To start off, we recieved some much needed, if miniscule, information about NPC followers in Diablo III.
Official Blizzard Quote:
CalamanderRu: @Diablo Does it mean that NPC can take damage or even die?
Diablo: @CalamanderRu Many of them, yes.
Bashiok then gave us a very good description of the hit chance in the upcoming game in the start of a lengthy thread on the Battle.net forums.
Official Blizzard Quote:
Essentially all attacks have a flat 5% chance to miss, with the exception of most ranged spells, AOE, and abilities with larger resource investments. There's no blanket rule that's easy for me to lay down to show which can't miss and which can, it's sort of handled on a case by case basis. Most melee attacks have a 5% chance to miss, but then some melee attacks can't miss because the resource cost is substantial. It's sort of common sense in a way, that a range attack has to be aimed and connect with a moving target so a chance to miss in in the player's skill, so no need to have it on the ability (some exceptions exist). AOE just doesn't make good sense to miss because if the enemy is in the area of effect that's their bad. Skills with big resource costs have that investment in them, so giving them a chance to miss feels lame. Skills that can miss are usually the low/no cost melee attacks, spammable attacks, etc. And no, there is no stat or way to augment/reduce chance to miss.
The conversation in the Battle.net forum thread then turned to talk of player skill, and Bashiok chimed in on this topic as well.
Official Blizzard Quote:
I think the point is that there is some perceived level of 'skill' difference between those that know the systems and work within them, and those that just play the game and are oblivious to them. When instead we're actually attempting to avoid that 'I did the math so I win' type of puzzle solving, and instead place more of the skill difference up front with actual gameplay. There will still be plenty of places for the min/maxers to blow away the casual weekend warriors, though.
This topic continued in a somewhat heated discussion, where Bashiok explained how min/maxing works in Diablo III.
Official Blizzard Quote:
First off, there seems to be an idea that these things are being 'dumbed down', which is of course not the case. No matter what systems we have in the game, as long as there is some reasonable amount of complexity, each and every one of them will be torn apart, put on a spread sheet, and digested by those that want to get mathy about min/maxing the game, and it will lead to being more successful. That's a given, and we don't have to design in complex systems that we don't think feel fun to accomplish it. The majority of the systems that exist are fairly complex once you move beyond the easy-to-use interface, and I fully expect you all to pry up the cover and rip the wires out to make something better.
Official Blizzard Quote:
Secondly this isn't Diablo II, and I know it's easy to get caught up in that mindset because for the most part it's the only reference (WHERE'S THE BETA!?). We don't have spammable health potions, we think that's a great change, and we know most of you do too. That means a whole lot things to how damage is dealt and received. Really huge spikey damage does not work in a system where you can't quickly overcome those spikes by spamming potions. Because of that systems like chance to hit shift to instead offset defense, resists, and damage taken. End of the day it's the same thing, but the game benefits from the swap from one end to the other. We technically have more stats in Diablo III than Diablo II because of this. More stats is more knobs is more math is more ways to rule through tweaking it.
And yea, where is that beta?
And yea....
Lot's of beta talk going on around here...
It's an important distinction between the archetypes of the barbarian on the monk. The barbarian is a tough thug; the monk is a skilled martial artist. The barbarian can take a lot of hits because of his armor and bulk. The monk, on the other hand, blocks, dodges, and counter-attacks but he can't take as many blows. Considering the fact that the barbarian can use shields, I have strong concerns about how these characters are going to be distinct in terms of their defense. I will be disappointed if the monk and barbarian both rely on balancing vitality/armor(/defense). Since the barbarian is likely to have more of both, where does that leave the monk? What's the point of having a character that is a martial artist if he gets hit by every blow and has to rely on armor to mitigate that damage just like the barbarian?
What I am hoping for is:
1) the monk can block with or without a shield
2) a mechanic representing something to the affect of "agility" that rolls blocking, dodging, etc. all into one inclusive percentage (let's replace the defense attribute, shall we?)
3) critical hits can not be avoided or blocked
Anyway, while it's too bad there will be one build type less to create, it sounds like its for the best. Besides, there will be such a vast variety of other builds based on skills and traits alone that my thirst for customization will be justly satiated.
And as far as the Monk's ability to dodge, thats also somewhat effected by his blinding skills, which cause enemies to miss. A variety of other skills could be used to the same effect.
I would definitely agree. However, even if they make it so they both avoid damage in similar ways, their differences in traits and skills will easily distinguish them and keep their own flavors.
And Leeodin, you posted your topic right before I did Its no problem.
What I was wondering is, why not just make the hit chance 100%? Why would you even have an arbitrary 5%?
I will hold final judgement until the game comes out.
And the idea is that the 5% miss chance for some attacks is in order to make up for the "skill" it takes to lead targets when you're using ranged attacks. And the melee classes' damage output will be balanced around it, so its not like ranged attackers will automatically do more if they're able to hit with every attack.
This, it's pretty terrible reasoning, and ranged AoE never needed buffing.
Besides, you just tweak the spells damage up by 5%, same effect, less mechanics to worry about.
"50~5000 Damage". Or "20% miss chance". Then it will be relevant and will add the random factor if they want to add a random factor.
Noone works based on 5% miss chance. People will ignore it and it will only annoy the players now and then. It's not big deal, but i think the way it was presented is really silly.
And theres no need absolutly no need to creat a melee counterpart for the aiming needed in ranged attacks. In pratice melee attacks are much, much harder to use. You have to reach your enemies wich is a big deal in PvP. And the melee in PvE means you will be constantly loosing HP because of enemies counter attacks. Not too mention that reach and attack a group of archers in melee is alot harder then stay away and attack the archers (the closer you are, harder is to avoid bolts).
For some reason theres a abysmal disparite between the info obtained via Jay Wilsom/Blizzcon and those blue posts. It's not the first time i see a blue post that makes no sense. And everything brouhg via the game director itself is very coeherent, not to mention that he allways use very good points.