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I don't know about other "legit" players, but I'm seriously getting tired of being punished for what exploiters are doing. (no I'm not interested in arguing over whether farming of these is/was exploits.). I do agree that all of these needed a fix, but I'm tired of them taking the lazy way out.

1. People are farming urns...nerf urns.
2. People are farming resplendent chests...nerf resplendent chests.
3. People are farming Nigel Cuthroat...nerf Nigel.
4. People are farming scorpions...nerf scorpions.
5. People are farming aspects...nerf aspects.
6. People are farming Mira...nerf mira.
7. People are farming CotA...nerf CotA (and any other place with "easy" mobs.

Like I said, I agree they needed to fix these, but they need to do something more elegant that doesn't punish regular people. Off the top of my head a timer or a diminishing returns system, or a combination of the two.

There are always going to be epeen waivers looking for the path of least resistance, stop punishing me because of them.

Battle.net US Forum Thread: http://us.battle.net...opic/8891689930 highly rated

Battle.net EU Forum Thread: http://eu.battle.net...opic/7527573396 highly rated

Reddit: http://www.reddit.co...stic_pt1_seals/

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Hi everyone,

before I start I want to apologize for my English. I hope you can understand it!

You might remember me for this thread.

This time I want to show you two ways I thought to make the mystic an artisan with original (I hope) mechanics.
This is the first part while the second one will come in the future (aka soon™).

It's a VERY VERY long read so I will put a TLDR version at the end of the whole post, but if you have some free time, please take a while and lis... read my idea

Like if you like!

PART 1: SEALS - BASE CONCEPT

What are the seals?

Seals are new droppable items that will allow the player to enchant any white item.


What is it that makes them different from the blacksmith's crafts and from a "similar-Diablo2-enchantment" implementation?

The difference is that with this system the player can choose which magic properties can be enchanted on the item.
Of course the choice remains random in some way (more on this later).


It doesn't seem a great idea... is there something that makes it cool?

Of course! It's been quite a while since I thought that Diablo 3 has a lot of potential in terms of character customization but mechanics like the ability to place statistics or the skill tree (that I really loved) that were a fundamental part of Diablo2 both for customization and replayability were cut from Diablo 3.
But it is also true that there are people who didn't like those mechanics so:

how to create another way to customize your character?
This is where my idea kicks in: seals can level up by capturing the souls (gain experience) of slayed monsters.
On every level they can be infused with different magic properties chosen by the player (these properties are the ones that will be enchanted on the item).
However, this wouldn't have been enough to make this idea looking great... maybe it would've just made it more frustrating.

So why not create a similar mechanic that players miss a lot, like Diablo 2 runes?
That's why I thought that if the player chooses the right combinations of skills (magic properties) to infuse into the seal he can unlock the secret properties of the seal itself.

But still, this was not enough for this feature because probably it would've been too easy to create the perfect seal so I had to think of two ways to make everything more hard:

1 - adding "breakibility" to the seal: on every level up and on every skill infusion ("skill infusion" is refered to the action of the player when he chooses a magic property to infuse into the seal) there is a 5% chance that the seal will break.

2 - adding another mechanic: the purification of the seal

What is the purification of the seal?

If the player reaches a point where the percentage of "breakability" is high he can decide to use the seal for an enchant so he can avoid to break it prematurely.
To be able to use the seal the player has to purify it by freeing and destroying the evil souls trapped into it.

Basically when the evil souls are free, the seal will disappear from the altar (more on this later) and some elite monsters will appear.
These monsters will be as powerful as the seal was.
Once the player has killed every monster of that elite pack, the last one killed will drop the seal in its purified form.
The purified seal allows the player to enchant a white item (more on this on the fourth part).
Elite monsters can also appear when the seal breaks prematurely, so it is important to handle these new items with care!

Another very important thing: if the player is not able to kill the spawned elite monsters the seal is lost forever!
So the player has to be careful to not make the evil souls too powerful!

Note: Purified seals cannot be traded

Are there different types of seal?

Yes:

- Seal of valor: can enchant one-handed weapons

- Seal of power: can enchant two-handed weapons

- Seal of will: can enchant armor items

- Seal of honor: can enchant jewels (white jewels? why not? maybe crafted by the jeweler)

- Seal of the Nephalem: can enchant class items

Seals are also divided based on the maximum level they can reach (e.g. the "Austere seal of valor" can reach only level 2 while the "Pure seal of valor" can reach level 3 and so on - note: the maximum level limit is 10) and based on their quality (magic, rare or legendary).

PART 2: SEALS - SKILL CHOICE AND INFUSION

In this part I will show you the first images of the new seal interface.

Here's the first one:



and here's the tutorial:



Let's see what happens if the player puts a seal into the altar:



As you can see the player chose a seal of valor and you can also notice that the quantity of souls needed for the seal to level up is 50.

The next image will show you the tutorial that appears when the seal reaches level 1:



See how the "breakability" percentage has increased to 5%.
This means that on the next level up or on the next skill infusion, the seal has a 5% chance to break.

At this point the player has just to click on the button "1 unused seal skill point" to open the window where he can choose which skill he would like to infuse into the seal:



This image shows you how the choice of a skill is made.
The player can choose one of two skills randomly chosen from a pool of many others.

Skills are divided between Primary and Secondary skills which can have other "secondary skills" called Traits.

Primary skills are infused into the first globe of every row of globes and they will determine what type of properties the seal will have.

Secondary abilities instead will improve or add effects that will "ensue" the characterization of Primary skills (I hope "ensue" makes sense).

Let's make an example based on the image above.

Cold Power will add cold damage to the item while:

- Freeze will add a chance to freeze the enemies

- Frozen Hell will additionally increase the cold damage done by Cold Power

- Blizzard will allow the player to use the Blizzard spell of the wizard (this affix doesn't exist at the moment but I think that the implementation of this idea would need a game with a larger pool of affixes and where an item can have more than just six affixes).

As you can see from the example above you can notice that the Primary skill determine the main "element" (in this case it's the cold damage) while Secondary skills just "ensue" it (I hope "ensue" makes sense here as well).

Anyway here's the tutorial that clears out any doubt you might still have:



This tutorial gives you another important information: the right combinations of skills allows you to unlock other primary or secondary skills so in the "list" of Secondary skills and Traits it won't appear any "Hidden" skill (which can be either Primary, Secondary or a Trait) because it is up to the player to discover "what skill unlocks skill X or Y or Z".

The player will have to choose from Fire Power or Cold Power and in our case he will choose Cold Power:



You can see how the Monster Power has increased and how it is based on the Primary skill (Primary skills will also determine the monster power).
Keep in mind that the seal breakability increases with a skill infusion as well infact it is now at 10% while previously was only 5%.

Let's see what happens at level 2:



This level activated two globes: one for another Primary skill and one for a Secondary skill so the player's choice for the next skill infusion can be made on two Secondary skills, two Primary skills or one Primary skill and one Secondary skill.
Have a look again on the seal breakability percentage.

On this next image you can see that the player has chosen another Primary skill:



and on the next level the altar will appear like this:



But let's take a step back: what would have happened if the player's choice was a Secondary ability instead of another Primary ability?
Here's the answer:



and the tutorial:



and level 3:



But let's take another step back and let's see which were the skill choices when the player decided to infuse "Freeze":



In the image above you can see that the Freeze skill has no Traits while Blizzard has. In this case the Traits of Blizzard would influence Blizzard of course, making it stronger by adding or improving its effects (e.g. a trait could add the effect of a Blizzard rune).

This time let's take a step forward instead and let's pretend that the seal has just reached level 4 and that the player has laready infused both Freeze and Blood Bath.
The player decides to infuse the next skill and:





But didn't Freeze have no traits? So how is it that possible?

Frozen Explosion is a Trait of Freeze and the infusion of both Freeze and Blood Bath unlocked it.
Frozen Explosion is infact a Hidden skill!

Hidden skills are a fundamental part of this idea and they will lead us to the next part but before we procced I want to try to be even more clearer on how this whole system works.

Basically this idea was inspired by one of my favorite games series: Heroes of Might and Magic.
If you never played any of them you might not be able to understand what I mean, but the ones familiar with the series will understand for sure.

I took the mechanic of the hero's level up (mostly from heroes 5) and just modified it a bit to be "Diablo-like".

Before we get to the next part I will show you one last image that might clears everything out (those of you familiar with Heroes of Might and Magic 5 might recognize it even if it is modified):



Don't look at the icons (they're just examples) but at the "sense" of the image.
I hope this helps to make everything clear on how my idea works.

PART 3: SEALS - HEROIC SKILL

This part explains how to unlock the "secret skill" of a seal with the right combinations of skills.

As I wrote above, the player doesn't know in advance how to unlock a secret skill.
However, it is possible to know what skills can unlock the Heroic Skill (this can be changed if it's too easy to unlock it).

What is the Heroic Skill?

I'm sure many of you noticed the big globe that is "alone". That globe is where the Heroic Skill will be infused.
Every Heroic Skill will give different magic properties depending on the type of seal and on the combinations of skills.

How do you unlock the Heroic Skill?

You just have to make the right decisions when you will infuse a skill.

But let's have a look on a first image:



You can notice that there is a "light" around the first globe: it means that the player is on the right way to unlock the Heroic Skill.

Let's skip to a higher level and let's pretend that the player infused the right skills to unlock the Heroic Skill:



and the tutorial:



and now with the Heroic Skill already infused:



Notice the green colored bonuses. Those are the Heroic skill magic properties!

The image above represents a case where everything went well (perfect skill choices and very lucky randomness), but in most cases the player will have to "wait" before having the chance to infuse the Heroic Skill because as I wrote earlier skills are randomly chosen from a pool of many of them.

In the image below you can see that the player had to wait until the max level to be able to infuse the Heroic Skill:



The player is also allowed to keep infusing skills even after the infusion of the Heroic Skill to make the seal more powerful but if he decides to do so he knows that the seal might break.
You can notice this with two images I showed you: a level 6 seal breakability is much lower than a level 10 but also their "power" is much different.

NOTE
I already explained this earlier but to make it clear I will explain this again:
in the images the level 10 seal breakability is 100% because the last skill has already been infused.
A level 10 seal with one seal skill point still remaining has a 95% breakability: this means that with the last skill infusion the player has a 95% chance to break the seal and if the infusion is successful the breakability percentage reaches 100% (the max level limit is 10 so with this last successful infusion the player does no longer have the risk to break the seal)

Let's have a look on the last two images before proceeding to the next part:





PART 4: MYSTIC - ENCHANTMENT

Once the player has purified the seal he cannot enchant a white item alone: he needs the help of the mystic.

To enchant an item you just need materials and gold.
Let's see a first image of the user interface:



As you can see there are two "slots": in one the player has to put the white item and in the other he has to put the right purified seal (seal of valor for one-handed weapons, seal of the nephalem for class-items etc).
There is also an "Item Statistics" panel where the player can see what magic properties the item will gain.

Here's an image of how the enchantment works:



The player just needs the required materials and gold and the enchantment will happen.

PART 5: MYSTIC - UPGRADE OF A SEAL

Seals can be upgraded and this allows the player to increase the maximum level limit a seal can reach.
This means that if the player wants a level 10 seal (which is the maximum level limit cap) he needs the help of the mystic (droppable seals reaches a maximum level of 6 in Inferno difficulty).

Here's two images on how the user interface will look like:





As you can see you can upgrade magic and rare seals (legendary too).
Higher level and legendary upgrades are droppable recipes of course.

On the image below you can see what the player needs to upgrade a "Seal of Will" (max level 1) into an "Austere Seal of Will" (max level 2).



You can now understand how important is the role of the mystic.

We will now have a look on the tooltip of a seal:



Let's explain its characteristics in detail:
you can notice that this is a rare seal and that it has a "Sacred power".
"Sacred Power" is just an indication to know what it is its maximum level.
However, you don't need to remember every single "power" to know what it is its maximum level because just below that there is this writing: "Level 5".
So this seal can reach level 5 at maximum.

If the player wants to increase its level cap he needs the mystic and the "upgrade operation" won't modify its magic properties in any way (except the level cap of course).

Speaking of magic properties you can see that this seal have two of them:

- Chance to break the seal recuded by 20%

- Monster power is reduced by 25%

This means that the seal has less chances to be broken and that the power of the monsters is reduced by 20% when they are released.

There are many more magic properties of course:

- Seal can be reused (only on a legendary seal)

- Indestructible (only on a legendary seal)

- Infused Skills power is increased by 5% per seal level

- Maximum level is 15 (on a legendary seal with reduced seal breakability and with the magic property above)

- Elemental skills power is increased by 10%

- Monster power is increased by 10% (yes, there are also negative magic properties!)

etc etc.

I also thought to give the Mystic the ability to also craft seals other than just upgrade them.

PART 6: CONCLUSION

I think that this idea will add a great amount of longevity to the game and a different "style" of enchantment.
I believe that if a player wants to create the perfect seal he needs to farm a lot but I hope that this doesn't lead to more frustration:
if the creation of Heroic Seals was almost impossible to do this idea would just need some adjustments like increasing the skill infusion choice from only two skills to three.

I know that to implement all of this the game would need a major overhaul but maybe the devs can take this idea to create a much more enjoyable and deeper-depth game.

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Edit - Note
I'm not a fan myself of "break things" mostly if you have worked so hard to obtain those things.
As I wrote in a post on reddit I couldn't come up with anything else other than this "breakability" and I think that some features needs some downsides to make the game less linear.
Of course the "breakability" can be removed and changed to something else so that's why I'm writing here a couple of alternatives

Diablo (EU - EN):
instead of adding more seal breakability, with every seal lvl, it should add the chance of decreasing the seal of 1 seal lvl, so it would not get destroyed, but just lose one lvl. bcs it would be really annoying and propably really hard otherwise to get a lvl 10 seal.

CrniVuk (US - EN):
instead of "breaking" it in a way that it dissapears let the Seal simply be dissabled unless you can repair it again with some other specific item/seal/what ever.
That way the progress you worked for months doesnt just dissapear, and you encourage players to get out there and do something against it.
This could also work as a gold sink, as the Mystic has to repair it for you of course.

There can be other alternatives of course, just remember that this is a base idea that can be used by the devs.. so anything can be changed to be less complex / frustrating etc. It needs hard testing.

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This is all and I will leave you with two last images of the new UI (TLDR version after the images):





TLDR version:

Added a new droppable item: seals.
Seals are livellable items that must be purified (you have to kill the evil souls inside it) to make them able to enchant a white item (the enchantment requires the help of the mystic).
The magic properties infused into the seal can be choosen by the player in a random way (much like Heroes of Might and Magic 3/4/5) with the seal skill points that are earned through the levels of the seal.
The mystic will also increase the maximum level limit that a seal can reach.

Next patch coming soon!

Here are a few pictures I found elsewhere. I have not seen them (after searching around) on this site, and I thought they were good pics, so here ya go.





4th difficulty reveal/confirmed


Below is a Wizard armor spell breaking up...unsure of what it is


Below is the Monk's Blinding Flash skill


Below is the Wizard's Blizzard skill






























Below picture is of 'Slaughtered Calf Inn'