[mockery]

It looks like Bashiok is busy as ever once again now that the holiday season is over, for he has just made another post on the Diablo 3 Battle.net forums in response to questions about stat points and admittedly opens up a can of worms in the process as it will surely bring up more questions. A forum member by the name of Pyramid16 stated, "I think a good way for auto stats is build them up depending on what you do with your character. For example if you spend a lot of time on low health, vitality goes up or stamina increase from running a lot." Here's what Bashiok had to say in response:

Quote

"Systems like this are usually a bit too easy to game. That is, once a player figures out how to increase the stat they want through the least amount of effort, they'll do it.

It can also keep you from changing up the way you play easily. We want to allow some amount of freedom in changing up how you play a single character. If I've played my Wizard as a long-range glass cannon the entire game, and then get an amazing end-all item drop that makes me want to switch it up and go as more vitality-heavy battle style Wizard, I'd probably have to reroll. Whereas with our current systems it's just a matter of building up an item base that supports it.

In addition to all that, it isn't a system which is very user friendly. It's somewhat difficult to explain to the player exactly how those systems work. Not too many people are going to go through the entire game not caring and just playing how they want to play, they want to know exactly how to raise the stats they want, and it would be difficult to display or show how you're progressing outside of getting a point added. Then you're wondering "how exactly did that point get there and what do I need to do to get another one?"

Not everyone is into strict min-maxing, but almost everyone wants to know how to make a powerful character.

I think keeping some systems nebulous and somewhat unexplained to the player is fine, but something such as stat points, a core progression and "power" system, it should be as straight forward as possible. Especially where fast paced action - not toiling over hidden math and requirements - is the game.

With auto-stats you lose a small amount of customization, true, but gain a lot of freedoms in adding more - and more interesting - customization through other means.

Worm Cans Initialized."

[Asus]

its a an imporrtant thing that we shouldn't ignore + we doon't now for sure how the build of the char will be

[pwnsickle]

I really don't think auto-stats is a bad idea. Like he said, there will be other ways to edit your character, I think the gear will give more stats then the gear in diablo 2.

Plus the reason everyone liked editing their own stats way because energy was barely needed after insight or all the other mana regen gear. Strength, everyone added just enough to equip the gear that they wanted, etc. So in a way diablo 2 was already auto-stat if you knew the "right" way to build a class. Every sorc or hammer pally had the same stats in the end, (but it could just be because they all pretty much had the same gear). Everyone stacked vitality to have a ton of health so they wouldn't die, to me it just seemed like everyone already had the same stats, so blizzard might has well of given us auto-stats.

[SNowfreak]

you never had to "reroll" (btw this is diablo, who calls it rerolling honestly?) for your stats in diablo 2. You just had to be smart in allocation from the beginning. That is why diablo is so fun. It is about planning out your character and then plowing through to make that beast that you want. Taking away stat customization is in no way good, while i can see why they want to do it.

[Bloodlust_Fox]

I would be so mad if they set up an oblivion like lvling system. It kind of forced players to play against instinct because they were constantly casting small useless spells and bunny hopping everywhere. I want to be able to do what I please...

[Djinn_690]

No matter how I look at it, auto stat's cons far outweigh its pros*.
in the end, each class will have a certain set of "best gear for that build" instead of Diablo II's "best stats AND gear" and in the end Gear was still far more important than stats stats anyways in Diablo II.
I just don't see what the problem is with keeping stats customization. It just adds more depth to character customization and that was never a bad thing.


*thank you for pointing that out SNowfreak.

[gabbzy17]

bashiok has been really busy lately answering a lot of concerns i think we might have a beta soon on our hands (by soon i mean according to blizz time, so b/w 1-2 years)

[SNowfreak]

i dont want a beta personally. Takes away the fun of the first time IMO.

i think you used the word cons twice and meant to have pros in there somewhere ;) lol. but i agree, the customization is always good. Sure it helps the people who don't know anything about it, but that is dumbing it down for people that truly enjoy the game and making multiple character builds. Bad idea. Maybe they should just slightly recraft the system and not take it away altogether.

[gamma11]

Bloodlust_Fox said:

I would be so mad if they set up an oblivion like lvling system. It kind of forced players to play against instinct because they were constantly casting small useless spells and bunny hopping everywhere. I want to be able to do what I please...

in no way should diablo 3 have anything to do with the nightmare of a horrid game they call "oblivion" that game was not good in any awy shape or form... was a rush job to make money cuz it had the name "morrowind" and they hyped it up... heres oblivion in a nutshell: ok so yea we want you to close all these portals to this other dimension so we dont all die... umm you have to do this alone... with no help and were all gonna act like nothing is wrong.... yea fuck that game...

SNowfreak said:

i dont want a beta personally. Takes away the fun of the first time IMO.

i think you used the word cons twice and meant to have pros in there somewhere ;) lol. but i agree, the customization is always good. Sure it helps the people who don't know anything about it, but that is dumbing it down for people that truly enjoy the game and making multiple character builds. Bad idea. Maybe they should just slightly recraft the system and not take it away altogether.

yea it is really dumbing it down for the wow fanboys... horray

[MijnWraak]

And this is the point in development where I want Blizzard North back...

[PhrozenDragon]

I think I missed the point? What is new? All he said is that autostats will place themselves arbitrarily to how you play your character, correct?

But that was already assumed to be true :confused:

[dunhac82]

With auto-stats you lose a small amount of customization, true, but gain a lot of freedoms in adding more - and more interesting - customization through other means.

We still don't know what these "other means" are....man every time they bring up something somebody has to cry about it. We barely have any idea what the gameplay elements are going to be yet...yes custom stats are gone; but something way cooler could replace that and just because they are gone doesn't mean there won't be some kind of work around or a new, better system all together.

[gyrextt]

PhrozenDragon said:

I think I missed the point? What is new? All he said is that autostats will place themselves arbitrarily to how you play your character, correct?

But that was already assumed to be true :confused:

Yeah he did explain a lot about nothing.

[kefka666333abc123]

So basically hes saying auto stats gives them the ability to give US somehting else to customize?......or am i reading that wrong?.....did he basically give us the run around and give us nothign new? lol

[Crucifixious]

D2 is no where near balanced if a the mana guzler of the game needs not spend one solitary point into energy and the rest put into vitality. Sorc = 103 str total, 25 dex total, 35 energy total... the rest put into vitality... seriously where is the challenge in that lol... there is no excuse as to why you should die ever. When you have clearly more life than the developers intentioned, can run 10 times faster than almost every enemy in the game, wait wtf who the hell runs anymore... teleport seams to be a base skill now and even a barb has enough energy to teleport all day with not even puttion one pnt into energy... i mean with this system its clearly not what the developers envisioned and they want to make things the way they should be.

[Wontuan]

Boo... Why are games getting easier and easier? First Super Smash Brothers Brawl and now this, nooooo...

[blizzu]

Has some1 said this is something new? Bashiok just responded to a user in the forums. No1 has said this is something new, the user just wanted to bring his/her opinion up and bashiok crashed it.

[Ferret]

Yeah, but then I remember that Flagship Studios made their last game a financial debacle, and that it wasn't unanimously hailed as great.

As horrible as stat assignment was in D2:LoD, I can't believe people still want it back this bad without having seen what other effects autostats could have.
Taken from another thread on these forums:

Unnamed said:

Your getting to 99 with a character your building completely wrong? sounds like thats no fun

And that, ladies and gents, is the most common response you get when do something differently, when you perform you right to allocate stats by yourself. There is no general concept of customization when playing; its all about right or wrong.

[USNSEALs]

I have a solution: 'Character ready. Before completion, do you wish to use auto-stats or customization?'

[Gaschk13]

Quote

I think I missed the point? What is new? All he said is that autostats will place themselves arbitrarily to how you play your character, correct?

Sorry i didnt see him say that at all, I thought he was saying that you can change the way you play your character easily by just changing a few items here and there. If anything he said that autostats the way you described them isnt how they are going to be in the game. I think thats what he said... maybe im reading it wrong i dont know.

But this is where im drawing my conclusion from, The first part in itallcs is where he is describing the style of adding stats the way you play and the underlined bolded italics is where he says the alternative ie the style used in Diablo 3???

Quote

It can also keep you from changing up the way you play easily. We want to allow some amount of freedom in changing up how you play a single character. If I've played my Wizard as a long-range glass cannon the entire game, and then get an amazing end-all item drop that makes me want to switch it up and go as more vitality-heavy battle style Wizard, I'd probably have to reroll. Whereas with our current systems it's just a matter of building up an item base that supports it.

Does this sound right to anyone else??