Quote from shaggy
Quote from daisychopper
That's correct; the melee characters generally required high-damage weapons, unless you were (ab)using Crushing Blow, because most of those skills added % damage (which is another fun trick nostalgia plays ... anyone else remember when Zeal only added accuracy and not damage??).
Well I think that answers the question then.
The problem in D2 was not "intrinsic power" - it was simply the fact that certain classes could run around killing shit without a weapon while others required a weapon to kill things.
It makes sense, but it also creates s gameplay imbalance to have certain classes being completely dependent on their weapon while others can run around without a weapon and play effectively. That's why it changed. It's the kind of obvious logic that you have to sit back and think the only people who could possibly be irked with this are casters... since melee toons and Zons have been tied to their weapon damage forever.
The rest of your post is obviously accurate about itemization. But I just don't understand this "well it's OK for some classes in D2 to be tied to weapon damage, but GODDAMNIT IF YOU MAKE THEM ALL TIED TO WEAPON DAMAGE YOU'VE COMPLETELY FUCKED UP THE INTRINSIC POWER OF MY CHARACTER" train of thought.
All it amounts to was a slight nerf to spellcasters (in that they simply couldn't ignore weapon damage any longer). Physical damage toons carry on as if nothing ever really changed. This is a huge deal? Really? To me it sounds like massively trumped-up faux outrage.
There are a hundred other points of contention with "itemization" that I could understand. This doesn't even register in the top 1000 for me. The impact is marginal and insanely overblown.
They could have also gone the other way on this, they could have made melee classes less dependant on their weapons rather than making everyone completely dependent.
I would argue its about striking a balance between intrinsic power and extrinsic power. If you neglect intrinsic power then the feeling of your characters growth feels artificial dependent on his-her items. it's like a soldier who goes from using a rifle to driving a tank the soldiers ability has not improved just his weapon has, Though he can certainly overpower most enemies, but at the end the day he's a pussy not a mighty hero.(just like Grindelwald haha)
i do find it offensive and odd that my wizards power primarily depends on the power of his weapon/items, a wizards power should grow as his mastery and learning grows finding weapons should just augment that power....it even goes against the archetype of the class as blizzard caste it.
in the same way i dont think it makes sense for a melee character to be completely item dependent either, a great warriors power is the result of his strength and prowess not just of how sharp or deadly his weapon is.
basically role playing games are about mimicing or enhancing the kind of reward systems we find in the real-world, in the real world your abilities improve as a result both of you investing time in them(skill-improvement) and as a result of acquiring good tools(Items).
so a good RPG needs to manage skill improvement(Intrinsic power) and item acquisition(extrinsic power) in a way which mimics that found in the real world. IMO diablo 2 struck a better balance between these two aspects and thus going back to the OP...
Getting that balance right will help you to make the best game possible for your resources.
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1920x1080 social open:
1920x1080 social closed:
1280x1024 "Non widescreen":
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The pedestal is because I had already traced out that guy and didn't want to do it again for one without a pedestal, though I probably should have. Try and imagine it's not there.
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EDIT 2: JUST added V4 down below.
I'm no designer but I thought it would be fun to shuffle stuff around and see how a new D3 bnet (once you logged in) could look... I tried to go off of Diablo 2's Bnet.
V1:
The chat itself could probably have tabs or whatnot. Also, I imagined that when you join a party or create one, the little 'avatar lineup' at the bottom would switch to your party's avatars (since there isn't much room behind your guy anymore lol). Then you could use the tiny arrow button next to "Monk Chat (1)" (which would say "Party") to switch back to avatars in the chat channel.
Also not really sure what "Leave Chat" would do... maybe or maybe not downsizes chat window, but it would take you out of the channel, leaving you to still type to friends/party.
V2.0:
V3.0:
1920x1080 social open:
1920x1080 social closed:
1280x1024 "Non widescreen":
V4 (minor shoutout to Sixen for help!)
V4 with possible Public games (Just added December 2012)
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Also, I wonder what the impact of a pornography ban is. Rape and adultery go up?
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O'DOYLE RULES!!!!! *Drives off the cliff*
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Done with this site after 2 posts eh? Short run.
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P.S. I really like the blinding flash one and the tosh.o one heh.
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1. I opted in.
2. I clicked chat gem.
3. I clicked skull head.
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1. http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/3196019654
Regarding the AH: "I have 8 characters named SpinDrJr. This makes it easy for people to identify me when I join their game, but it does not make it easy for me to choose which character to browse for gear on. It would be great if we had some indication on the class of character in that list."
2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ab3Akryrnhc
Around 10s in, he chooses his character and you see 5 of the same names.
This isn't feedback about the AH (though those 2 examples are related to it). I am discussing the game as a whole. From what I see here, people are just choosing the same name for their heroes (freak chance? or common?... I wonder?)
In Diablo 2 you had your Bnet account and your character names which were BOTH individually unique to your region. I think the community as a whole would not go back to that (based on the long thread on the blizz forums... and the fact that your 'wanted' name will be gone in 1 hour of release).
However, I don't really know what to think of the current system. In SC2 you just had your RealID and then account name. Here we have RealID and then 5+ character names which can all be the same...