They've said many many times that there will be two sets of skills. A PvE set and a PvP set. That way they can balance both sets for their respective uses.
Best news ever.
I'd look at them as versions.
Sorry to burst your bubble but that simply was never said. They've said that certain skills (ie stuns and the like) will have different effects on players and bosses than on standard monsters, but there won't be anything close to entire sets of skills. In fact, after saying that they would balance PvE and PvP separately at Blizzcon 2010, they later were sure to clarify that separate balancing would be used as little as possible, but would be an option.
They've said many many times that there will be two sets of skills. A PvE set and a PvP set. That way they can balance both sets for their respective uses.
Best news ever.
I'd look at them as versions.
Sorry to burst your bubble but that simply was never said. They've said that certain skills (ie stuns and the like) will have different effects on players and bosses than on standard monsters, but there won't be anything close to entire sets of skills. In fact, after saying that they would balance PvE and PvP separately at Blizzcon 2010, they later were sure to clarify that separate balancing would be used as little as possible, but would be an option.
Got that video? Or post? The sets I was talking about is how balancing would be done for PvP. Not a visual difference for the player in any way shape or form. My entire conversation has been from a programmers point of view. If you think what I'm talking about is for actual gameplay then....yeah sorry to burst your bubble.
Also I'm pretty sure it was reiterated in older videos. Prior to Bcon 2010
Edit: If you read through my posts you'll clearly see I speak purely from the programming point of view. It would simply be easier to code and develop using two sets rather than one set. If they say they aren't, then they're pretty much saying they aren't going to balance the skills the skills separately. To balance separately you HAVE to have two sets. There are no ifs and or buts about it.
A trigger would mean there's two instances of the skill. One for each respective type. Therefore I gave you the idea of how they would handle it.
Again, my posts have NOTHING to do with what a PLAYER SEES.
Yes, I understand what you're saying, and I'm just clarifying that its not two 'sets' of skills for PvP and PvE in any way. Only things like stuns and snares will be changed, and they will still have the same essential function. There won't be two different functions for the skills, simply things like reduced times for stuns (although I guess, if you're going to be really technical, that could count as different functions in terms of programming).
That post also points you to where the original quote came from (Open Q&A Blizzcon 2010, which I think is at the end of the Crafting Sanctuary panel). PvP wasn't even officially announced until the most recent Blizzcon, so beyond wanting to avoid griefing I don't think theres any official quotes from before then.
Yes, I understand what you're saying, and I'm just clarifying that its not two 'sets' of skills for PvP and PvE in any way. Only things like stuns and snares will be changed, and they will still have the same essential function. There won't be two different functions for the skills, simply things like reduced times for stuns (although I guess, if you're going to be really technical, that could count as different functions in terms of programming).
That post also points you to where the original quote came from (Open Q&A Blizzcon 2010, which I think is at the end of the Crafting Sanctuary panel). PvP wasn't even officially announced until the most recent Blizzcon, so beyond wanting to avoid griefing I don't think theres any official quotes from before then.
Hm I must have gotten mixed up with something else, or confused about the last Blizzcon. The two sets wouldn't exist for different functions. The skills would still be the exact same other than numbers.
Yea it was a bit confusing because they talked about it as though it could be used freely across a lot of skills to make it so that PvP would be balanced without affecting PvE. Then they clarified that they wanted to use it as not often as possible, so that people wouldn't have to get used to two different skills along with all the rune effects. What you were saying wasn't entirely wrong, but saying theres two 'sets' makes it sound like its more drastic than it actually is.
Yea it was a bit confusing because they talked about it as though it could be used freely across a lot of skills to make it so that PvP would be balanced without affecting PvE. Then they clarified that they wanted to use it as not often as possible, so that people wouldn't have to get used to two different skills along with all the rune effects. What you were saying wasn't entirely wrong, but saying theres two 'sets' makes it sound like its more drastic than it actually is.
If you're looking at it from a gameplay point of view, yes, it would seem more drastic. From a design and programming point of view, not so much. If they just did the set style as I said, if they ever decided to change a skill, they could just do it freely, without having to add in coding just to have a separate pvp skill. Just because there's two sets doesn't mean they have to be modified. It's a good way of actually future proofing yourself!
If you're looking at it from a gameplay point of view, yes, it would seem more drastic.
I think this is how those of us who are not programming for Blizzard are generally looking at Diablo 3
I always try to look at things from a programmers point of view. I must be weird! It gives me better insight as to how things will behave, react, and generally proceed. Oh well. Also helps with those darned bug reports
I always try to look at things from a programmers point of view. I must be weird! It gives me better insight as to how things will behave, react, and generally proceed. Oh well. Also helps with those darned bug reports
That's cool. If you're in school for programming I totally understand that. The thing is, unless you're talking about a game with other programmers, people will be confused. Take Blizzard, for example - they explain their games in terms of how the player will experience it.
I always try to look at things from a programmers point of view. I must be weird! It gives me better insight as to how things will behave, react, and generally proceed. Oh well. Also helps with those darned bug reports
That's cool. If you're in school for programming I totally understand that. The thing is, unless you're talking about a game with other programmers, people will be confused. Take Blizzard, for example - they explain their games in terms of how the player will experience it.
I guess that's true. Now I feel bad...Like I confused some people..
I really didn't mean to though. I guess I shouldn't assume everybody else also cares about how coding is done. My bad.
Thought maybe some people would like to know that their job isn't as easy as they make it sound!
I really haven't seen or heard any word on this. I think the primary reason they haven't touched it is due to them not having primarily tested Nightmare/Hell yet.
Clearly they will want this feature in, but how well it will be done is...well....necessary to know.
I would assume it would work just like difficulty scaling or any other scaling aspect in any video game. In order for pets to not be useless later in the game when every monster does infinitely more damage than, say, a normal mode boss, their health/defense/resistances/damage would have to scale with the difficulty or with skill investment.
They've said many many times that there will be two sets of skills. A PvE set and a PvP set. That way they can balance both sets for their respective uses.
Best news ever.
I'd look at them as versions.
Sorry to burst your bubble but that simply was never said. They've said that certain skills (ie stuns and the like) will have different effects on players and bosses than on standard monsters, but there won't be anything close to entire sets of skills. In fact, after saying that they would balance PvE and PvP separately at Blizzcon 2010, they later were sure to clarify that separate balancing would be used as little as possible, but would be an option.
Got that video? Or post?
Found it. Diablo III: Open Q&A 1/4 - Blizzcon 2010, 2:56. Jay Wilson talks about balance, which in turn leads into PvE/PvP skill balancing, not separate skills. Which is mentioned at 3:26, which is the time the Blue quote is linked to.
Official Blizzard Quote:
Speaking specifically to PvP, one of the goals we have is to make sure that PvP never effects PvE game balance. So it's one of the reasons we've put PvP into Arenas that are separate from the PvE game. We'll never nerf a PvE skill for PvP, we can balance every skill specifically for PvP.
If they didn't handle it with entirely different skill sets, they'd have to handle each skill individually. This would take much much longer, and with them being Blizzard, I don't think they want that kind of slop if it can be done in a much cleaner fashion.
On the contrary balancing each skill separately for both PvE, and PvP would take much less time than creating whole separate skills for both. All the development team has to do is tweak numbers under the hood, compared to creating whole new skills which may be almost useless in PvE, thus making for more skills, and balancing needed in general. This has less to do with programming, as it does to do with general labor hours. I also feel personally that the way it is being done is, "cleaner" than if they were to make two styles of skills, one whole tree for PvE and one for PvP or something of the sorts.
This isn't to say some skills aren't more geared for PvP, is just means that skills are balanced for PvE, and PvP separately to suit both separately regarding the nature of its stats.
On in topic, Bashiok kindly responded to a post on the B.net forums assuring us this process isn't holding up the game.
Official Blizzard Quote:
Q u o t e:
wouldn't release be much sooner if you didn't have to take months to balance skills for the PvP game?
No.
Alright, I'll elaborate!
The PvP game is being developed alongside everything else, so it's not as if the game is done and we're ready to ship it but then stop and take a few months to balance things. Also, it's to be expected that the game won't be and won't really need to be balanced right at release as it will take some time for people to really explore and begin reaching competition levels where more extreme balance is necessary or even possible for us to properly evaluate and react to.
Also on the topic of PvE/PvP skill balancing, Bashiok talks about how they want to avoid changing how a skill functions between both PvE, and PvP. Instead they will first try simply tweaking for example, CC durations, and other numbers under the hood instead of changing how the skill functions in general.
Official Blizzard Quote:
Cool!
On the note of balancing PvE and PvP separately you guys talked about a little bit, it's something we want to largely avoid. I'm actually sort of confused where that info came from (I know you guys didn't just make it up I've seen it elsewhere). Somehow I feel like it's my fault, but maybe it was talked about at BlizzCon. We do have the ability to keep separate functionality, but we want to try to avoid big differences that make it feel like two different games when you play PvE and PvP. One area where things work differently, and we think it's ok, is in the case of CC, like stuns, snares, slows, etc. The duration of these skills is fairly significantly reduced when used against players, however, that same reduction in effectiveness is also see in the PvE game when it comes to unique/champion/boss monsters. So, it's not only a jarring difference, it's also actually experienced in PvE.
Bottom line is we'll have to wait and see but, as I said, it's something we have the ability to do if needed but would prefer to largely avoid. I just didn't want anyone to think that we're actively balancing them completely independently as that's not accurate.
“We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about.” - Albert Einstein
I think you misunderstand how this would work. It actually wouldn't be taking anymore time to create a copy of the skills designed specifically for PvP. All they'd actually have to do is COPY AND PASTE. Add a trigger. Tweak numbers. This is what I'm saying they're doing. The only other route of tweaking is adding a ridiculous amount of coding to individual skills.
In the scenarios I presented, all skills would be PvP skills upon entering a pvp game. They would be just like the PvE skills, except they might say (PvP) at the end, and the numbers might be slightly different. It would take maybe an hour, at most, to honestly make the pvp skillset. It's literally just a copy paste.
I think you just misunderstood me. You can't just TWEAK something in the coding to make it work. There would have to be a trigger to modify the skill from PvE -> PvP. If they put the triggers under each individual skill, it takes FAR MORE hours of labor. If they do what I said, and copy/paste, add a trigger, and go from there, it would take like...one guy one hour. If that.
From a programming point of view, even Bashiok said they're separate. This just means they more than likely copy and pasted. This probably took...well...2-5 minutes. They'd have to setup the module, plugin where the module would run, add the trigger conditions, etc, then just modify the skills after that initial period. I don't know how much more simple I can explain it. They're the EXACT same skills, just different sets in the coding. That's how you balance PvE/PvP separate, and I'm relatively sure that's how they're implying it is being done.
I mean, without triggers, you can't have two instances of the same thing. It just doesn't work that way.
Without triggers, they can't just modify the skills.
So, you kind of get what I'm saying...Triggers are kind of like circuits...or train tracks.
Option A is always on. When the switch is hit (the trigger for PvP), the Option changes to B. Same skills. Same description. Same effects. Slightly modified durations/damage.
That's it. That's as simple as I can explain it from the programming side XD.
Just to sum it up again: It's actually more labor for them to do it how you suggested Winged. Copy + Paste the entire skillsets and adding one trigger as opposed to 25 = easier.
I would assume it would work just like difficulty scaling or any other scaling aspect in any video game. In order for pets to not be useless later in the game when every monster does infinitely more damage than, say, a normal mode boss, their health/defense/resistances/damage would have to scale with the difficulty or with skill investment.
Won't their stats simply increase when you put more points into their skill, like in D2?
Yes, but that doesn't necessarily mean they'll be viable in later difficulties or against harder monsters.
I did slightly misunderstand, I thought you were saying it would be easy to create brand new PvP skills. I understand where you're coming from now, but I still feel you're either over complicating it, or miswording it. This coding you speak of isn't true coding, it's just swapping numbers in a stat table. In essence, to put it very simply under each skill is a stat table, where for example, Magic Missile may have a base damage stat of five. For PvP they might change that 5, to an 8 to compensate for a players higher HP than most monsters. This doesn't change the feel of the skill, it only makes it more viable for PvP, and it also takes very little time. Another example would be a stun effect. In PvE a stun effect from a certain attack may have a base stun of four seconds, in PvP they may change that to two seconds. I think we may me getting at the same idea, we're just wording it differently.
On a side note, my friend Pat whom I have speak of often when regarding coding is one semester away from his masters in Graphic design and Programming at Liberty. He has passed to me what I could bare to let him explain over the years, so don't worry about loosing me in the vocabulary ;). This trigger you speak of is simply a switch to profile B (PvP) stats, which would happen when entering the Arena. The coding you speak of again isn't even considered coding. The table is already set, and as a member of the dev team put it as Blizzcon (I'm not digging the video up this moment at 2am) "-We play with the numbers-". These numbers are the stats which exist on the table, as I gave examples of above. Pretty sure at this point we're talking about the same thing..
“We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about.” - Albert Einstein
Like popping open the Diablo II .mpq's and editing a few cells in a datagrid application like Excel or OO Calc. It's very simple. Whether or not it achieves balance is always up for debate.
I'd imagine Diablo III would be organized the same way.
Edit--
Although, I can see what you mean by "copying" the skill. Obviously, any spreadsheet would have to account for PvP and PvM simultaneously, so there would either be multiple columns for the same value, one for PvM and one for PvP. This would create redundant data, but not nearly as much as copying and pasting the entire table and creating a new skill for it for PvP only.
I would assume it would work just like difficulty scaling or any other scaling aspect in any video game. In order for pets to not be useless later in the game when every monster does infinitely more damage than, say, a normal mode boss, their health/defense/resistances/damage would have to scale with the difficulty or with skill investment.
Won't their stats simply increase when you put more points into their skill, like in D2?
Yes, but that doesn't necessarily mean they'll be viable in later difficulties or against harder monsters.
Like popping open the Diablo II .mpq's and editing a few cells in a datagrid application like Excel or OO Calc. It's very simple. Whether or not it achieves balance is always up for debate.
I'd imagine Diablo III would be organized the same way.
Edit--
Although, I can see what you mean by "copying" the skill. Obviously, any spreadsheet would have to account for PvP and PvM simultaneously, so there would either be multiple columns for the same value, one for PvM and one for PvP. This would create redundant data, but not nearly as much as copying and pasting the entire table and creating a new skill for it for PvP only.
"Spreadsheet" is a much better word for what I was trying to describe than "Table".. I blame the number, 2:21am on the bottom left of my screen. Another example would be of the D2 modification programs where you could make your own items by just swapping out numbers on the spreadsheet.
I see why Pets could be a concern if not balanced correctly in their stats. I suspect this will just have to be worked out via play testing.
“We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about.” - Albert Einstein
Don't forget now, after tons of experience with Starcraft, Warcraft 3, WoW, seeing mobas like DotA, LoL, HoN, all being balanced in a given "pattern", they're probably 100 times better than they were back when D2 was released.
Back then, "balanced" mean that Fireball had to deal at least 2 times as much dmg as Firebolt, since it was an obvious upgrade.
They even admitted that Teleport wasn't balanced, so the solution was to give all characters teleports with runewords o.O Nowadays they'd solve that through better means.
SC2 balancing is pretty good, despite what the forum trolls and whiners will tell you - and should be an indicator of Blizzard's capacity in balancing stuff out.
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Got that video? Or post? The sets I was talking about is how balancing would be done for PvP. Not a visual difference for the player in any way shape or form. My entire conversation has been from a programmers point of view. If you think what I'm talking about is for actual gameplay then....yeah sorry to burst your bubble.
Also I'm pretty sure it was reiterated in older videos. Prior to Bcon 2010
Edit: If you read through my posts you'll clearly see I speak purely from the programming point of view. It would simply be easier to code and develop using two sets rather than one set. If they say they aren't, then they're pretty much saying they aren't going to balance the skills the skills separately. To balance separately you HAVE to have two sets. There are no ifs and or buts about it.
A trigger would mean there's two instances of the skill. One for each respective type. Therefore I gave you the idea of how they would handle it.
Again, my posts have NOTHING to do with what a PLAYER SEES.
http://www.diablofans.com/topic/24054-bashiok-on-skill-balancing-in-pve-and-pvp/
That post also points you to where the original quote came from (Open Q&A Blizzcon 2010, which I think is at the end of the Crafting Sanctuary panel). PvP wasn't even officially announced until the most recent Blizzcon, so beyond wanting to avoid griefing I don't think theres any official quotes from before then.
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Hm I must have gotten mixed up with something else, or confused about the last Blizzcon. The two sets wouldn't exist for different functions. The skills would still be the exact same other than numbers.
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If you're looking at it from a gameplay point of view, yes, it would seem more drastic. From a design and programming point of view, not so much. If they just did the set style as I said, if they ever decided to change a skill, they could just do it freely, without having to add in coding just to have a separate pvp skill. Just because there's two sets doesn't mean they have to be modified. It's a good way of actually future proofing yourself!
I always try to look at things from a programmers point of view. I must be weird! It gives me better insight as to how things will behave, react, and generally proceed. Oh well. Also helps with those darned bug reports
I guess that's true. Now I feel bad...Like I confused some people..
I really didn't mean to though. I guess I shouldn't assume everybody else also cares about how coding is done. My bad.
Thought maybe some people would like to know that their job isn't as easy as they make it sound!
I would assume it would work just like difficulty scaling or any other scaling aspect in any video game. In order for pets to not be useless later in the game when every monster does infinitely more damage than, say, a normal mode boss, their health/defense/resistances/damage would have to scale with the difficulty or with skill investment.
Found it. Diablo III: Open Q&A 1/4 - Blizzcon 2010, 2:56.
Speaking specifically to PvP, one of the goals we have is to make sure that PvP never effects PvE game balance. So it's one of the reasons we've put PvP into Arenas that are separate from the PvE game. We'll never nerf a PvE skill for PvP, we can balance every skill specifically for PvP.
On the contrary balancing each skill separately for both PvE, and PvP would take much less time than creating whole separate skills for both. All the development team has to do is tweak numbers under the hood, compared to creating whole new skills which may be almost useless in PvE, thus making for more skills, and balancing needed in general. This has less to do with programming, as it does to do with general labor hours. I also feel personally that the way it is being done is, "cleaner" than if they were to make two styles of skills, one whole tree for PvE and one for PvP or something of the sorts.
This isn't to say some skills aren't more geared for PvP, is just means that skills are balanced for PvE, and PvP separately to suit both separately regarding the nature of its stats.
On in topic, Bashiok kindly responded to a post on the B.net forums assuring us this process isn't holding up the game.
Q u o t e:
wouldn't release be much sooner if you didn't have to take months to balance skills for the PvP game?
No.
Alright, I'll elaborate!
The PvP game is being developed alongside everything else, so it's not as if the game is done and we're ready to ship it but then stop and take a few months to balance things. Also, it's to be expected that the game won't be and won't really need to be balanced right at release as it will take some time for people to really explore and begin reaching competition levels where more extreme balance is necessary or even possible for us to properly evaluate and react to.
Cool!
On the note of balancing PvE and PvP separately you guys talked about a little bit, it's something we want to largely avoid. I'm actually sort of confused where that info came from (I know you guys didn't just make it up I've seen it elsewhere). Somehow I feel like it's my fault, but maybe it was talked about at BlizzCon. We do have the ability to keep separate functionality, but we want to try to avoid big differences that make it feel like two different games when you play PvE and PvP. One area where things work differently, and we think it's ok, is in the case of CC, like stuns, snares, slows, etc. The duration of these skills is fairly significantly reduced when used against players, however, that same reduction in effectiveness is also see in the PvE game when it comes to unique/champion/boss monsters. So, it's not only a jarring difference, it's also actually experienced in PvE.
Bottom line is we'll have to wait and see but, as I said, it's something we have the ability to do if needed but would prefer to largely avoid. I just didn't want anyone to think that we're actively balancing them completely independently as that's not accurate.
In the scenarios I presented, all skills would be PvP skills upon entering a pvp game. They would be just like the PvE skills, except they might say (PvP) at the end, and the numbers might be slightly different. It would take maybe an hour, at most, to honestly make the pvp skillset. It's literally just a copy paste.
I think you just misunderstood me. You can't just TWEAK something in the coding to make it work. There would have to be a trigger to modify the skill from PvE -> PvP. If they put the triggers under each individual skill, it takes FAR MORE hours of labor. If they do what I said, and copy/paste, add a trigger, and go from there, it would take like...one guy one hour. If that.
From a programming point of view, even Bashiok said they're separate. This just means they more than likely copy and pasted. This probably took...well...2-5 minutes. They'd have to setup the module, plugin where the module would run, add the trigger conditions, etc, then just modify the skills after that initial period. I don't know how much more simple I can explain it. They're the EXACT same skills, just different sets in the coding. That's how you balance PvE/PvP separate, and I'm relatively sure that's how they're implying it is being done.
I mean, without triggers, you can't have two instances of the same thing. It just doesn't work that way.
Without triggers, they can't just modify the skills.
So, you kind of get what I'm saying...Triggers are kind of like circuits...or train tracks.
Option A is always on. When the switch is hit (the trigger for PvP), the Option changes to B. Same skills. Same description. Same effects. Slightly modified durations/damage.
That's it. That's as simple as I can explain it from the programming side XD.
Just to sum it up again: It's actually more labor for them to do it how you suggested Winged. Copy + Paste the entire skillsets and adding one trigger as opposed to 25 = easier.
Yes, but that doesn't necessarily mean they'll be viable in later difficulties or against harder monsters.
On a side note, my friend Pat whom I have speak of often when regarding coding is one semester away from his masters in Graphic design and Programming at Liberty. He has passed to me what I could bare to let him explain over the years, so don't worry about loosing me in the vocabulary ;). This trigger you speak of is simply a switch to profile B (PvP) stats, which would happen when entering the Arena. The coding you speak of again isn't even considered coding. The table is already set, and as a member of the dev team put it as Blizzcon (I'm not digging the video up this moment at 2am) "-We play with the numbers-". These numbers are the stats which exist on the table, as I gave examples of above. Pretty sure at this point we're talking about the same thing..
I'd imagine Diablo III would be organized the same way.
Edit--
Although, I can see what you mean by "copying" the skill. Obviously, any spreadsheet would have to account for PvP and PvM simultaneously, so there would either be multiple columns for the same value, one for PvM and one for PvP. This would create redundant data, but not nearly as much as copying and pasting the entire table and creating a new skill for it for PvP only.
Which was my concern
"Spreadsheet" is a much better word for what I was trying to describe than "Table".. I blame the number, 2:21am on the bottom left of my screen. Another example would be of the D2 modification programs where you could make your own items by just swapping out numbers on the spreadsheet.
I see why Pets could be a concern if not balanced correctly in their stats. I suspect this will just have to be worked out via play testing.
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Wise ElderBack then, "balanced" mean that Fireball had to deal at least 2 times as much dmg as Firebolt, since it was an obvious upgrade.
They even admitted that Teleport wasn't balanced, so the solution was to give all characters teleports with runewords o.O Nowadays they'd solve that through better means.
SC2 balancing is pretty good, despite what the forum trolls and whiners will tell you - and should be an indicator of Blizzard's capacity in balancing stuff out.