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Article One - Skill Resources
While this was not the first topic to be discussed in the interview, we did think it was the most interesting. When the interviewer asked Jay about the state of the skill resources, I was expecting him to get shot down and be banned from Gamescom. Shocked was I then, when Jay replied "Oh, I'll talk about where they're at."
Recently, we were made aware of the Wizard losing Instability for a new skill resource. However, we did not know what this new resource was, nor did we know how instability worked. Both questions were resolved within the interview.
Official Blizzard Quote:
We could not get a version of instability we liked, the last version involved a buff and debuff that would hit the wizard whenever she went unstable. It was actually a pretty severe buff, it doubled all the damage on her but it also increased her crit chance. It just didn't affect how people played. They didn't notice it most of the time, when they did notice it they didn't change what they were doing. That's not the point of a resource system, it needs to be managed somewhat to change how you play.
One could argue that this information is redundant now that instability has been scrapped, however it is still interesting to explore what could have been. I do think it was a good decision to do away with Instability, due to the fact that, as Jay explained, this resource would not have affected gameplay much. Players would have been free to spam skills without fear of being unable to cast, since the penalty for multiple casts did not involve an inability to cast more spells. Instead, players would be rewarded with more damage. Obviously, this would have called for Wizards to get as much Faster Cast Rate as humanly possible, to reach the point of instability quickly. This system would have also been open to exploits. Think about it, would it matter if the spells actually hit a target, or would the Wizard be able to reach the point of instability by casting spells at nothing?
Official Blizzard Quote:
Now, it's called Arcane Power. It's not dissimilar to mana in a lot of ways but it regenerates very quickly, and it doesn't grow over time. She has lots of abilities and passive skills that enhance it.
Now, this description is a bit more vague than instability. Basically all we know for sure from this, is that it's a relatively static resource pool, and it regenerates very quickly.
What it seems Blizzard is trying to achieve here, is to make players choose spells carefully. With a static pool, players will be forced to choose between casting a volley of low cost spells, or save their Arcane Power for one or two powerful spells. With a quick recharge rate, players will most likely be stalled one or two seconds before being able to unleash more spells.
Personally, I think this system will be much more dynamic than Mana in the previous games, since at high levels players often had countless bonuses to their mana pool. Factor in mana leech items, and you rarely had to concern yourself with your mana pool. Should Blizzard choose to only give bonuses to Arcane Power through skills, then we may see an interesting, dynamic system that forces players to think before they cast.
Official Blizzard Quote:
The Monk has spirit, and that's probably the one we're happiest with. His combo moves generate spirit, which can be used for "signature moves" that he does. He can't do them very often, but they're great attacks, some are escapes, some are recovery.
We also have to wonder what exactly combo-moves entails. Will they function as preparatory moves, with the Monk using any low damage skill before being able to use any one of his "signature moves"? Or will the Monk be forced to use sequences of combo moves to cast a specific signature move? Furthermore, which skills will qualify as signature moves? Powerful moves like 7 Sided Strike are obvious contenders at the moment, but no doubt Blizzard has all kinds of signature moves planned for the Monk. However it turns out, it sounds as if the Monk is going to have a beat-em'-up feel to him.
Sadly, we still have no word on the skill resource of the fifth class. However, we do know that the Barbarian and Witch Doctor are still using Fury and Mana respectively, so hopefully Blizzard won't be throwing us any curve balls in the months approaching Blizzcon.
Seriously though, good work.
Yup, that's exactly what I've been thinking.
And Monk's Spirit is basically a copy/paste of the Death Knight's Runic Power from the sounds of things.
And then Fury/Rage is pretty obvious and Mana is Mana. So much for "unique" resources.
I only skimmed over your post, but the fury change was already known for a long time now. It currently works EXACTLY like the WoW warrior rage, except that hitting monsters with abilities return rage and not just consumes it as well. So yes, each move will cost set rage and you will have a total max amount(most likely 100 like WoW)
And MEPHY! Wizards aren't just for girls, they're for metrosexuals, too.
In a few of bashiok's posts you can put together what it means.
This is a good one, of course he won't say "like WoW" because he probably figured that would cause alot of uproar, but you know what he's refering to.
http://www.diablofans.com/blizz-tracker/bn-forums/26399119716-resources.html
That's as close as you can get to describing warrior rage without actually saying it's warrior rage.
We now have two classes that build up their energy and two that diminish theirs. I wonder what the fifth class will be. I would like a balance system where halt of your skills drain while the other half builds.
I probably went to that conclusion because I have no idea what the ring part is and the way he explains it is pretty much exactly how warrior rage works. Don't forget they got rid of the fury balls in the first place because they didn't like the feel of skills costing 33% 66% or all of it, it seems too slow to use skills.(In an interview) So they got rid of abilities like that.
As far as the combo moves go, I'm thinking they meant like the first 2 chains of combos and the third(exploding palm etc) will be considered finishers that use spirit along with standalone abilities, but that's just my guess.. Otherwise what would be the point of all the other moves if you can spam OP combos. lol
I don't know, but if we wanted a good guess on what the last class will be using, looking at hunter focus or pally holy power in the cata beta currently could be a few hints. (Though focus is pretty much a slightly tweaked rogue energy system)
*sighs*
Did I not say "Hey Scyber, it would be redundant if we included a section on that, since it's already been announced and I already wrote an article about it."
Check it.
edit: The reason we all "jumped to that conclusion", is because it would be really dense to have the fury ball system, then make an announcement about "no more fury balls", while only referring to the aesthetics of the fury globe.
If they got rid of the fury ball mechanic then went to a large globe full of fury that was consumed in thirds, then it's basically the fury ball system without the 3 balls.
Trust me next time when I say shit is already know, though ^^.
lolz :smile:
Yeah, it's becoming obvious that this is what they meant by unique; I don't exactly remember the context myself, but for some reason I've been thinking we'd have something new, cool, and maybe even somewhat mind-blowing.
Well...sort of. It's really, really easy to come up with new ideas for the resources. The sky's the limit. What's challenging is making sure it works and is balanced. Obviously, we don't know everything about the iterative process on the different resource systems, but I'd like to know how many different ways they tried to make Instability work. Was it always just a buff? Also, we don't know what they worked with before the original announcement of the game, but has the Witch Doctor ever used anything besides mana? Did they even try?
I don't know, the resource systems are a pretty major part of gameplay...