I really like this new rune system, I really hope it works. Another random item plus affixes is always good in an action RPG. I am going to cross my fingers on this one!
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I love all loot fest kind of game! I will be playing all of them for the next few years. Loot fest games I'm looking forward to: LotR: War in the North,Torchlight 2,Borderlands 2 and of course Diablo 3.
i like the old way, but the new system sounds interesting. i would say i want to play test this system before i can give a solid answer on it. but it sounds decent. as long as i may whip the old atonement off the rune, then use in a different skill i could see this working though.
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I go by Dnothing, TheCasualGamer, or Darius.
I am a 18 year Diablo franchise veteran. Diablo is in my veins. Hail Satan!!!!
I would prefer the original rune system. A few different types, do different things in each ability.
The new rune system does that. It just adds a little random to the system. There are still 5 colors of rune, and you still socket them, and each color does something different to whatever ability it's socketed to.
One question we would have to answer with this system is...if a mystic "unlocks" a rune, would it keep the color? Or would it go back to grey so you can re-roll for it.
I would prefer the first one. It takes away from the hunt for the correct rune if you can continuously reroll for a new rune without killing things. So, basically if you use a mystic to unlock your crimson magic missiles rune, it just becomes a blank crystal rune.
The same question can be asked for the random affixes. Do they stay on the rune even when unattuned? Does it let you re-roll for new stats? Or does it clear the affix completely. My vote is actually for the "clear completely" option. Discourage players from just swapping runes around willy-nilly. Let them move a crimson to another skill without it changing color, but you'll lose the affix then.
Let them move a crimson to another skill without it changing color, but you'll lose the affix then.
And then damage experimentation of builds, which was one of their reasons for the current skill systems (To allow you to experiment easier and change your build easier.) Bonding it to the skill to begin with even damages this. At release, I doubt we'll see runes with random affixes being attuned permanently to a single skill. If they attune to one skill on release, it will probably be easy to wipe them, and keep the affix. Otherwise you just harm experimentation with builds, and people will feel like they -need- to always keep the currently picked skills, otherwise they waste a rune and have to find a new one. In theory it sounds more acceptable, than it actually will be in practice. I'm all for randomized bonuses on the runes, but perm. attunement, I just see as being contrary to the direction they want to take the game, and the skill system. After all, it's just another way of locking in a skill, and why bother removing respecs and allowing players to swap skills around to experiment, if you then also introduce a mechanic that punishes them for experimenting? And as far as having to equip the rune to see what it will do, well, that's not something that will fly in release, either. It will frustrate and confuse people and, again, is contrary to the direction of making it easy to view what each piece of gear/skill is going to benefit. They go to such lengths on the character screen, as far as stats and how things effect your character, I can't see runes having to be equipped to show their benefits, as being a good choice, when combined with permanent attunement.
Still tinkering with the only real customization system left since stats were abandoned long ago and other trade type stuff was dumped = 2012.
This wouldn't be a terribly complicated system to implement. Speaking as a programmer, most of the framework is already in. I wouldn't be surprised if they're already playing with the idea.
Speaking as a programmer, most of the framework is already in.
The coding side is irrelevant - Bliz has hundreds of programmers.
But on the design side, the implications are huge, mostly because (unless I'm mistaken) the rune system is not only the only system that defines individual builds/alts now that every other system has been stripped down and has nothing even class-specific to it, but is also the heart and soul of the item/loot game, which has always been the essence of the series (and is the one fundamental mechanic that even this crew hasn't messed with).
Hence, 2012, and if they keep on sounding this uncertain and alienating the fan base with horrible ideas like RMT AHs, make it late 2q 12 instead of mid 1q.
Let them move a crimson to another skill without it changing color, but you'll lose the affix then.
And then damage experimentation of builds, which was one of their reasons for the current skill systems (To allow you to experiment easier and change your build easier.) Bonding it to the skill to begin with even damages this. At release, I doubt we'll see runes with random affixes being attuned permanently to a single skill. If they attune to one skill on release, it will probably be easy to wipe them, and keep the affix. Otherwise you just harm experimentation with builds, and people will feel like they -need- to always keep the currently picked skills, otherwise they waste a rune and have to find a new one. In theory it sounds more acceptable, than it actually will be in practice. I'm all for randomized bonuses on the runes, but perm. attunement, I just see as being contrary to the direction they want to take the game, and the skill system. After all, it's just another way of locking in a skill, and why bother removing respecs and allowing players to swap skills around to experiment, if you then also introduce a mechanic that punishes them for experimenting? And as far as having to equip the rune to see what it will do, well, that's not something that will fly in release, either. It will frustrate and confuse people and, again, is contrary to the direction of making it easy to view what each piece of gear/skill is going to benefit. They go to such lengths on the character screen, as far as stats and how things effect your character, I can't see runes having to be equipped to show their benefits, as being a good choice, when combined with permanent attunement.
Wall of texts are fun.
You make some good points, and I agree with a few of them. I don't think that you shouldn't know the color before socketing. That part I'm very confident won't make it into the final build, which makes part of my original post irrelevant.
As for experimentation...the entire point of locking a rune to a skill would be to force players to specialize more. Runes apparently drop like candy at low levels, and you can experiment with those. But a lot of players see this new skill system and automatically think "oh god, people can just swap skills out and copy me instantly", and that's something that locking runes would prevent, to a point.
As for changing removing the affix when you unlock it...that's a good point, but I think that it's not quite so bad. One question that's important is...how big will these bonuses be? If they're big and noticeable, then yes, you have a good point.
I guess another point I didn't really make in my post was that you should be experimenting with, say, level five or six runes, and focusing your level seven runes, which will presumably be fairly rare, on your main abilities. It makes respeccing more of an investment, while not making it impossible. You shouldn't be pulling runes from your main abilities to experiment anyways.
Most of this system is sound. Specifically, locking runes to your skills, and the random affixes. These both force the players to specialize by forcing players to choose the skills to place their best runes in.
The issue I have is with the whole "unknown until socketed" system. Here are two scenarios that explain why:
New Player:
"Yay I found a rune! It says that I can socket it into an ability to make it do new things! <sockets magic missiles> Wow! It shoots two shots now! <Players a little more> Wait, another rune! This one is level two though, must make my magic missiles shoot 3 shots! <sockets the rune> WHAT!?! IT DOES SOMETHING DIFFERENT NOW!?! WTH!!!!! <goes on general chat channels and spams>
Not Good.
Veteran Player:
"Awesome, I found another level 7 rune. I'll just socket it into my magic missil...DAMNIT! IT'S ANOTHER OBSIDIAN RUNE! I wanted crimson in my magic missiles! And to top it off, I wanted obsidian in my arcane orb instead. This sucks, now I wasted a rune."
Give runes random stats and lock them to my skills, but show me the color first.
This system would cause an inventory issue though, since you could potentially have 5 runes per ability in your stash. The solution? Allow the mystic to "unlock" a rune, costing gold and/or crafting materials (based on rune level), so you can keep runes for common skills, and a few "unattuned" runes around for general purpose at the end game. How would this affect the affixes? Honestly I think that unlocking the rune should lose the affix, so that you're discouraged from just swapping runes every time you want to.
Wise wise wise man!
That's a good middle ground between randomness and predictability.
Effect predictable - stats random.
They could also add rares and legendaries runes, like jewels, with more random stats on them.
Would taste even more like an item.
If in the internal alpha, with the current system, things were frustrating... then this system should be given a go. I like the idea, I am a tad unsure of it. But, I do think it will help retain a Diablo-esque feel and a grand degree of randomness. Know the rarity of rolling a 20/20/10 Anni in D2? It'd be sort of like this, but, with a lvl 7 rune. I myself have found a 20/20/10 Anni... I feel my luck stirring!
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www.nerdyblog.com - Great website and great Diablo III streams and Skype chat!
Guys, you sincerely look like that picture about "no one is right, everyone is wrong" - fighting over something you heard.
What we heard is initially self-contradictory:
Quote from Jay Wilson »
So what we’re thinking about doing is essentially having runes dropped Unattuned, which means they’re kind of grey and generic, they don’t actually have a type. And then you pop them into a skill, and when you do that, the rune attunes to that skill; you can still remove the rune freely whenever you want, but now that rune is not an Indigo rune, it is a Magic Missile splitting rune.
First, Jay says unattuned runes don't have a type. Then he says, that rune ceases to be an Indigo rune when becoming Magic Missile Splitting rune. My take is that runes do have color when dropped, as some people here ask. There's much less to cry about, don't you think?
The coding side is irrelevant - Bliz has hundreds of programmers.
An obvious case of belief that programmers can do anything. Programmers are like builders. If something was constructed in 3 years, yo can't throw over 9000 people there and make them rebuild everything. Quantity is not speed, and there's a certain lower bound of quality, below which a program just doesn't work.
I'm not really a fan of the new system, but I could live with it if it didn't have + attributes on top of changing the skill, changing the skill is enough for one item
make a poll
It would be interesting to see how the majority feel about this.
Personally, I'm okay either way. It would be a nice change from the standard +attribute system. But on the other hand, the +attribute systems seem to work rather well. <shrug>
I definitely hope the system doesn't get implemented the way JW said. I like Bashiok's choice more. The thing is that there is so much choice and variability already in the rune system that making the runes attuned to just one skill makes the system nigh unusable in my mind. Consider this: You want to have your Hydra spit magic missiles for which you would for example need Indigo rune. Let's say you are a really high level character so anything can drop for you. You go out of town, kill a couple of super uniques and a rune finally drops for you. Here's the list of stuff that can go wrong:
1.The rune is lower level than you would wish. If D2 is any indication of droprates, highest level rune might take a few ages to find. And that's just one high level rune while you have potentially 6 skills you want to 'socket' with the highest level runes available (times the number of characters you are training so potentially 60 level 7 runes total).
2. The rune is the wrong type. Since there are five types of runes the chances of socketing it into a skill and finding out it is no the one you needed is pretty damn high. Add to that that you perhaps need a level 7 rune which won't drop that much and finding another 3-5 level 7 runes to finally get the effect you want might be EXTREMELY difficult and you get almost to the point where a rune dropping for you equals zero excitement because in the majority of cases it isn't what you wanted anyways. Since the runes remain attuned to that single skill you can pretty much throw it away instead of unsocketing it and placing it into a skill which might use the effect as you would have done with the old system.
3. The rune gives wrong attribute points. Seeing as the values of the attribute bonuses might vary widely and seeing the number of attributes you might need, chances are you are not going to get what you wanted.
All of this put together would mean that socketing just a single skill the way you wanted would be next to impossible without either trading the rune or farming for ages. Trading the rune of course again will be a problem because the chances that someone on your server has found the highest level rune, attuned it to a skill you want to use, got the effect you want and the stat bonus that you want AND is actually willing to trade it are slim at best.
In my opinion dropping the right rune with the right level and the right bonuses with the old system will be hard enough without giving it this insane amount of randomness to boot. Worse this attunement system results in runes going to waste completely while with the earlier model when a rune dropped you might at least find some use for it in one of your six skills. Now you have to just throw the rune away.
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A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head!
It would seem that there is a bit of contradiction in the latest line of thinking with regard to runes. On one hand they have made skills so that we can change them in and out to experiment with different skills and combos. On the other hand they want to make it particularly awkward and potentially frustrating to adjust your skills with the use of runes under the proposed new system. In my opinion the new skill system is great, promoting trial, experimentation and letting you get a really good feel for how you like to play - matching the skills with your play-style or situation (i.e. co-op vs single player, or even role such as tanking vs defence). The runes however...
Picture this: I have a skill that I know I would like to add a specific effect for me to be able to (or want to) use it in a way that suits my game-play style. Under the earlier rune system, I would use a particular rune type to modify the skill towards my desired effect(say reduced resource cost or turning it into a stun). If I had a spare rune of the correct colour I would use it easy enough (or take it from an unused skill). However, under the new system I would have to wait for that random chance that the rune will 'attune' to the type I desire - potentially wasting my valuable runes in the process - binding them to a skill type. This may cause significant delays in us using the rune system to good effect - as we are not able to control what we get, and they bind to my one skill.
Now picture this: I have one rune of each type. This allows me to experiment with all my available skills, all the different effects and modifiers that the runes allow. This seems to me, to be the direction they were going with the removal of skill points - to allow more experimentation and open, easy game-play. The new proposed changes to runes would make us much less likely to experiment, and instead of using 5 runes to trial the 20-odd skills, we would need a minimum of 100 runes (and that is in the unlikely event that you never double up on the runes-skill binding). Realistically this would be more likely to be closer to 300 runes. I know which way I would prefer to try my skills out, and find a play style which I like.
Think of the runes like gems, they aren't random and they work perfectly fine
They already change a skill entirely, they don't need to affix runes
I like they greyed out idea but i'd prefer the original
People are so greedy and they whine so much about the rune system.... why?
Because people expect that perfect items will drop for them always and whenever they want... well..
NEWSFLASH, this is diablo. It's SUPPOSED to be hard to find the best items in the game, and perfect runes are some of the best items in the game, due to randomization. It won't be ANY different than not getting the legendary axe.. or armor u always wanted but never dropped for u.... how is that different? It's not.
Finding items is based on luck and chance, sometimes you will get a perfect rune, most times, you won't. This is the way the system works. It's not designed to make everybody happy getting all items in 3 weeks... where is the fun in that?
Big part of Diablo is treasure hunting and the eternal quest for better items.. and skillrunes fits just that.. so stop crying about it please
The system is very very good.
I think I understand what you are trying to say, but I don't agree fully. I am actually in favour of adding stat bonuses to the runes - that would make it interesting, make runes a bit more valuable, and a little harder to flood the market. However, I think that if the runes 'attune' (bind) to that one skill and are random, then it actually affects the game mechanics. This is where it is VERY different from equipment (or that legendary axe you were talking about). Sure a good axe will hit harder, but the mechanic is the same. I think that customisation is important, and would benefit from early and easily interchangeable skill effects. If the low level rune drops are really common, that will go some way towards making it easier - but storing 100 different types of runes seems to be a bit of a pain (not including any differences in stat bonuses or rune level) just to have one of each type for each skill. Once we hit the higher levels, it's much less of an issue. We will have mostly developed a particular game-play, and know what we want - just some fine-tuning and then stat hunting on the runes. But in those early to mid stages I can see it being a bit of an issue blowing your first 300 runes or so just trying out the skills. But hey, if it needs to be done - I guess I'd better get used to looking through my 100+ level 1 stashed runes
To me Jays idea is like having an unidentified Rune that i identify by going into my UI and pluging into a skill. All the while hoping that i get a better result and stopping my play in the process.
I would prefer Bash's suggestion. where I find a rune with an already identified rune type that can slot in any skill but can have random affixs.
I don't need to stop play if i find a crimson rune, when i know I am looking for alabaster for instance.
If Jays idea goes ahead then every time i pick up a rune i will quickly open the UI, plug it into a skill, see if it is the rune type I want and if the affixes are better than before and if not then i rinse, wash a repeat every time i find rune...
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I go by Dnothing, TheCasualGamer, or Darius.
I am a 18 year Diablo franchise veteran. Diablo is in my veins. Hail Satan!!!!
The new rune system does that. It just adds a little random to the system. There are still 5 colors of rune, and you still socket them, and each color does something different to whatever ability it's socketed to.
One question we would have to answer with this system is...if a mystic "unlocks" a rune, would it keep the color? Or would it go back to grey so you can re-roll for it.
I would prefer the first one. It takes away from the hunt for the correct rune if you can continuously reroll for a new rune without killing things. So, basically if you use a mystic to unlock your crimson magic missiles rune, it just becomes a blank crystal rune.
The same question can be asked for the random affixes. Do they stay on the rune even when unattuned? Does it let you re-roll for new stats? Or does it clear the affix completely. My vote is actually for the "clear completely" option. Discourage players from just swapping runes around willy-nilly. Let them move a crimson to another skill without it changing color, but you'll lose the affix then.
And then damage experimentation of builds, which was one of their reasons for the current skill systems (To allow you to experiment easier and change your build easier.) Bonding it to the skill to begin with even damages this. At release, I doubt we'll see runes with random affixes being attuned permanently to a single skill. If they attune to one skill on release, it will probably be easy to wipe them, and keep the affix. Otherwise you just harm experimentation with builds, and people will feel like they -need- to always keep the currently picked skills, otherwise they waste a rune and have to find a new one. In theory it sounds more acceptable, than it actually will be in practice. I'm all for randomized bonuses on the runes, but perm. attunement, I just see as being contrary to the direction they want to take the game, and the skill system. After all, it's just another way of locking in a skill, and why bother removing respecs and allowing players to swap skills around to experiment, if you then also introduce a mechanic that punishes them for experimenting? And as far as having to equip the rune to see what it will do, well, that's not something that will fly in release, either. It will frustrate and confuse people and, again, is contrary to the direction of making it easy to view what each piece of gear/skill is going to benefit. They go to such lengths on the character screen, as far as stats and how things effect your character, I can't see runes having to be equipped to show their benefits, as being a good choice, when combined with permanent attunement.
This wouldn't be a terribly complicated system to implement. Speaking as a programmer, most of the framework is already in. I wouldn't be surprised if they're already playing with the idea.
The coding side is irrelevant - Bliz has hundreds of programmers.
But on the design side, the implications are huge, mostly because (unless I'm mistaken) the rune system is not only the only system that defines individual builds/alts now that every other system has been stripped down and has nothing even class-specific to it, but is also the heart and soul of the item/loot game, which has always been the essence of the series (and is the one fundamental mechanic that even this crew hasn't messed with).
Hence, 2012, and if they keep on sounding this uncertain and alienating the fan base with horrible ideas like RMT AHs, make it late 2q 12 instead of mid 1q.
Wall of texts are fun.
You make some good points, and I agree with a few of them. I don't think that you shouldn't know the color before socketing. That part I'm very confident won't make it into the final build, which makes part of my original post irrelevant.
As for experimentation...the entire point of locking a rune to a skill would be to force players to specialize more. Runes apparently drop like candy at low levels, and you can experiment with those. But a lot of players see this new skill system and automatically think "oh god, people can just swap skills out and copy me instantly", and that's something that locking runes would prevent, to a point.
As for changing removing the affix when you unlock it...that's a good point, but I think that it's not quite so bad. One question that's important is...how big will these bonuses be? If they're big and noticeable, then yes, you have a good point.
I guess another point I didn't really make in my post was that you should be experimenting with, say, level five or six runes, and focusing your level seven runes, which will presumably be fairly rare, on your main abilities. It makes respeccing more of an investment, while not making it impossible. You shouldn't be pulling runes from your main abilities to experiment anyways.
Wise wise wise man!
That's a good middle ground between randomness and predictability.
Effect predictable - stats random.
They could also add rares and legendaries runes, like jewels, with more random stats on them.
Would taste even more like an item.
www.nerdyblog.com - Great website and great Diablo III streams and Skype chat!
What we heard is initially self-contradictory:
First, Jay says unattuned runes don't have a type. Then he says, that rune ceases to be an Indigo rune when becoming Magic Missile Splitting rune. My take is that runes do have color when dropped, as some people here ask. There's much less to cry about, don't you think?
By the way:
An obvious case of belief that programmers can do anything. Programmers are like builders. If something was constructed in 3 years, yo can't throw over 9000 people there and make them rebuild everything. Quantity is not speed, and there's a certain lower bound of quality, below which a program just doesn't work.
make a poll
It would be interesting to see how the majority feel about this.
Personally, I'm okay either way. It would be a nice change from the standard +attribute system. But on the other hand, the +attribute systems seem to work rather well. <shrug>
1.The rune is lower level than you would wish. If D2 is any indication of droprates, highest level rune might take a few ages to find. And that's just one high level rune while you have potentially 6 skills you want to 'socket' with the highest level runes available (times the number of characters you are training so potentially 60 level 7 runes total).
2. The rune is the wrong type. Since there are five types of runes the chances of socketing it into a skill and finding out it is no the one you needed is pretty damn high. Add to that that you perhaps need a level 7 rune which won't drop that much and finding another 3-5 level 7 runes to finally get the effect you want might be EXTREMELY difficult and you get almost to the point where a rune dropping for you equals zero excitement because in the majority of cases it isn't what you wanted anyways. Since the runes remain attuned to that single skill you can pretty much throw it away instead of unsocketing it and placing it into a skill which might use the effect as you would have done with the old system.
3. The rune gives wrong attribute points. Seeing as the values of the attribute bonuses might vary widely and seeing the number of attributes you might need, chances are you are not going to get what you wanted.
All of this put together would mean that socketing just a single skill the way you wanted would be next to impossible without either trading the rune or farming for ages. Trading the rune of course again will be a problem because the chances that someone on your server has found the highest level rune, attuned it to a skill you want to use, got the effect you want and the stat bonus that you want AND is actually willing to trade it are slim at best.
In my opinion dropping the right rune with the right level and the right bonuses with the old system will be hard enough without giving it this insane amount of randomness to boot. Worse this attunement system results in runes going to waste completely while with the earlier model when a rune dropped you might at least find some use for it in one of your six skills. Now you have to just throw the rune away.
Picture this: I have a skill that I know I would like to add a specific effect for me to be able to (or want to) use it in a way that suits my game-play style. Under the earlier rune system, I would use a particular rune type to modify the skill towards my desired effect(say reduced resource cost or turning it into a stun). If I had a spare rune of the correct colour I would use it easy enough (or take it from an unused skill). However, under the new system I would have to wait for that random chance that the rune will 'attune' to the type I desire - potentially wasting my valuable runes in the process - binding them to a skill type. This may cause significant delays in us using the rune system to good effect - as we are not able to control what we get, and they bind to my one skill.
Now picture this: I have one rune of each type. This allows me to experiment with all my available skills, all the different effects and modifiers that the runes allow. This seems to me, to be the direction they were going with the removal of skill points - to allow more experimentation and open, easy game-play. The new proposed changes to runes would make us much less likely to experiment, and instead of using 5 runes to trial the 20-odd skills, we would need a minimum of 100 runes (and that is in the unlikely event that you never double up on the runes-skill binding). Realistically this would be more likely to be closer to 300 runes. I know which way I would prefer to try my skills out, and find a play style which I like.
They already change a skill entirely, they don't need to affix runes
I like they greyed out idea but i'd prefer the original
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I think I understand what you are trying to say, but I don't agree fully. I am actually in favour of adding stat bonuses to the runes - that would make it interesting, make runes a bit more valuable, and a little harder to flood the market. However, I think that if the runes 'attune' (bind) to that one skill and are random, then it actually affects the game mechanics. This is where it is VERY different from equipment (or that legendary axe you were talking about). Sure a good axe will hit harder, but the mechanic is the same. I think that customisation is important, and would benefit from early and easily interchangeable skill effects. If the low level rune drops are really common, that will go some way towards making it easier - but storing 100 different types of runes seems to be a bit of a pain (not including any differences in stat bonuses or rune level) just to have one of each type for each skill. Once we hit the higher levels, it's much less of an issue. We will have mostly developed a particular game-play, and know what we want - just some fine-tuning and then stat hunting on the runes. But in those early to mid stages I can see it being a bit of an issue blowing your first 300 runes or so just trying out the skills. But hey, if it needs to be done - I guess I'd better get used to looking through my 100+ level 1 stashed runes
I would prefer Bash's suggestion. where I find a rune with an already identified rune type that can slot in any skill but can have random affixs.
I don't need to stop play if i find a crimson rune, when i know I am looking for alabaster for instance.
If Jays idea goes ahead then every time i pick up a rune i will quickly open the UI, plug it into a skill, see if it is the rune type I want and if the affixes are better than before and if not then i rinse, wash a repeat every time i find rune...