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CherubDown
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Member for 13 years, 10 months, and 22 days
Last active Thu, Jul, 13 2023 08:16:54
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Jun 13, 2011
CherubDown posted a message on Fury, Spirit, Auras, Collision Detection, and Dyes

A wave of interesting information from Bashiok came in today. I'll go from most important to least important:

From Twitter, Nekrage had an interesting question about the Barb's fury resource:

Official Blizzard Quote:

How come the Barbarian has to build up rage in order to use abilities..when other classes can spam them all day?
Not all barbarian skills require fury to use, and some even generate it...
And not all other classes can just spam abilities, they have resource requirements too.

On the Bnet forums, Bash divulges about Monk spirit and mechanics:

Official Blizzard Quote:

Does spirit naturally deplete after not being used for some time?
No. Spirit is static. It doesn't regenerate, and it doesn't degenerate. Punching demons and using melee skills builds Spirit, and most monk skills spend it.

Is it true the Monk's auras function more like the Barbarian's war cries now?
The barbarian shouts are powerful, limited duration buffs that you must re-cast once they wear off. Monk auras are very similar. (editor's note: this is exclusive info! It used to be that Monk auras were like Paladin auras from D2 - they were just 'on'. Now this appears to have changed.)

Will the UI allow for keeping track of which combo you're on? His combo skills are really exciting but I'm worried it'll become too much of a chore playing the entire game counting out my attacks in sequences of 3. It would be unfortunate to unleash a 2nd tier hundred hand attack at range expecting to dash forward because you miscounted (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePyKl_bgNVQ&list=PL1A7FB5ACC97E7873#t=7m44s).
We don't want tracking of combo stages to be so important that there needs to be a UI element to keep track. It should be that if you're up on your game you're tracking combo stages and it helps you get a slight edge, but if not you're kicking ass anyway and will probably do fine. Also, we have made changes to skills so they're consistent; such as making all stages capable of a dash. We don't want the situation you've described to be an issue.

Do charges expire, or can I hold onto my level 3 charge until I want to unleash it?
It will reset after a time, but it's a good amount of time.

An interesting (but not trivial) tidbit on player collision detection:

Official Blizzard Quote:

I'm going to PK in HC and get rich doing it. You don't need to hostile, you just need to back stab.
My first character will be the Witch Doctor, and I will trap people next to monsters using Zombie Wall, there will be no escape except death. Then I will loot their corpse, rinse and repeat.
There's no player collision. You can't block others, only monsters can do that. (exception being in the arena against enemy players, of course)

A little bit on item dying:

Official Blizzard Quote:

Most of the loot we've seen on characters in game is made of at least 3 or so colors. Will dye apply to only the items base color, or will the system be more intricate, allowing you to dye highlights/secondary sections as well?
No, an item can only be dyed one color at a time.

Bashiok posted that a strong possibility for "end-game" dyes would be a dye that didn't change the colour of the item but the style of it (looking older, more ornate, darker etc.)
There is little-to-no possibility of that happening for the release game. I was musing about how gear looks could be swapped around if we ever thought people were looking too similar at the very end game. In no way is it a system that's currently being planned, designed, or even thought about.

And there's actually a lot more information in there, I just don't have time to go over all of it in detail right now.
Posted in: Diablo III General Discussion
1

Jun 4, 2011
CherubDown posted a message on To all Moderators about Spoiling!

This has been talked about before here, but I don't see a problem with re-addressing this issue.

I think the fansite should expose everything it possibly can, and spoil everything if need be. It would be as if we all had beta in our hands. I don't see a problem with that.

Besides, the beta won't spoil much, according to Bash.
Posted in: Diablo III General Discussion
1

Jun 2, 2011
CherubDown posted a message on Tabbed Search

I was thinking a great feature for the wiki would be a tabbed search between D1, 2, and 3.

As of now, if you're searching for something, you can get results for any of the 3 games. I think it would be a lot better if there was this option, especially for when D3 comes out, when people are mainly concerned with D3.

I was thinking something more along the lines of what we have at http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays, but not as fancy.

Let me know how hard implementing this will be for our wiki, and I'll do some research on it.
Posted in: DiabloWiki
1

May 31, 2011
CherubDown posted a message on What Do You Think of Followers?

I love that they're single player only, I just wish we could use them in Nightmare and Hell as well (in single player only).
Posted in: Diablo III General Discussion
1

May 30, 2011
CherubDown posted a message on Facebook Art and Screenshot Compilation

Since you can only have so many images per post, here's the rest:

April 20th (12th batch):

April 25th (13th batch):

May 2nd (14th batch):

May 6th (15th batch):

May 18th (16th batch):

May 24th (17th batch):

May 27th (18th batch):

May 31st (19th and final batch):

June 2nd (20th, special release batch)

An artistic interpretation of Tyrael, not to be considered "Concept Art"

And as a special bonus, our very own ScyberDragon's wallpaper:

Posted in: Diablo III General Discussion
2

May 30, 2011
CherubDown posted a message on Facebook Art and Screenshot Compilation

Since today is probably the day Diablo hits 1M Likes on Facebook, and since Facebook pics are hard to navigate (and don't expand as easily as one would expect), I decided to make a compilation thread of all the art we've been given over the last 4 months since the campaign started, sorted by release. Here they are:

February 9th (1st batch):

The Witch_Doctor's spell, Wall_of_Zombies

The Demon_Hunter killing a group of demons with a deadly combination of her Bola Shot and Grenade skills.

The Witch_Doctor using his Blow Dart skill along with a bit of Locust Swarm to take care of some monsters in the Halls of Agony.

King_Leoric, the Skeleton_King_(Diablo_III)

February 14th (2nd batch):

The Witch_Doctor's Firebomb skill.

The second screenshot takes place in the well known Stinging_Winds area in Act II and depicts the Monk, wielding what looks to be a Katar, what looks to be his Dashing_Strike skill past a lonely Fallen, into a group of the Fallen Ones and their hounds. In addition, it appears we caught a glimpse of some kind of spell or death animation (that giant green cloud) that happened just before the action shot. It also seems as if the Monk has just departed from some kind of town or encampment, judging by the large flags and pretty clear cut path he is running along. This could potentially be one of those random encounters during gameplay that we've heard so much about. Something else worth mentioning is the caterpillar-looking critter on the floor, perhaps we can squish them like D2.

February 22nd (3rd batch):

An unnamed demon concept, by Josh Tallman, Senior Concept Artist

The female Monk using her Sweeping_Wind skill, while dual-wielding Katars, against a bunch of Dark_Vessels

March 3rd (4th batch):

A rendered image of the Tristram_Cathedral

The Witch_Doctor firing his Poison_Dart skill against some Walking_Corpses and what looks to be an Unburied

March 11th (5th batch):

The Thief from the BlizzCon builds (called the Treasure_Seeker, by Vic Lee)

The Monk towards the end of a battle with the Fallen_Ones and their hounds, in the Stinging_Winds area of Act II

March 17th (6th batch):

A concept of the Wizard's skill, Hydra

The male Wizard is fighting off some Dark_Vessels in The Halls of Agony using his Arcane_Orb skill

March 21st (7th batch):

Concept of the Tomb_Viper

An 2v2 Arena match

March 24th (8th batch):

Concept of the Witch Doctor's Horrify skill

An unknown dungeon, of the Demon_Hunter taking care of a couple of Zombies with her Bola_Shot and Entangling_Shot

April 1st (9th batch):

Concept drawing of an Activated_Vessel

A female Demon_Hunter dealing with Dark_Vessels and Dark_Demons with Multi_Shot in an unknown dungeon.

April 8th (10th batch):

Concept of a two-headed, four-armed Goatman (or Khazra) Spearthrower

The Wizard, using what looks to be the aftermath of either Arcane_Orb or Slow_Time, to fight an Unburied and two Walking_Corpses.

April 14th (11th batch):

Concept of a Morlu Caster

Concept of the Iron Maiden, an old torture device

Female Monk wielding tremendous claws, using Wave_of_Light on a group of Activated_Vessels and Dark_Vessels

Posted in: Diablo III General Discussion
2

May 25, 2011
CherubDown posted a message on What will you start with now?

Didn't change my vote. But I'll be playing all the classes eventually.

Edit:
Posted in: Diablo III General Discussion
2

May 25, 2011
CherubDown posted a message on Runestones Hit Diablo3.Com, Talisman Gets Cut

Quote from mazingerz

I haven't thought about runestones since original vid 3 years ago. Someone refresh my memory, you just pick one stone to go in a weapon socket right? It's not like you can combine these or use more than 1 in other items?

No, no, no. Runestones don't get put into items at all. There's a (single) slot for each skill in your skillbook that you can drop runestones in then you get the bonus effect for that one skill.
Posted in: News & Announcements
1

May 25, 2011
CherubDown posted a message on Runestones Hit Diablo3.Com, Talisman Gets Cut

Quote from AcidReign

Cut the Talisman out of the initial release - and they aren't going to work on it now to make it better (for now). That just shows that they are trying to complete this game and get it ready for release. This is a great sign.

... of ß
Posted in: News & Announcements
5

May 25, 2011
CherubDown posted a message on The Issues With D2 That We Won't Have With D3

I've been wanting to write this up for a long time, but I wanted to first play through D2 again just so I can get a feel of all the faults that D2 had, even though I do think it is a great game. But D2 is no masterpiece. That's right, I'm as hard a Diablo Fan as anyone, and I said it. D2 has some serious issues, but luckily I don't think we'll see these blemishes in the new product.

Issue #1: The End Game
One of the most important aspects of any game of this type is the end game. This is where we get all our fat loot, play with our friends in Hell, and spend most of our time on our Main. For some, this is where the game actually begins. Unless you were seriously hardcore, the endgame for D2 suffered a lot and heres why:

Even if you had a great build (which we'll get to game mechanics later), if you didn't have the items to back up the build, your character was useless and you weren't viable in Hell, or it just wasn't fun to play because it was so hard (immunities and resistances were to blame here). The sorceress in particular can die in hell in one hit at lvl 90 with the right combination of hits from monsters. The solution to this? The removal of immunities will be awesome, but I also think the monsters will be better tweaked to not cause you to die in one hit, and I think it's that simple.

So when you finally, after months of playing, do get your epic armor-stat combo, you can finally run Baal (or pindleskin, diablo, or whomever) so many times your eyes bleed. But seriously, that's pretty much all you'll be doing because that's where all that fat loot is dropped (rather, that's where the highest chance of it dropping is). Now hopefully this won't be worthwhile to constantly run Diablo (or whomever the main villain is) over and over a million times. Hopefully in D3 we will be rewarded for exploring different areas of the game and throughout all the acts in Hell difficulty. Not much is known here, but there is potential to make item finding interesting by putting super rare drops in obscure places throughout Hell, and/or just to simply make boss drops not so big.

The level cap has been debated for a while now, and it won hands down. Sorry you hardcore fanbois, but the level cap of 60 is necessary if you want a game where your skills actually mean something. You can argue "it was so fun grinding to as close to level 99 as possible", but no, it wasn't fun. And it wasn't fun because there was nothing to gain but a status symbol. I'm sure the status symbol for D3 will be in other, better forms such as dyes, items, and gold. Also, there are other forms of grindy things you can do in D3 such as gems that will make up for habit.

Which brings us to another topic.

Issue #2: Gold and Economy
If all goes well, we'll have a real economy that uses gold as it's currency and not SOJs. A form of the Auction House (though by no means the same) will encourage that gold be used instead of some user-defined item. This is important. This makes items you pick up worthy of being sold. Now you don't have to get really lucky and find the one Monk on battlenet that has that one Axe you were looking for and wants that one Cestus you found (but this ONLY assumes those two items are of equal value :(. Now you can put it up for auction and use the gold you get to trade for the things you need. Problem solved.

Nobody knows what the future holds for D3's econ, but I can bet we'll have a nice battle.net-level UI to do trading outside of the game (this is only speculation though, don't get your hopes up).

Issue #3: Skills
Diablo 2 has major issues with skill variety. There's a reason why there are builds named after a certain skill: Meteorb Sorc, FireWall Sorc, Hammerdin, and I could go on. These builds are designed around one skill. That's because the game encourage this. Now, why is this a bad thing? Because it gets very boring mashing right-click over and over again until your hand hurts, and seeing the same frozen orb hit the same enemies over and over just gets boring after a few days. (love ya FO, but you get old)

D3 is designed to be a more tactical game where your decisions in combat influence the battle a lot, more like Zelda, as Jay Wilson continually describes. And, as such, you're encouraged to diversify your skills. This I think will be the biggest plus for D3. I hope to see some outrageously interesting builds come out of all the classes. To further diversify these skills, we have the Runestones, which will definitely bring a whole new era of awesome builds.

D3's UI changes also help to encourage skill diversity by the use of 1-4 as well as left and right click to apply your skills. F1 through F8 got tiresome quick. As with any game, UI is very important and effects the gameplay.

Issue #4: PvP Is Separate From PvE
Running along in D2 and getting ganked is no fun. While this doesn't happen much anymore, it was a big problem when there were more people on battle.net. Now we don't have to worry about this as the arena takes care of all our pvp needs. I think it will also encourage a new form entertainment on YouTube (yes, I'm looking at you, Force), which is GREAT. Whether you're into pvp or not, getting more people to play D3 is a good thing.

Issue #5: Story
Lead Content Designer Kevin Martens explained at BC 2010 that most of meat of the story will be told through what he describes as "Action Storytelling", where the story is supposed to unfold in front of you in-battle, instead of some dialog in the Rogue Encampment. Regardless of your view on this matter, whether you like good-ol' story telling or not, this will be an interesting take on the genre, of the like I don't think I've seen before, so we'll see.

We'll also be privy to bite-size stories throughout Sanctuary that will are supposed to immerse you into the world, and you can pick this up at your leisure. The reason this is so great is that it encourages two playing philosophies at once: 1. If you don't want to learn about the story, you don't have to read it, and continue hackin' and slashin'. 2. It encourages you to, if you want to, to go search for these little pockets of story within Sanctuary, providing tons of replay value.

Obviously we don't know how Diablo 3 will unfold in terms of story, but Blue has made it clear that after 20 years of relative peace, the Hells are breeding an army for war.

Issue #6: Melee Classes Were Far More Difficult to Play
As per snared04drummer's request, we'll delve into what I think to be a major design flaw of the D2. Melee classes had this really big problem in Hell and even in Nightmare. With the exception of a Hammerdin, the melee forms of the Paladin, Barb, Druid, and Assassin were not competent paradigms, especially in the later game. Yes you could build a Hammerdin, a Fireclaw Druid, or a Trap Assn, but we're talking about melee classes. A WW Barb is really risky, but I don't want to go into details. Basically, D3 will (hopefully) be rid of these problems. From the videos I've seen, all the melee classes look like they're on equal footing with all the other archetypes.

One of the sources of the problem here is Attack Rating (AR) which makes melee classes need LOTS of Dexterity, which is not really where they should be spending their points. A melee class should be spending points into their respective stat based on what they want to improve, not being forced to go Dex because of a bad mechanic. Thankfully in D3, this will be taken care of for us - the damage taken will be set for your character.

Conclusion
I could probably go on forever about the ways that D3 will be better, and by no means do I think D3 will be perfect, but so far the game looks infinitely better than it's predecessor, and that excludes graphical changes (though the ragdoll physics is super delicious in a Diablo game). This is still kindof a work in progress, so I'll update it as I see fit. In the meantime, if you guys want to chip in any more things you think will be better or worse about D3, please let us know in the comments.
Posted in: Diablo III General Discussion
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