We don't want to bias the drop system into only giving you items you want or can use, it would be a trading and economic killer. We want to encourage trading and encourage people to see worth in items even if they can't use them - give them to friends, use them for other characters, sell them, trade them, etc.
Along those lines but somewhat off-topic we do now have some restrictions on weapon types usable by each class. It's been part of the game for a while now. Allowing every class to use every weapon type was actually going to require a huge amount of time and effort and it would have meant cutting out or cutting into other features. We evaluated really how often people would want to have their class holding a weapon type that (traditionally) contradicted their class-style versus that work going in to other features - specifically having a lot more skills and a lot more skill-rune effects. We made the obvious choice which is making sure there are a ton of awesome skills and rune effects to choose from.
Because I can see the conclusions being jumped to RIGHT NOW in my old cranium - let me state that weapon types do not dictate stats. At least not wholly (barbarians can't use staves so there's no point in allowing fury related stats on them). We understand that the game is about variation, customization, and experimentation in class builds. We're not World of Warcraft, we're not looking to make weapon stats "optimal" for the types and classes that will use them. Which is to say, we're not going to put specific stats in specific amounts on each weapon of a specific type because we're making assumptions about what each class wants out of their stats. We want variation, and experimentation, and all that good stuff. These restrictions don't affect those goals, it really just means you probably won't see a wizard lugging around a two-handed axe. Kind of a bummer, but then think about what it affords us to work on with more and better looking skills, a more robust rune-skill system, etc. We want to spend our time and effort on what makes sense to making the game better.
Thought this post deserved a discussion thread, very interesting info in there.
There are really 2 sides to this issue, reality, and overall customization, and playability.
On the side of reality, there were many items out there that were allowed for all classes, but never saw much use outside of the class they were intended for.
For example, wands/staves/scepters for classes other than necros/sorcs/paladins respectively.
Will cut down on the development time, and theres really no reason to allow characters to use items, if they have no desire or need to use them.
It also doesn't make much sense to have a frail old witch doctor beating down monsters with an axe the size of a small child. Nor does it make sense to have a barbarian hitting monsters with a wand.
On the side of customization, just the simple fact that if you wanted to, you could use an item not intended for your class, if you really wanted to. Running around with a necromancer, effectively killing monsters at range then running up and slaughtering them with a gigantic sword, had a certain feel to it that you couldn't get anywhere else in Diablo.
And then theres his comment on "class drops", personally I'm quite glad that they have not restricted drops to classes that would get the most use out of them. That sort of model would brutalize the trading system, and make it rather pointless if you could just find everything you needed from runs.
Anywho, thoughts ?
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Imagine some of the dungeons having even more of that maze effect with some tricky three dimentional attributes to them.
Has anybody played the game or see the movie, Labyrinth? Where the walls and trees are slowly shifting causing you to get lost quicker. I was thinking this would be an interesting concept for one of the last levels. Once you found the waypoints, you wouldn't have to put up with the "pain in the a**" walls moving to get towards the end again, but this would really make things interesting. It would also occasionally cause party members to become seperated!
I think this would be awesome!
Tell me what you think guys!!