when it's updated, of course
II No diversity skills - take Archon for example. yes, V nice runes + basic skill and... they are all about the same. and they shouldn't have been. look into the blog for more
III Overnerfed - i chiefly think teleport. what was once a true signature spell is now at lower tier of skills. basically, every class has similar but better one, one without insane 14 sec cooldown. The God uses Calamity for its damage and escape potential, used Fracture before Calamity buff (five times the initial damage! that is what Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus called BUFFING). other runes - mainly useless and lookalike. why not more imagination - why every one has to have 14 sec cooldown? we could have one with less, say 5-8, used just for quicker movement. we could have more efficient escape mechanisms (apart from Fracture/Calamity, wizards often get caught with unstoppable, unpredictable boss ability and killed on site) - say one which gives 5 sec with no collision L% increased speed, no attack? more damaging - say the same, only trail of fire (cinder) left behind? and above all, why 14 sec?
IV Useless - both armor spells, and IV out of V Energy Field runes (well, overstatement). The God balances them all, by adding +XL% armor increase OR +XL% resistance. the rest can stay the same. a must-have! MUST HAVE! well, glass-cannons may opt not to use it, but is wizard all about being glass-cannon?
V Flatliners - Hydra in leveling - from rune I at level XXVIII, they are dealing the same damage. flat. sure, a bit of difference IN LEVELING would be nice, while skill is PERFECT for usage of INFERNO RUNES. Also, Hydra deals more than Magic Weapon and Familiar combined with Glass Cannon passive. yes TRUE! anyone not using Hydra is a FOOL! FOOL, I TELL YOU! A MUST HAVE!
VI Bad end-game runes - all three, Explosive Blast, Mirror Image and Archon. all can be fixed easily - for example, Mirror Image is potentially highly useful, except... it has to be a Duplicates rune. II images are never enough. also, the spread should be greater, as most non-glass-cannon wizards die when caught in crowd, and II illusions + real wizard get caught in crowd often. a basic skill must have a III or IV illusions (if IV, Duplicates should go to VI, or be buffed a bit in other manner), rest is fine. and The God has a beautiful and elegant solution for Archon, no resources needed. just good will
VII No Fire - where is fire sorceress we all knew and loved? GONE! WITH DIABLO II! what The God means is that effects of more skills should be fire. and less physical. also more lighting. so fire and lighting passives are actually usable... and why wizard has poison? is it out of context? effect could be the same, but poison doesn't fit well
look! and yes, all is clear in divine thought. diablo III lacks:
A) achievements
A) By achievements, The God considers the feeling of happiness when defeating Diablo, or some other boss. they are just too easy! and whole act IV is way too easy. i should played more to reach pinnacle, to defeat Lord of Terror himself. last maps (act IV and hellwell on act III) should be so hard that it looks almost impossible to beat... and by farming, gaining exp and gear, they gradually open and after one very hard battle, you proudly say 'I, Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, HAVE DEFEATED DIABLO!' (preferably getting decent stuff, unlike one i got. oh, and you can use your own name. or mine. whatever). and then chose another class. then another. then another build. forever.
currently, you'll probably continue to farm for loot. then start another class, but will have more gold then Rome, run through leveling, run through inferno, defeat diablo, feel miserably...
Has The God solution? I, Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, introduce THE PERKS. player picks one (out of three, for instance) at creating of character, something that change the class feeling considerably. it is the specialty player character has, which influence later game by it's very nature. AND IT CANNOT BE CHANGED! well, player could get to change it when reaching Inferno, and at the same time chose another, INFERNO PERK. or not. maybe first choice perk should stay the same forever. or there should be only one perk. either. no matter.
By having THE PERKS, players are forced to make multiple characters, if they want multiple builds - this way, one only needs V heroes and some items - one wizard for PvP, glass cannon, balanced, melee... The God actually enjoyed leveling another hero of same class for each build in diablo II. here, Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, will likely have V heroes, and V for stashing stuff...
I, Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus apologize for LOOSING THE TEMPER! YES! ahm, yes, The God should remained calmer... CALMER!!! during this sharing of divine thought... it's just The God was expecting more from 1.05 instead nerfing inferno - nerfing beginning of act I, buffing end, changing exp curve, making actual difficulty curve, NOT introducing systems that increases current, often unfair differences...
and just to be known, 'top players' are rare in real life, but often very loud on forums... and people brag way too much of inferno BOTH being too easy and too hard. even as it is now, it's hardly possible to be easy and hard at the same time, no?
1
yes, the blog – it's ugly and unworthy and it will be replaced soon – as soon as the updates being worked on are completed.
GOD'S DISCLAIMER:
EVERY idea and solutions listed come from divine thought, but also from common sense and rationality. it is natural that reasonable fixes are similar, even identical. while The God is all-knowing, he isn't all-interested, especially in reading every fix proposed on every forum – he would be, if there weren't so much garbage. if something is identical, then it's a coincidence, and person in question should feel honored that his thoughts are similar to divine thoughts. I owned the known world – and have no need for stealing.
GOD SPEAKS BRIEFLY:
I – itemization
both one-handed+shield and two-handed style are underpowered compared with dual-wielding. shield is too random on block chance and therefore entirely luck based and flawed in nature, while two-handers are weak compared to dual-wielding and need buffs to be viable.
level LVIII having just one item is poor – all this beautiful graphic WASTED. on inferno, every of XII different item types should be able to spawn with level LVIII stats and affixes (and levels LXI and LXII also)
gems are as flawed as in diablo II. there is only few real uses, which are often imbalanced (emerald in weapon) or questionable (ruby in helmet – should it exist?)
entirely random items are not good solution. there has to be some point of certainty for crucial parts of equipment, for example boots spawning the movement speed (not always, just more often than now) or weapons spawning damage and elemental bonuses)
II Attributes
secondary effects of attributes is highly uneven. strength being the best by far, while intelligence lacking in all aspects. fixes are needed to make builds more diverse – for example, dexterity-based barbarian could be made viable option, instead of straight – primary+vitality build. each time. for each class. with no alternative. forever. a proposition is in blog.
IV Interface (skipping the unneeded and unfinished points from here on)
CTRL is WORST use of crucial button ever. At first The God thought it should be 'force move' button, but now he changed his mind with more interesting idea – 'native attack' – NO SKILL used, just plain weapon damage, as without mana/resources. this way some of inherited effects planned (cold, fire) could be actually used, instead just converted in dps-of-some-type-governed-by-skill
DPS formula is nice, but other parameters should be available to see, too, like damage and cooldown. while 'reversed cooldown' (attacks per second) are easier to understand, showing a real cooldown also has it uses – at least for some people.
item identification should be REMOVED ENTIRELY. it is tedious and has no real purpose.
VII Acts and balancing
acts on inferno have no difficulty curve, just plain jump. and that's not good, of course – as is Act III and IV being identical in difficulty. last maps of each act should be near as difficult as first ones of the next, and Act IV should be significantly harder than it is now
balancing was not done well, and it WON'T be done well EVER, since there are opposing interests involved:
a) leveling – each rune or skill acquired later should be even or better than the current one – makes player feel the pleasure of progressing
INFERNO RUNES are proposition made by The God to solve this. once in inferno, runes change their statistics, sometimes even way they function, to become balanced and fit for player to choose between them – similar to what Hydra is today and opposed to what Hydra was in the past. Alternatively, just NO RUNE could be changed to something else in inferno, because... well, nobody uses it ever
some passives should change with game progressing – for instance 'galvanized wand' healing effects worth something in while leveling, but is later easily surpassed by ONE affix on ONE item. passives shouldn't get obsolete, too.
NV bonus is made too valuable, so it often discourages players to change builds. The God suggest that changes THE RUNE while keeping the same SKILL should not affect NV – it could mean a world to change a rune, especially if INFERNO RUNES are used
VIII Wizard notes and balances
The God promised this. but, as luck would have it, file is lost somewhere on hdd. also, it was eaten by a dog! so, until this matter is resolved, patience is needed...
3
This is short version of everything said on site. For a detailed information, The God is afraid that you'll have to dwell deeper into the divine wisdom.
Itemizatization
In there, The God discusses why is dual-wielding favored in contrast to two handers and weapon+shield, and gives solutions which would lead to far greater diversity among equipment usage. The gems are also discussed, Blizzard made awful mess with them - to be honest, they weren't good in diablo II also - and how to solve this, in a manner that every gem has its use and no gem is overpowered.
Loot
In there, The God discusses general problems connected to 'Three Stooges approach' - everything is random, but there is awful lot of them. Naturally, almost all are useless, cannot be sold on AH or RMAH, can be vendored but with annoying 'identification waste of time' for low profit. Solutions are, of course, given, mainly going towards lessening the number of drops, but increasing their quality, and renouncing some of randomization.
Attributes
Current 'variable builds' are exclusively consisting of main attribute + vitality, secondaries being lower grade. It this chapter, a discussion about making viable build of 'dexterity barbarian', or 'intelligence DH' are made. Those aren't, of course, meant to become main build, but are good for fun builds with decent viability.
Multiplayer
And how the Activision Blizzard killed it in 1.05. And how I, Clavdivs, The God will save it! And make the game a social one, instead lonely farming experience.
Interface
Various changes which would improve overall game experience, like 'drop non-magical' or 'drop non rare/legendary' button, remapping ALL keys, locking items in place etc...
Game diversity
Linearity? YES! Open, vibrant world. INFERNO, NO! Is it the game everyone wishes to play for next X years? Suggestions concerning GOOD side-quests, interesting bosses, variable dungeons, decreased repeatability during farming etc.
Class diversity
In this chapter, The God addresses the following problem: THERE IS NO REPLAYABILITY. Whatsoever. Paragons and MP made sure of that. But divine wisdom found a way to avoid this, of course. Even override paragon/MP tombstone, and convert game to what it should be in the first place. Make people play few heroes at one time? Make players repeat game with SAME hero with a different experience? HOW, HOW? - THE PERKS ™ - read on!
Acts and game
Arbitrary, the Act I and III are best designed ones - lots of interesting ideas put in (some working fine, others not so good). How to make Acts II and IV better, and Acts I and III even better than they are now? How to correct some, errr [The God made divine effort to remain polite] ...inherited ...mistakes. The Lord God wrote it all!
Wizard
Somewhat outdated with patch 1.05, but still worth a reading. Shows a basic concept of "Inferno Runes" ™, the runes which replace 'no rune' option on Inferno difficulty without being best-in-class, but viable alternative to currently most commonly used runes. Also, changes some useless regular runes to better ones, without... errr [The God coughs repeatedly] changing effects V or more times
About The God:
Apart from being Caesar an deity (post mortem), I, Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, The God, was a programmer, a game designer, balancer, map creator and whatnot. I am over MM years old, and have played diablo series since diablo I came out. The God forgot more about diablo than most people ever knew.
After all, it's not every day that MM years old deity offers help unselfishly.