There were a lot of reasons I was excited for diablo 3. I still am. But every system i wanted to play seems to be getting cut out of the game. This game seems like its going to be a lot different then the game i was told about years ago.
I have accepted the other changes. Though I know i will miss them like death animation. But this is the first one im truly upset about. Rune stones seemed like a great step forward from skill trees. I was really looking forward to trying that system out and finding different runes to try out different skills. It seemed to add depth to the game. I guess I'm just worried that the game will not have that much depth..
I'm not going to say the rune system will destroy the game for me.
However, it is a major disappointment to me that they decided to go this way with the rune system. Maybe my expectations were too high, but I was hoping that they would actually improve the system and not go lateral (in some ways worse). The new system has a lot of negatives compared to the old one, it's not a well thought out system. I'm getting very worried about how such a decision was made in haste just so they can release the game sooner. Believe it or not, I'd prefer they delay the game than put in such a crappy system.
I'm very worried about how long Inferno will be fun to play now. Now, all we have are items to keep it interesting. The possibility of finding rare and unique runes would have added a lot to replayability. Now, everyone is the same. Everyone has access to every rune. To me, that just sounds bland. The previous rune system didn't work very well but I was hoping they could come up with ideas to make it work. Instead, what they did was gutted the system and replaced it with a glyph like system (from WoW). They need some new people over at blizz with orginal ideas.
I really hope they have some additional ideas to keep Inferno interesting. In D2, once I beat hell, I pretty much stopped playing. I was usually around 55-60 and the idea of slightly better items wasn't enough to keep me playing. I think runes as drops would have kept me playing for a lot longer before getting bored. The concept of seeing your skills improve with drops was just a really awesome concept. Sadly, it has now gone to the wayside and instead it's another lame auto-level up mechanic.
everyone will google best wizard build and get instant the runes he needs, the skills and the gems they will only have to work on the gear
m8, there will be many viable builds. What is best for somebody because he likes meteor and knows how to use it well may be horribly difficult for another person, but that another person may do very well well with hydra and get the same damage results while the first guy may suck using hydra (or simply not like it as it is too passive skill for his taste and ultimately boring for him).
It's not WoW, clear your mind for "new" world of possibilities.
Skill runes? I think that name is only to make us believe there's still a rune system in the game. Basically the skill runes point are skills points. I think they just have a hard time with the rune system and decided to remove it from the game...
The reason the old system didn't work (and they undoubtedly figured this out in testing) is because level 60 players have absolutely no need for them anymore, but they continue to drop nevertheless. It's the same reason they got rid of identify scrolls. Once you had 50 of them (because too many dropped), there went another thing that drop that had NO VALUE!
Blizzard knows that this game is supposed to be designed for the level 60 characters. The end game is all that matters for those of us who will play this game for the next 5+ years. I don't want to have these damn items that have no value dropping all over the place and polluting my item game.
It's especially annoying for those items which have potential value and make you stop every time and think if you should take it or leave it (like lower lvl rune stones, etc). There is no problem if some white items still drop in inferno though as we never think about piking them up
I had a chance to read the entire article and I had'nt realised that each rune had a variation for each class as well as each skill. My assumption was that each rune's type and quality would be standard and the attribute itself would differ from class it class and when applied skill to skill. I guess the problem here could be that different runes are valued more highly by some calsses and not by others. Although I see this as a positive as it would breed a more complex online market. "easy to learn, hard to master"
Because what I see is a fully implemented skill and rune system, and therefore no more big changes. What I see is that the game's environment, bosses, zones, quests, dungeons, items, and skills are done. What I see, is a release soon. They have nothing else big to work on.
If they have time to think about those console friendly changes (UI) they just made then I say that release may be even in April which would make blizzard to keep his word regarding releasing Diablo 3 in early 2012.
Because what I see is a fully implemented skill and rune system, and therefore no more big changes. What I see is that the game's environment, bosses, zones, quests, dungeons, items, and skills are done. What I see, is a release soon. They have nothing else big to work on.
Actually they still seem to have quite some work left to be done on itemization.
Of course we don't know how far their internal build is, but from what they have told us and what they show on their website, that might the biggest thing left.
Also depending on how long they have had the new rune system, it requires a re-balance of all four difficulties.
Several people had seen this change coming from a long way away. It made sense. Think about when Blizzard reduced stash size. The writing was on the wall at that point. Runes in the forms of items were gone.
And good riddance. Listen, I enjoy the item hunt as much as the next guy. But stop pretending that this was because we were hunting for uniqueness. The core principle behind the item hunt was to find the precise items that would most benefit the build you had selected, a build that had been mathematically determined to be one of the best builds. Thus, tons of people had it. Runes were a way to customize our characters. And they still really are. I don't want that system tied to items, particularly when the item is hard to find.
We will still be item hunting for optimization. We will still be item hunting for the top end use of our build. But at least our playstyle (which runes are directly tied into) will not be tied into waiting on that item, particularly one that will be rarer than all the other items out there.
It's gonna be even better. At 60 we will be getting some gear drops which don't benefit our mathematically great build and we will be forced to experiment with other skills which maybe not mathematically perfect can synergise with our personal mothorical/thinking skills and make us even more powerful than most of the other sheep who will follow some setup created by mathematician who just like to play excel instead of game.
I know many people are angry or somewhat perplexed at the sudden racial deviation the skill rune system has taken i can sympathize with that but I believe it is a step in the right direction towards satisfying Blizzard's design mantra of "easy to learn, hard to master". Here's why.
The old system required you to activity hunt or collect runes by other means i.e trading, what this does is prohibit the amount of customization (skill wise) for undisclosed amount of time until you gained the rune you where seeking in order to try the effects or yourself. It also denies players whom don't have the time and resources to simply experiment and have fun the skill system itself.
This new system however allows a player who has put in enough time and work to be given the opportunity to have access to the entire pool of skill rune effects, it is then the onus of the player to decide which skills and corresponding rune effects to choose to suit their play style or build that they had in mind. It also allows casual players to be granted a decent pool of skill rune affects to experiment with and not feel left out.
Keeping this in mind it would appear that the system is intuitive enough to cater towards casual players who are given the opportunity have a positive experience with the system, while on the other hand inviting high level players to wildly experiment and differentiate themselves with crazy skill builds no one has yet discovered.
However i do agree that removing the dropped skill rune system entirely is a bit drastic. It would be nice if Blizzard added skill rune drops of a superior quality only in Inferno difficulty so that high level players can validate their hard work and dedication, something along the lines of a dropped item with a one time use to upgrade a single rune effect or such.
So there you have it. Ive always believed that today's noobs are tomorrows pros and i think this system will help foster that. Cheers :).
This is a silly argument, considering Blizzard just removed almost all value from white items. And that was what, two beta patches ago? They said themselves that having these items of no value remain in the game makes it all the more rewarding when you find the one that is really valuable.
But with whites you know immediately to not to pick them up. With f.. runes you will have to w8 for a sec or two and think if it's actually worth anything to you, or you will pick them up immidiatelly, cluter your inventory and then do like those guys who stream some of those videos on the net and remove all white itmes from the inventory one by one. Freaking happy about the changes. I don't believe all at blizzard are clever but one or two ppl are and they keep this show going. Be happy while it last, they won't work forever, they are already rich.
My biggest concern is that it seems like they care more about normal difficulty than Inferno. They do so many things to make it better for people that won't even play the game past normal and it's things that end up making the game worse for people that want to play at max level. If you want to change runes like this, that's fine but you're taking a big chunk out of Inferno. Why can't you add a rank of runes in Inferno that improves your skills in addition to this system? That alone would make me enjoy the system. Sadly, it seems they don't care about Inferno or the players that want to play it.
Yea i guess well just have to wait and see, Blizzard have stated themselves they don't really have a good indication on how end game is going to work out in the long run. What we can expect is that they will address any issues people have with endgame content through patches or something along those lines after release.
I don't know how I feel about this change. I really liked the idea of runes being physical items the way they were in D2. I don't see how these are runes, but just skill enhancements that are a part of the leveling system. I understand what they mean by 3000 runes being over cumbersome, plus changing this to a leveling system will help them save on storage which could mean more stash size later, and that is a good thing.
On the other hand, before the expansion in D2, the only item drops you had were weapons, armor, rings, amulets, potions, quest specific item gems and scrolls. (I'm counting all forms of clothing as armor.) Runes and Charms weren't added to D2 until the expansion. It seems they are reverting back to that, with the addition of recipes, but the game will have FAR more skill customization with skills, skill runes, and the ability to swap them. But this is mitigated by no means to customize atributes; unless and until they implement the Talisman in an expansion. Also it will be nice to have something unlock at every level. But we wont' know how well this truly works until the game is released...whenever that is
I think that having all skill runes unlocked at 60 may help them in balancing inferno difficulty as well as you should be able to finish it somehow with skill and reasonably good gear and not just with uber gear which you have to buy on RAHM. Having random access to some skills could make difficult for them to balance inferno. But I bet it wasn't a primary intent for skill change, but it must have surely added to the pot.
My biggest concern is that it seems like they care more about normal difficulty than Inferno. They do so many things to make it better for people that won't even play the game past normal and it's things that end up making the game worse for people that want to play at max level. If you want to change runes like this, that's fine but you're taking a big chunk out of Inferno. Why can't you add a rank of runes in Inferno that improves your skills in addition to this system? That alone would make me enjoy the system. Sadly, it seems they don't care about Inferno or the players that want to play it.
Thats a great idia! Leaving rank 6-7 runes in inferno in order to leave some room for improvement after hell, but keeping casuals happy about getting instant, large bonuses to skills while they level up + 2 rank of runes wont cause much of inventory problems. Thats something blizzard should really consider doing.
I feel the icons of the skill runes, while varied, should also be color-coded to more easily identify the the type of bonus (damage, defensive, etc).
They could easily incorporate the previous colors and make those symbols glow with the appropriate color instead of the fire/lava look.
Just wait for moders to add this. UI changes should be allowed by blizzard on this level. I would like to see WoW power auras more than other things as cooldowns can be influenced by crits, etc and I can't neither remember the time (as it is useless) nor I want to look at the active skills bar to see if skill is out of cooldown.
I have accepted the other changes. Though I know i will miss them like death animation. But this is the first one im truly upset about. Rune stones seemed like a great step forward from skill trees. I was really looking forward to trying that system out and finding different runes to try out different skills. It seemed to add depth to the game. I guess I'm just worried that the game will not have that much depth..
However, it is a major disappointment to me that they decided to go this way with the rune system. Maybe my expectations were too high, but I was hoping that they would actually improve the system and not go lateral (in some ways worse). The new system has a lot of negatives compared to the old one, it's not a well thought out system. I'm getting very worried about how such a decision was made in haste just so they can release the game sooner. Believe it or not, I'd prefer they delay the game than put in such a crappy system.
I'm very worried about how long Inferno will be fun to play now. Now, all we have are items to keep it interesting. The possibility of finding rare and unique runes would have added a lot to replayability. Now, everyone is the same. Everyone has access to every rune. To me, that just sounds bland. The previous rune system didn't work very well but I was hoping they could come up with ideas to make it work. Instead, what they did was gutted the system and replaced it with a glyph like system (from WoW). They need some new people over at blizz with orginal ideas.
I really hope they have some additional ideas to keep Inferno interesting. In D2, once I beat hell, I pretty much stopped playing. I was usually around 55-60 and the idea of slightly better items wasn't enough to keep me playing. I think runes as drops would have kept me playing for a lot longer before getting bored. The concept of seeing your skills improve with drops was just a really awesome concept. Sadly, it has now gone to the wayside and instead it's another lame auto-level up mechanic.
m8, there will be many viable builds. What is best for somebody because he likes meteor and knows how to use it well may be horribly difficult for another person, but that another person may do very well well with hydra and get the same damage results while the first guy may suck using hydra (or simply not like it as it is too passive skill for his taste and ultimately boring for him).
It's not WoW, clear your mind for "new" world of possibilities.
It's especially annoying for those items which have potential value and make you stop every time and think if you should take it or leave it (like lower lvl rune stones, etc). There is no problem if some white items still drop in inferno though as we never think about piking them up
If they have time to think about those console friendly changes (UI) they just made then I say that release may be even in April which would make blizzard to keep his word regarding releasing Diablo 3 in early 2012.
Of course we don't know how far their internal build is, but from what they have told us and what they show on their website, that might the biggest thing left.
Also depending on how long they have had the new rune system, it requires a re-balance of all four difficulties.
It's gonna be even better. At 60 we will be getting some gear drops which don't benefit our mathematically great build and we will be forced to experiment with other skills which maybe not mathematically perfect can synergise with our personal mothorical/thinking skills and make us even more powerful than most of the other sheep who will follow some setup created by mathematician who just like to play excel instead of game.
The old system required you to activity hunt or collect runes by other means i.e trading, what this does is prohibit the amount of customization (skill wise) for undisclosed amount of time until you gained the rune you where seeking in order to try the effects or yourself. It also denies players whom don't have the time and resources to simply experiment and have fun the skill system itself.
This new system however allows a player who has put in enough time and work to be given the opportunity to have access to the entire pool of skill rune effects, it is then the onus of the player to decide which skills and corresponding rune effects to choose to suit their play style or build that they had in mind. It also allows casual players to be granted a decent pool of skill rune affects to experiment with and not feel left out.
Keeping this in mind it would appear that the system is intuitive enough to cater towards casual players who are given the opportunity have a positive experience with the system, while on the other hand inviting high level players to wildly experiment and differentiate themselves with crazy skill builds no one has yet discovered.
However i do agree that removing the dropped skill rune system entirely is a bit drastic. It would be nice if Blizzard added skill rune drops of a superior quality only in Inferno difficulty so that high level players can validate their hard work and dedication, something along the lines of a dropped item with a one time use to upgrade a single rune effect or such.
So there you have it. Ive always believed that today's noobs are tomorrows pros and i think this system will help foster that. Cheers :).
But with whites you know immediately to not to pick them up. With f.. runes you will have to w8 for a sec or two and think if it's actually worth anything to you, or you will pick them up immidiatelly, cluter your inventory and then do like those guys who stream some of those videos on the net and remove all white itmes from the inventory one by one. Freaking happy about the changes. I don't believe all at blizzard are clever but one or two ppl are and they keep this show going. Be happy while it last, they won't work forever, they are already rich.
Yeah, just go back in 2 years and I'm sure everything will be to your liking then
On the other hand, before the expansion in D2, the only item drops you had were weapons, armor, rings, amulets, potions, quest specific item gems and scrolls. (I'm counting all forms of clothing as armor.) Runes and Charms weren't added to D2 until the expansion. It seems they are reverting back to that, with the addition of recipes, but the game will have FAR more skill customization with skills, skill runes, and the ability to swap them. But this is mitigated by no means to customize atributes; unless and until they implement the Talisman in an expansion. Also it will be nice to have something unlock at every level. But we wont' know how well this truly works until the game is released...whenever that is
Thats a great idia! Leaving rank 6-7 runes in inferno in order to leave some room for improvement after hell, but keeping casuals happy about getting instant, large bonuses to skills while they level up + 2 rank of runes wont cause much of inventory problems. Thats something blizzard should really consider doing.
Just wait for moders to add this. UI changes should be allowed by blizzard on this level. I would like to see WoW power auras more than other things as cooldowns can be influenced by crits, etc and I can't neither remember the time (as it is useless) nor I want to look at the active skills bar to see if skill is out of cooldown.