A Few Questions Answered
Bashiok took the time to answer a few questions, however please keep in mind This system is a work in progress, this information can easily change while the system is being worked on!
Originally Posted by Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
(When you say extra loot, do you mean, extra loot. Or do you mean extra loot that is on par with what elite/champs drop. I remember from the article before, bosses do not drop gear that is as good as champs/elites.
They will drop gear as good as champions and elites with this buff (because you have to kill champions and elites to get it, which was the point). With the buff active you’re guaranteed one extra item drop from the boss, and it’s likely that it’ll be 1 item per stack of the buff. Up to X stacks. We don’t know how many it’ll be, probably a handful.
How many stacks will there be if any?
We're not totally sure but probably a number you can count on one hand.
Do you lose the buff when you die?
It lasts through death currently, and we like it. I know some people will also want it to be a punishment for death, but repair costs are already extremely impactful.
Does the buff split between players?
Like someone joins after you've been killing and they have less stacks? It's a direct increase to your MF/GF, so it uses the same mechanics.
Do you lose it on disconnect?
There's a small grace period, similar to WoW where you can get back into the game before your character is actually logged out (ie a timeout), but yes if your character times out you would lose the buff.
What is the Time limit on the stack, if any?
We're messing with times from about 15 minutes to an hour. We don't know yet.
Do Stacks get removed after a boss?
We don't really think it needs to. Your focus is still going to be seeking out champions and rares. If you want to get full stacks, kill a boss, and then try to rush to kill another boss before the buff falls off... have fun? It's not going to be the most lucrative way to play, so it's likely a non-issue hypothetical.
They will drop gear as good as champions and elites with this buff (because you have to kill champions and elites to get it, which was the point). With the buff active you’re guaranteed one extra item drop from the boss, and it’s likely that it’ll be 1 item per stack of the buff. Up to X stacks. We don’t know how many it’ll be, probably a handful.
How many stacks will there be if any?
We're not totally sure but probably a number you can count on one hand.
Do you lose the buff when you die?
It lasts through death currently, and we like it. I know some people will also want it to be a punishment for death, but repair costs are already extremely impactful.
Does the buff split between players?
Like someone joins after you've been killing and they have less stacks? It's a direct increase to your MF/GF, so it uses the same mechanics.
Do you lose it on disconnect?
There's a small grace period, similar to WoW where you can get back into the game before your character is actually logged out (ie a timeout), but yes if your character times out you would lose the buff.
What is the Time limit on the stack, if any?
We're messing with times from about 15 minutes to an hour. We don't know yet.
Do Stacks get removed after a boss?
We don't really think it needs to. Your focus is still going to be seeking out champions and rares. If you want to get full stacks, kill a boss, and then try to rush to kill another boss before the buff falls off... have fun? It's not going to be the most lucrative way to play, so it's likely a non-issue hypothetical.
Nephalem Valor Buff
Blizzard just posted an article describing the mechanics and the goal of the new Nephalem Valor buff!
Originally Posted by (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
We’re working hard on balancing and testing Diablo III, and one of the major components is making sure that the end game experience is fun and exciting. We’d like to share a few of our goals for end game:
The exact amount of magic find and gold find provided by the buff is still being reviewed, as is the amount of extra loot you get from a boss while the buff is active. We’re also playing around with whether or not the buff stacks, what the duration should be, and whether or not it should persist through death. We want to make sure the buff is strong enough to make staying in your current game more rewarding than creating a new game. At the same time, if the buff is too strong, it risks making shorter play sessions feel not worthwhile.
We expect this system will encourage players to stick with a skill build of their choice, select an area of the game they enjoy, and sweep it for rare and champion packs on their way to a boss, finishing off a run with a boss that’ll be worth killing. If you wanted a shorter play session you could be done at that point, but if you have more time, the path of least resistance would ideally be to stay in the same game and make your way towards the next boss.
- We have an enormous number of skill build combinations, and we want a lot of those skill builds to be viable and interesting
- While there are millions of skill builds available to players, we don’t want players swapping skills regularly to beat specific encounters as they come up
- We don’t want repeatedly running specific three-minute chunks of the game to be the most efficient way to acquire gear for your character
- While a three-minute run shouldn’t be the most efficient, we also don’t want you to feel like it’s a two-hour commitment every time you sit down to play
- Bosses should still feel worth killing
The exact amount of magic find and gold find provided by the buff is still being reviewed, as is the amount of extra loot you get from a boss while the buff is active. We’re also playing around with whether or not the buff stacks, what the duration should be, and whether or not it should persist through death. We want to make sure the buff is strong enough to make staying in your current game more rewarding than creating a new game. At the same time, if the buff is too strong, it risks making shorter play sessions feel not worthwhile.
We expect this system will encourage players to stick with a skill build of their choice, select an area of the game they enjoy, and sweep it for rare and champion packs on their way to a boss, finishing off a run with a boss that’ll be worth killing. If you wanted a shorter play session you could be done at that point, but if you have more time, the path of least resistance would ideally be to stay in the same game and make your way towards the next boss.
Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
(Nephalem Valor Only For Inferno?
No, it kicks in at 60. Once you hit 60 you have access to this buff regardless of difficulty. You can use it and go back to Hell to help you gear up for Inferno, absolutely.Diablo 3 Beta Screenshots
Today we have some 4 player screenshots with a lot of action! Enjoy
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!
Here are my overall thoughts on it :
1. The buff should be stackable but not give too much MF/Gold% per level. That way it makes you wanting to kill everything and it makes it feel worthwhile. You could make it so that it adds higher percentages on the first instances so that players that have short play session don't feel like they're not as efficient as someone beating a whole act.
2. The bonuses when killing a boss should be pretty good so that it makes you feel that killing everything else before it was worth it and that killing the boss itself feels rewarding too.
3. The buff should expire only when you modify your skills, when you go to a new act map or I believe, when you die.
4. When playing in a party, every players should have its own buff and it should expire only for the persons who do one of the things mentioned above.
Thanks to the way the quest system is in the game, you will not have the waypoints to the future bosses in the act if for example, you pick a quest in Act I. Also, if you pick to start on Act 4, you won't be able to go backwards because the previous bosses will already be dead.
Thanks to this, I think the buff should stay when you kill the act boss. This would give you even more reason to keep playing through the game on to the next act.
I'm sure they'll kick you from the game AND b.net if you're idle for 15+ minutes. Also, I'm sure there will be some sort of duration on the buff.
You're right though, it would favor people with more time slightly (depending on how high the stack is). I doubt the stack will be higher than 5-10 so it won't be the end of the world for players without as much time as others.
It's all up to personal preference. Personally, I'd enjoy it more if it didn't reset because if it does reset it will be similar to boss farming. You farm x number of champions, hit the boss and then start a new game. I would prefer being encouraged to continue on with the current game.
it's bad design now and it was in d2 as well
lol.... i said it removes the motivation to switch skills IN COMBAT> which is what i said. did i say anything about permantly sticking to your build through multiple games? no, not at all. because it shouldnt be like that.
if your idea of freedom is having access to all skills at lvl 1 or you just get to pick whatever skill you want before they are available. cool story bro. the leveling system dictates what levels certain skills become available just like ANY other game genius. once you unlock the skills you have the freedom to swap them to test them and then stick to your build while farming.
using your same argument i should say i deserve to choose ANY skill to unlock per level not just the runes. which is absurd. obviously
Hope they make some sort of stackable buff, so clearing alot of championmobs before heading for the boss to end the run will be the way to do things.
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.
Edit: By the by, the third issue of Sword of Justice is now available for purchasing.
Well not really, the Magic Find news piece reminded me of what I read on incgamers and just posted it here.
This is really a good solution for the skill swapping system. "We will rather reward you" is much better that "we will punish you" for swapping out skills at any time. Love it.
Well the only thing I don't like that much is that it only starts at level 60...yes this is more focused for end game Inferno gear runs, but 95% of people that's going to play D3 isn't even going to get to level 60, even less are going to play after level 60 for better gear.
If this system is activated at the beginning of Hell (or level 45-50) rather than at Level 60, more players will get to experience and appreciate the system.
That said, here are my opinions of how I would like it to work:
1) It should stack to 100% within 1 hour and, fall of gradually at half that rate.
2) It should be halfed when killing a boss, like others suggested. This would give you the feeling that you can freely take a break from the game without being punished too badly, but it also encourages you to keep going.
3) Dying should also cut your buff in half. Removing it completely seems too harsh, especially if you die at the boss which is your goal and which has been the reason of you farming the buff. However halving the buff is enogh punishment for you to avoid death at all costs.
Well it wouldn't make any sense ruining everyone's buff if you personally had to effect the buff status. I definitely will be individual.
How is it being lazy, and why is having everything on "auto" dumb?
who said anything about gear changing affecting the buff
Originally Posted by (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Like someone joins after you've been killing and they have less stacks? It's a direct increase to your MF/GF, so it uses the same mechanics.
And I had been hoping the MF/GF buff would be the exception to the "averaging". What a shame...