I think Blizzard tried a little too hard with balancing the classes. While buffing some of the Demon Hunter skills, many of the skills in other classes were nerfed. What I also found to be interesting is that gold dropped from monsters has been increased and the value of items from vendors has been decreased. Is gold not going to be as valuable as we once thought? Why has the Blacksmith's upgrades been moved to the 50% off section of Hell-Mart?
The only thing that justifies the major class revamps is the changing of monsters and how much damage they do and health they have. The true answers will only come after this information whirlwind, when we have a moment to step back and observe all this thrust at us. Perhaps it is not the end of Diablo 3-- Maybe it is...
If this patch update is indeed Marking us for Death, can Blizzard quick swap their skills for 15 seconds and retaliate against the Risen Dead?
DH was not very tough before while all other were. So no complaint there. regarding prices of vendors and gold drops, as they added new affixes the random element of items will grow so to compensate they may let us have more gold for crafting. Also if vendors sell rubbish all the time comparing to crafting or are to expensive they will be overlooked and this would be boring as they want us to interact with them and for this interaction to have meaning.
If this patch update is indeed Marking us for Death, can Blizzard quick swap their skills for 15 seconds and retaliate against the Risen Dead?
Regarding skill swapping, they should make it something very easy to do. I would like to be able to swap 3 recent skills I put into the active skill slot with mouse roll. 15 sec is perfect for swapping, too. Ok, this would be closer to playing FPS now but as far as mobs are still a challenge I'm fine with it. ACTIONrpg rules peace V
I feel good with those changes, but I think they'll need to adjust the cooldown system of changing assigned skills.
I don't know how exactly, but it'll indeed feel strange to see players change builds every 2 minutes.
Changing, no, modifying, yes. More like, oh cannon fodder, lets meteor with Indigo rune (16 little ones on high area), and 5 sec later, oh, champion/elite, lets switch to Crimson rune (one single high dmg meteor) while kitting for 15 sec till switch happens That's just gonna be fun and crazy. But blizzard should make changing skills in active slots (and runes) much more easy. We should be able to do all by just making one click. For example I imagine to be able to use mouse roll to select skill for active slot from 2 or whatever amount I decide for that active slot and after skill is selected I should still be able for next 3 sec or so to press number 1-6 to select skill rune for that skill. Then just 15 sec of kitting till skill gets active
The main thing that bums me about this is I can't look forward obtaining a "Rune" from a drop. I love the hunt for hard to get items based on drops as opposed to unlocking at a particular level. Also not having the level system of Runes seems lackluster. I do agree with Blizzard's system of "Easy to learn, Diffcult to Master" but, I am left wondering what left will be diffcult to master? I harder skill level?
I understand Jay's reasoning for changing, but I don't see how it couldn't be the old system. I would use the first iteration of the rune system, have rank 1-7 runes of 5 different types drop through out the game. If it's an inventory problem, have a seperate storage for the runes (just like how everyone kept the cube in their inven for more space, this could be stored in town or something in a chest or w/e). I don't see how hard it is to be able to stack infinite amount of Rank 3 Crimson rune in one item slot; inventory problem solved. Let's be honest here, no one is going to save up rank 1-4 runes after being in inferno, those lower ranks would only be used during normal/nightmare. One you pop a rune, it would be destroyed if you wanted to remove it to put in another rune.
If you want to try a new skill, gotta find that rune and since rank 7's would be much harder to obtain, why not be able to combine 3 rank6 runes to get a rank7 like upgrading gems in D2? Now all the problems of inventory is solved, runes are still physical loot items, and rarity is not such a super concern for uber rank runes b/c they can be combined from lower tiers. Since people will always be trying new builds, runes will still be valueble in the economy. Am I missing anything here?
Be happy from those changes as it means they will be able to add some other things (like charms) later on more easily without making diablo to difficult to manage with all those different funny things dropping which never had to be drops (charms - must be a drop while rune skill don't so why to clutter the game).
Well, looks like we will be back to Diablo 2 vanilla item system boys and girls.
Rares > Uniques (for the most part)
No Runewords
No Runes
No charms
Gems
Whoooaaaaa nostalgia inc!
I dont mind it Although I hope with the first expansion they add charms back in, and enchants!
I think they will add them as they will have game to balance and these new type of items may just do the job, instead of just modifying of +whatever for skills
I personally liked the previous rune system where you had to get runes to drop from enemies and then socket them, but the system does indeed have its flaws as well like Jay Wilson mentioned in his post. Having to juggle a ton of different runes around in your inventory and swapping them out whenever necessary would have been a real annoying aspect of the game after a while. So all in all i think the new system will be an improvement to the game, whenever they decide to release it. The elective mode is also very nice, although it should be on by default if you ask me, the system is not THAT hard to grasp even for a beginner.
I like this change tot he rune system.
I'm not in beta but i've been following closely and i think this new system is going to be better and is great for inventory management as he said.
I also like the assigned vs elective skill slot thing. I know i'll turn on elective as soon as i start playing but my wife will probably keep the assigned mode on because thats how she is.
I don't understand, is the autolevel system the best solution in RPG/hack'n'slash games in 2012? I am genuinly asking you, because during my 'gamer carrier' I've only played Blizzard games and Civ/Elder Scrolls. It seems very lazy to me, esp. when they've been developing Diablo for the past decade.
This is basically WoW model of leveling and char customisation. 'Mandatory' level cap, auto-stats, auto-skills and now auto-runes, which are essentially the same as glyphs in WoW that require no effort to obtain. This new rune system seems better than the last one, but the last one wasn't very good to begin with. I was happy to hear they were changing it, but I don't know if going to WoW glyph model is the best way.
This leaves a huge strain on items, gems and crafting design. A lot of analysing needs to be done. Let's hope it'll work out.
The main thing that bums me about this is I can't look forward obtaining a "Rune" from a drop. I love the hunt for hard to get items based on drops as opposed to unlocking at a particular level. Also not having the level system of Runes seems lackluster. I do agree with Blizzard's system of "Easy to learn, Diffcult to Master" but, I am left wondering what left will be diffcult to master? I harder skill level?
I
I think we have a difference on how we play because I couldn't disagree more. I don't mind grinding to get better gear, but I do not like grinding for one specific item. If I am doing runs to gear up my char, the drops are random so as long as it is an upgrade for my char I don't care.
With runes they either had to have few drops since your only really need on per spell (less because your probably aren't using all your spells). This has a problem in that if you have a level 2 crimson and you're currently picking up level 5 runes. So you are grinding not for a level 5 rune, a level 5 crimson rune. Since they have low drops you could grind for a long time to get the one rune you really need. The other end is have them drop like crazy. If they did that they should have just done what they did since they are freely available and all they are doing is wasting a loot drop.
People need to chill out and give it a chance realizing that there will always be items to farm and this change only helps in fulfilling the original purpose runes served, customizing your skills.
I agree, though I think blizzard should also get over those skill runes completely and just start saying that every character have 120 skills to use instead. Maybe it would clear their and our mind of what this change actually means. And I'm not saying here I don't like it because I do but we should forget about skill runes and instead balance all of those 120 skills so they are all viable and fun to use for most of us. I would also add more and unexpected synergies between different type of skills. And on top of that if all 120 were just skills we would have more customization options as we could for example use Meteor Shower, Molten Impact and Comet as 3 separate active skills Could be fun sometimes (poor balance testers, lol)
Why isn't there some kind of other requirement to unlocking these (now) non-tangible runes, such as an artisan that would let you train/craft them permanently like glyphs in WoW, but at the cost of gold and mats in addition to the character level?
Wait till you want to buy smth on RAHM. You will wish then to not to have to pay anything to artisans
I'm actually surprised with this change,wasn't really expecting this.However,it is a good change in my opinion.
Regarding the elective mode,I am alightly confused.You have to enable that mode in order to fully customize your build and skill runes? If you disable it,then what will happen? I read the blue post but I couldn't understand fully.
By default, your skills can only be bound to certain keys. Resource generators only assign to left mouse, spenders only to right mouse etc. When you enable Elective mode, you could put generators on LM1, LM2 and 1, 2, 3 and 4 on the keyboard. You're free to put any skill on any button. If you turn it off, i'm guessing you'll have to re-assign all your skills, since you can only have generators on LM1 and spenders on LM2 etc.
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"Pull 'em in, den smash 'em up gud!" - Grimjaw, Barbarian Poet
I definitely like this rune system a lot more, but there's one thing they could've done better. Instead of unlocking new skill runes as we level up, they should just give us all the runes, but at rank 1. When we level up to a certain point, the ranks get upgraded.
I guess it wouldn't matter in the end since we'll have everything at level 60 anyway, but this method makes a lot more sense to me.
Unfortunately I have to say this is yet another step towards dumbing down and simplifying the game. If you want to play devils advocate you can say you just get 5 slightly different versions of each skill now and there aren't really any rune system left. You're not making any noticable choices at all anymore when it comes to character development, customization or build. At least not if it stays so trivial to swap skills and runes.
Don't get me wrong the game will probably still be fun and I'll still play it every free hour when it gets released, for a while at least, but I'm honestly starting to have my doubts about its longevity. I'm getting the feeling that they're wasting its potential and it could have been so much more.
In their effort to make it casual or newbie friendly whatever you want to call it I think they're oversimplifying it to the point that it starts to lack depth. If you want to see an example of a game going the completely opposite direction with a skill and character system that boggles the mind by its complexity and possibilities take a look at Path of Exiles.
Man, looking at all of you who thing that skills in earlier form was so cool I think you wouldn't last very long in this game anyway. Ok, you would make 3 barbs and you would get tried/bored no matter how restricted you got. Then a few of other chars and then bum left game forever. Diablo is about item hunt, not skill customization. In Diablo 3 they actually want to have customization so it is more enjoyable to item hunt and not be bored as you don't have your perfect skill yet. If you don't like item hunting then you won't last long anyway and I think it is still enough for ppl like you to create 2-3 different chars and getting them to 60.
But on other topic, they have added new affixes, like knock-back, etc. From my point of view it's like heaving new skills to hunt. Imagine DH with multishot and bow with KB vs no KB. You could change all skill runes around this "little" change. What I think though is that such an important affixes should be an enchants and not random rolls on items as they are much more important then yesterdays affixes.
However, it comes with one ginormous downside - some of us won't get the desired rune effect until LEVEL 60. Like let's say that hypothetically, I really wanted Toad of Hugeness with Plague of Toads - I'd have to play through Hell difficulty just to get it. I won't get to enjoy having a giant toad with me in the earlier difficulties of the game, even if its weaker like in the previous rune system.
If they gave you a choice about a skill rune you would end-up having all you want before lvl 30. No excitement after lvl 30 for you. So they made a good decision which will make you check other options before you move to yours and who know maybe you will like them more than yours when you get to know them better But my point of view is that as far as people says that they like something more than other they should try to balance its look till they like them both I know it's not exactly possible but if % of ppl complaining drops to number similar for other skills it will mean they did they job. So even if there are still 25% of people who do not like a skill but other skills are as much liked/disliked it's balanced and fun. Though they should probably lower this number to 5% for all skills, imo.
I'm OK with the simplification of the rune system "IF" the remaining itemization in the game is substantial enough to differentiate characters of the same class. That remains a big IF though as so far the itemization seems a bit too homogenized for my liking. Rune management did seem like it was going to be a pain if they were treated like every other item but I think there would have been other solutions aside from removing them from the item pool completely. Lets hope the silver lining to all of this development will be that a release date can finally be announced. I'm beginning to expect that it won't be until the first expansion hits that we'll begin to feel truely satisfied with the character differentiation. That aside, the one very positive aspect I will comment on is the new rune artwork in the UI looks great. I can really appreciate the work they've done to make the UI's in the game look clean, polished and simple. Time to Bring on Diablo! We've been waiting long enough.
Disastrous new system. All you have to do is level up and you get all skills and all their variants... and we know how hard leveling up will be, of course *eye roll*. I understand why some people might like this, but to me it's very boring and very much in vein with their design philosophy of dumbing everything down. I'm not gonna sit here and tell you the old system wasn't problematic, but they backed themselves into a corner with it. So, in true Blizzard fashion, they just did away with it.
They didn't change the runes, they removed them completely. Remove, remove, remove. It's obvious they have no idea what they're doing, so they decided to just keep removing everything that they originally wanted to do until they could finally release what's shaping up to be a very shallow game, instead of a unique, innovating one.
The only exciting things Diablo 3 is bringing to the table are:
1) A conclusion to the story (play for 2 or 3 days and that's done).
2) New ways for Blizzard to hoard unholy amounts of money.
I seriously wonder, will I actually play this game for more than 2 or 3 weeks?
I was thinking that they should make rune skills (or even skills :)) to be unlocked randomly every level. It would be more fun than predefined choice of theirs or ours. At lvl 60 we would have all and we would already know what we like as system would make us use almost everything and not what we decide is good. They could even lock rune skills every level so we have to learn them all. But hell could be quite difficult this way, but well, we have difficulty on breakfast
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DH was not very tough before while all other were. So no complaint there. regarding prices of vendors and gold drops, as they added new affixes the random element of items will grow so to compensate they may let us have more gold for crafting. Also if vendors sell rubbish all the time comparing to crafting or are to expensive they will be overlooked and this would be boring as they want us to interact with them and for this interaction to have meaning.
Regarding skill swapping, they should make it something very easy to do. I would like to be able to swap 3 recent skills I put into the active skill slot with mouse roll. 15 sec is perfect for swapping, too. Ok, this would be closer to playing FPS now but as far as mobs are still a challenge I'm fine with it. ACTIONrpg rules peace V
Changing, no, modifying, yes. More like, oh cannon fodder, lets meteor with Indigo rune (16 little ones on high area), and 5 sec later, oh, champion/elite, lets switch to Crimson rune (one single high dmg meteor) while kitting for 15 sec till switch happens That's just gonna be fun and crazy. But blizzard should make changing skills in active slots (and runes) much more easy. We should be able to do all by just making one click. For example I imagine to be able to use mouse roll to select skill for active slot from 2 or whatever amount I decide for that active slot and after skill is selected I should still be able for next 3 sec or so to press number 1-6 to select skill rune for that skill. Then just 15 sec of kitting till skill gets active
Be happy from those changes as it means they will be able to add some other things (like charms) later on more easily without making diablo to difficult to manage with all those different funny things dropping which never had to be drops (charms - must be a drop while rune skill don't so why to clutter the game).
I think they will add them as they will have game to balance and these new type of items may just do the job, instead of just modifying of +whatever for skills
I refuse to take your word for it.
I'm not in beta but i've been following closely and i think this new system is going to be better and is great for inventory management as he said.
I also like the assigned vs elective skill slot thing. I know i'll turn on elective as soon as i start playing but my wife will probably keep the assigned mode on because thats how she is.
This is basically WoW model of leveling and char customisation. 'Mandatory' level cap, auto-stats, auto-skills and now auto-runes, which are essentially the same as glyphs in WoW that require no effort to obtain. This new rune system seems better than the last one, but the last one wasn't very good to begin with. I was happy to hear they were changing it, but I don't know if going to WoW glyph model is the best way.
This leaves a huge strain on items, gems and crafting design. A lot of analysing needs to be done. Let's hope it'll work out.
I think we have a difference on how we play because I couldn't disagree more. I don't mind grinding to get better gear, but I do not like grinding for one specific item. If I am doing runs to gear up my char, the drops are random so as long as it is an upgrade for my char I don't care.
With runes they either had to have few drops since your only really need on per spell (less because your probably aren't using all your spells). This has a problem in that if you have a level 2 crimson and you're currently picking up level 5 runes. So you are grinding not for a level 5 rune, a level 5 crimson rune. Since they have low drops you could grind for a long time to get the one rune you really need. The other end is have them drop like crazy. If they did that they should have just done what they did since they are freely available and all they are doing is wasting a loot drop.
I agree, though I think blizzard should also get over those skill runes completely and just start saying that every character have 120 skills to use instead. Maybe it would clear their and our mind of what this change actually means. And I'm not saying here I don't like it because I do but we should forget about skill runes and instead balance all of those 120 skills so they are all viable and fun to use for most of us. I would also add more and unexpected synergies between different type of skills. And on top of that if all 120 were just skills we would have more customization options as we could for example use Meteor Shower, Molten Impact and Comet as 3 separate active skills Could be fun sometimes (poor balance testers, lol)
Wait till you want to buy smth on RAHM. You will wish then to not to have to pay anything to artisans
By default, your skills can only be bound to certain keys. Resource generators only assign to left mouse, spenders only to right mouse etc. When you enable Elective mode, you could put generators on LM1, LM2 and 1, 2, 3 and 4 on the keyboard. You're free to put any skill on any button. If you turn it off, i'm guessing you'll have to re-assign all your skills, since you can only have generators on LM1 and spenders on LM2 etc.
"Pull 'em in, den smash 'em up gud!" - Grimjaw, Barbarian Poet
I guess it wouldn't matter in the end since we'll have everything at level 60 anyway, but this method makes a lot more sense to me.
Man, looking at all of you who thing that skills in earlier form was so cool I think you wouldn't last very long in this game anyway. Ok, you would make 3 barbs and you would get tried/bored no matter how restricted you got. Then a few of other chars and then bum left game forever. Diablo is about item hunt, not skill customization. In Diablo 3 they actually want to have customization so it is more enjoyable to item hunt and not be bored as you don't have your perfect skill yet. If you don't like item hunting then you won't last long anyway and I think it is still enough for ppl like you to create 2-3 different chars and getting them to 60.
But on other topic, they have added new affixes, like knock-back, etc. From my point of view it's like heaving new skills to hunt. Imagine DH with multishot and bow with KB vs no KB. You could change all skill runes around this "little" change. What I think though is that such an important affixes should be an enchants and not random rolls on items as they are much more important then yesterdays affixes.
If they gave you a choice about a skill rune you would end-up having all you want before lvl 30. No excitement after lvl 30 for you. So they made a good decision which will make you check other options before you move to yours and who know maybe you will like them more than yours when you get to know them better But my point of view is that as far as people says that they like something more than other they should try to balance its look till they like them both I know it's not exactly possible but if % of ppl complaining drops to number similar for other skills it will mean they did they job. So even if there are still 25% of people who do not like a skill but other skills are as much liked/disliked it's balanced and fun. Though they should probably lower this number to 5% for all skills, imo.
They didn't change the runes, they removed them completely. Remove, remove, remove. It's obvious they have no idea what they're doing, so they decided to just keep removing everything that they originally wanted to do until they could finally release what's shaping up to be a very shallow game, instead of a unique, innovating one.
The only exciting things Diablo 3 is bringing to the table are:
1) A conclusion to the story (play for 2 or 3 days and that's done).
2) New ways for Blizzard to hoard unholy amounts of money.
I seriously wonder, will I actually play this game for more than 2 or 3 weeks?
More importantly, why would I?