Diablo 3 System Changes
The anticipated System Changes have finally come in! Here's a quick summary of the changes:
- Scrolls of Identification are gone - players can now identify rares/legendary items without them.
- Button '5' is now dedicated to potions.
- The Mystic artisan has now been removed from the game.
- The Cauldron of Jordan and Nephalem Cube have been removed.
- The Stone of Recall is now a button at the bottom and has been renamed "Town Portal".
- The Blacksmith is now responsible for salvaging players' items.
- Common (white colored) items are no longer salvageable.
- Character Attributes have been changed. See below for details.
- Character stats are now placed in the same place as the inventory panel and the old dedicated stats panel has been removed.
Official Blizzard Quote:
While working on Diablo III we've been called out for messing around with systems too much, that the game is good as-is and we should just release it. I think that's a fair argument to make, but I also think it's incorrect. Our job isn't just to put out a game, it's to release the next Diablo game. No one will remember if the game is late, only if it's great. We trust in our ability to put out a great game, but we're not quite there yet. In addition to finishing and polishing the content of the game we're continuing to iterate on some of the core game systems. So all that said, I'd like to provide everyone an update on some of the systems we're currently working on.
We’re changing some of the systems we’ve gotten the most feedback on both internally and from the beta test, including crafting, items, core attributes, and inventory. We’ll go over those changes and the reasons for them. In addition we’re working on major changes to the skill and rune systems that we’re not ready to talk about, but I promise you we can’t possibly ship without a finished skill and rune system.
Let’s start off small: Scrolls of Identification are no longer in the game. Unidentified items and the act of identifying them is still very much part of the game, but now when obtaining an unidentified item you'll simply right click it, a short cast timer will occur as your character examines the item, and it will become identified. We love the double-discovery of finding a present and then unwrapping it, but we don't think it requires a physical item you have to find and keep in your bags to get the same effect. From now on you'll just be able to inherently identify all your items, no need to carry scrolls. Your character in Diablo III is just that badass now.
We’re also moving the fifth quick slot button, which is becoming a dedicated potion button. A dedicated potion button is something we went back and forth on throughout development. Recently it became apparent that players need to be aware of their potions for emergency situations. Our combat model doesn’t promote or even allow chugging potions in rapid succession, but they’re certainly useful when you run into a string of bad luck with health globes, or if you just get in over your head. This is one of our newest changes, so the button and mechanics don’t actually function in beta Patch 10, but that’s our intent and you’ll be seeing it supported in future beta updates.
The design team is currently looking at systems and cleaning them up, removing any superfluous system objectives and those that are beyond fixing. Thus, we're removing the Mystic artisan. As we look at the big picture, the Mystic simply wasn’t adding anything to our customization system. Enhancement was really just the socket and gem system with a different name, and it would prolong the release of the game even further to go back to the drawing board and differentiate it, so we’ll revisit the Mystic and enhancements at a later time. Removing her from the game took some time, but it’s nowhere near the efforts that would be required to flesh out a better customization system. We hope she’ll be able to join your caravan in the future, but for now we’re going to focus on the extensive customization options the game already offers.
We're also looking at systems we’ve created and making sure that the rationale that brought us to these designs still makes sense. The Stone of Recall, for instance, has a short cast time and allows you to return to town. Early on we said we wouldn't have town portals, as they introduced too many combat exploits, but we were able to resolve them. Because we have the Stone of Recall, though, we began to evaluate systems that were originally implemented to deal with the exclusion of town portals.
So we've decided to remove the Cauldron of Jordan and Nephalem Cube. They were implemented to allow for salvaging and selling items when there was no quick and easy way to return to town. Now that the Stone of Recall exists, we found that keeping the Cauldron and Cube in the game detracted from the benefits of returning to town to sell items, salvage, craft, and interact with the townsfolk. It’s a good idea to break up combat so that players have a moment to evaluate their gear and crafting options before venturing back out. In addition, we've decided to just call it what it is and the Stone of Recall is now Town Portal, and is integrated directly onto the skill bar UI.
The Blacksmith artisan will now salvage items. With removal of the Cube we needed some mechanic in town that allowed you to salvage your items, and it just makes sense for the Blacksmith to offer it.
One other important change is that common (white) items will no longer be salvageable. We found that it caused a few itemization issues, but mostly this is due to a general philosophy shift on the importance of items. Previously, our thinking was that when an item dropped it should always be useful to you in some way, either the stats could be an improvement for you, or in the case of white items you could break it down and craft something better. Through a lot of play testing we have come full circle to the Diablo II methodology -- a lot of stuff that drops just isn’t worth picking up. Diablo II captured the loot piñata feel by dropping a lot of crap, mostly arrows and bolts, and we of course still very much want that feeling of item-explosions. To do that we need to be able to balance the value of items to how many we’re throwing at you.
This leads us to the last change I'll be detailing today:
We're changing core character attributes to Strength, Dexterity, Intellect, and Vitality, and the benefits each stat provides is being broken down as:
- Strength
- Increases Barbarian damage
- Increases Armor
- Dexterity
- Increases Demon Hunter damage
- Increases Monk damage
- Increases Dodge
- Intellect
- Increases Wizard and Witch Doctor damage
- Increases Health gained from Health Globes
- Vitality
- Increases Max Health
This change makes the stats more intuitive and fixes some of the itemization issues we were running into. We want to make it clear that junk items aren’t worth picking up, and make it easy to identify other items as not for your character. We want to drop a ton of items, but to really pull off a sense of excitement when finding a great item, there needs to be non-optimal items, both for your class, and in general. By specifically targeting stats at classes, we can reduce the amount of item overlap, diversify our item pool, and create a cleaner, more exciting itemization system.
By and large these changes have little impact on which items you’re going to want. The item hunt has always been based on secondary stats and affixes, and we’re working hard to ensure build diversity is as large as possible by getting as many affixes into the game as possible (adding more item affixes is also something we’ve been working on). Simply including affixes that augment specific skills greatly expands the itemization pool and build possibilities.
Moving on, with the removal of the Cauldron of Jordan, Nephalem Cube, and by moving Town Portal to the skill panel, we're now displaying character stats directly on the inventory UI. Now you can see your stats go up and down as you try on different items. All the same info is available; we’re just streamlining the UI, making it more useful. It might seem insignificant but we're pleased with the results.
All of these are changes that will in one way or another be seen in the latest beta patch, and so we hope that those of you with access please try them out and let us know what you think in the Beta Feedback forum.
There’s a lot of work left to be done, though. We’re constantly tuning and making balance changes; it’s a massive task. Some of these changes can be seen in the beta, like changes to item rarity, the levels at which we introduce affixes, and how many affixes enemies can roll up. Some you can’t see in the beta, like balancing the difficulty of the entire game for four different difficulty levels, adding tons of new affixes, creating legendary items, filling out crafting recipes and itemization, working on achievements, and implementing Battle.net features. We’re also working on a number of other large systems changes -- specifically with the skill and rune systems. We're not quite ready to share what those are just yet, but we look forward to being able to do so in the near future.
We want Diablo III to be the best game it can be when it launches. To get there, we're going to be iterating on designs we've had in place for a long time, making changes to systems you've spent a lot of time theorycrafting, and removing features you may have come to associate with the core of the experience. Our hope is that by embracing our iterative design process in which we question ourselves and our decisions, Diablo III won't just live up to our expectations, but will continue to do so a decade after it's released.
Jay Wilson is game director for Diablo III and the Inventor of Meat. He believes that Kate Beckinsale is the greatest actress that’s ever lived.
Blue Posts
Bashiok as responded to acouple of clearifying questions about these system changes.
Official Blizzard Quote:
Keep in mind everything detailed in the article today is already in the game, and most of it is complete. Once you get Patch 10 and see that, I think it may sink in that these aren't theoretical changes we're still working on, they're changes we've completed. Obviously the potion button still needs a little work to hook it up correctly, and the character attribute changes need to be balanced and tested for itemization throughout the game, but overall these are changes we've already made.
I do not intend to impress that we're close to release, or infer any such "we're <-- this --> done" kind of statement, but most of these are fairly straightforward changes that are already complete and implemented. We do have more changes, skills and runes, affixes to add, more items, Battle.net features, testing, testing, and more testing etc. to do so we're obviously still not there yet, but none of the changes detailed today are theoretical or yet to be implemented. (Tracker / Forums)
It looks like these changes have been in the works for awhile now. Will the upcoming patch reflect these changes?
Yes, all of these changes are complete and will be present in beta Patch 10.
But white items still cost gold? Wont that make them worth something, making me to fill my inventory and later sell them in town
They'll sell for very little. It will quickly become apparent they're not worth the inventory space.
Why have items that are useless?
To make seeing a good item drop that much rarer/exciting.
Will the new Salvage method be included in the new patch?
Yup!
What about "upgrading" gems? since u removed the mystic, its not implemented anymore?
That's the Jeweler.
Jay's article says strength affects barbarian damage and dexterity, DH's etc... That's just core, rite? Weapons still add most?
Well there's the basic weapon damage, then if it has +Strength on it you *probably* wouldn't want that item as a wizard.
What if per chance the weapon damage is vastly superior? wouldn't that make sense to take it for secondary attribute?
Very possible! It won't always be an absolute "It has X I don't want it." You'll still need to evaluate.
Town Portal: Instant or cast?
It's the same as the Stone of Recall, just in a different spot with a new (old?) name. It's a 2 second cast I believe.
what? was just getting excited about stone of recall! U guys had me convinced that scrolls suck, and stones rock (no pun intended)
It's the same thing, we just moved it and renamed it.
Some of the changes are nice, some are ridiculous. Someone mentioned that some of these changes would benefit a console version and I can see that. Well fall or winter release is most likely at least I know I'll have vacation and free time by then.
EDIT: Can't spell
This makes me a little sad, I always loved these. However blizzard knows this is part of the game, and the system they have now is the EXACT same, now I just dont have to take up inventory space... so in the end
VERDICT: Good
Button '5' is now dedicated to potions.
Well Button 5 was already a dedicated potions button to anyone that knows about D3... So this helps the new people that might not understand this.
VERDICT: Good
The Mystic artisan has now been removed from the game.
Okay, I fully understand what they were saying.. but still, I like the idea of being able to add effects to my weapons, mainly for the looks (being able to choose the look of the weapon by its effect enchant) im very sad to see this go tbh. I have faith they will make it come back in an EXP with a very neat feature... I also have to point out WE didnt get to play with this, so they VERY WELL could know this sucks... I really cant comment on it other than what I -think-. However what I think is...
VERDICT: Bad
The Cauldron of Jordan and Nephalem Cube have been removed.
Oh wow...not sure what I think about this at all. They had a logic, which i agreed and defended. "Keep the Action Going" What happend to this? Now when we are in inferno, where it is going to be HARD. If there are 4 players in the game (aka monsters tuned to 4 players) 3 manning is going to be HARD (if not impossible? ok maybe just hard) but.. now if someones inventory gets full (which it will happen) we have to wait for them... I DONT like this
HOWEVER, I love the idea of making the town more towny... Though it may sound dumb.. I liked hanging out in the town in d2..and this brings that back a bit..so...
VERDICT: Neutral
The Stone of Recall is now a button at the bottom and has been renamed "Town Portal".
I like this, It looks like it goes there, easier to see, dont have to open a menu, and hell its called "town portal" fk yes!
VERDICT: Good
Common (white colored) items are no longer salvageable.
hmm... problem is we have only played beta... when it comes to the full game, I dont think this will even effect us you know?
though im not sure what point white items have now? ohwell, dont care either way on this one.
VERDICT: Neutral
Character Attributes have been changed. See below for details.
Hmm... I liked that everyone had ONE stat... it made things simple, easy. You only had to worry about the FUN, the get in there AND KILL CRAP. I like that style... now with this..there is more thought into it... but you know what... thought is good at the same time!
VERDICT: Good
Character stats are now placed in the same place as the inventory panel and the old dedicated stats panel has been removed.
Hmm... It depends, if it shares the same info, GOOD, if not...then CRAPY... Ill wait till I see this live
VERDICT: Waiting to see in-game fully
With the incredibly loose definitions as to what passes for MMOs these days, Diablo 3 is an MMO. Massively Online Playing Alone Together.
I don't think Torchlight 2 is any more vaporware than Diablo 3 at this point.
...
I thought for SURE this post was extensive enough to hush the conspiracy, but now we have a conspiracy to hide a conspiracy. Really? I mean, really?
Those aren't small changes, reallocating stats is probably the largest one since some stats were combined and moved around. +Attack was split up, defense was combined with +attack for barb, etc. It means COMPLETELY redoing all items and going through the game to rebalance the numbers of those stats, when the affixes appear in the game, and amounts of those stats vs progression.
-Tying defense and barbarian damage in the same stat is really dangerous. The hardest hitting Barbarians will be harder to kill. There is no trade off between damage reduction and attack power. Same goes for Hunters and Monks, as well (dodge being a great defensive stat currently). Doctors and Wizards got the short end of that stick; health globe bonus is nice, but not nearly as helpful as preventing the damage up front.
-There were much better ways to force class/item diversity than this. More/varied resource related affixes, especially weird ones (gain health per Fury spent was a great example). Class only stat bonuses, "+13 Attack (Wizard only)," which I admit is inelegant, but similar to what they're doing anyway.
-On that same track, it sounds like they're going to do this anyway, but here goes. They introduce skill modifier affixes. "+5% additional weapon damage Cleave, Barbarian only." Not only that, they can target specific aspects of the skills, so a single skill might have multiple affixes available. "+4% additional weapon damage Grasp of the Dead, Witch Doctor only." "+0.4 seconds additional duration Grasp of the Dead, Witch Doctor only." These would have to be handcrafted and tightly regulated, to avoid weird stacking exploits. This REALLY makes gear class diverse, but does so in a much more interesting way. And it makes the choices less boring than "+ all skills" from D2.
-This also leads to a way to save the Mystic. Take away all +stat enchants. They're boring. Give her weird enchants, like the resource enchants, proc effects (on hit/crit/etc), skill enchants (from above), etc. Maybe that's what they wanted to do, but tabled it for an expansion. Okay, I can live w/ that. But they started out of the gate shaky (having so many boring gems/enchants which overlapped) that I honestly wonder.
-On Precision. They could have fixed this easily by A) adding more +critical damage sources in the game, readjusting the point Precision to % chance critical hit formula, and C) readjusting the power of the Attack stat. It's not very clear whether critical strike chance is a flat % or the usual rating system (meaning you need more as you gain in levels to get the same % critical strike chance). Hopefully they keep the rating system in, otherwise we have the weird "obsolete gear is best in slot" problem from before.
Conclusion: They need to separate damage from defensive stats, especially if some defensive stats (Armor/Dodge) are way better than others (Health Globes). There needs to be a choice between defense and offense. They could have promoted class/item diversity through other, more clever, and frankly better ways. The system they had in place was a great foundation to build from. This adds more problems than it solves, and is inelegant and cluttered compared to what they had. Also, the skill/rune overhaul seems ominous as well. I'm worried they'll screw up a really good thing.
Not a flame, more of just mild fustration at this "development"
How could they waited till now to make these changes? These are core changes to a game thats been in Cloased Beta for a solid 4 months, friends and family alpha for 1-2 months before that? Been teasing us along for months now saying game is "good for release" but appaerently not? Most of all, annouce the game nearly 4 years ago?!
This was meant to be a anger release in general, not flame : D
No release date and an admission that they are coping everything from Titan Quest.
This is terrible news.
I'll restrain from voicing my opinion about the changes on a game I've not played, not even in beta, but this is ridiculous.
They are still meddling with the core of the game and cutting out systems they boasted about (they should have been "a huge improvement for keeping up the pace" and "add to customization", sure!).
Since the first "we are still working on runestones" statement I got the feeling Diablo3 game concept was heavily flawed, now I'm even more worried about it.
Please, please, PLEASE Blizz: prove me wrong.
Cauldron of Jordan
Shortly after you begin your adventure, you’ll be provided with a useful little artifact: the Cauldron of Jordan. The cauldron allows you to skip trekking back to town when the time comes to sell your loot.
Posted 19/01/2012:
So we've decided to remove the Cauldron of Jordan and Nephalem Cube. They were implemented to allow for salvaging and selling items when there was no quick and easy way to return to town. Now that the Stone of Recall exists, we found that keeping the Cauldron and Cube in the game detracted from the benefits of returning to town to sell items, salvage, craft, and interact with the townsfolk. It’s a good idea to break up combat so that players have a moment to evaluate their gear and crafting options before venturing back out.
Is it me, or is this going backwards? I really don't understand these choices.
Seriously though when I started reading this I had to check the date... No, it's not april 1st... To be still unsure of how you want to do things this late in the development cycle is rather strange.
The mystic... How long have they had this on the table... This reeks to me of ... We can't be bothered thinking up something original for the expansion so let's pull one of the features and tweak it slightly... There we go expansion done.
The stat changes are just bizarre... We aren't able to allocate stats so all it means is that we look for items with particular stats on it... Can you say boring! Part of the fun is balancing stats around... Is this 5whatever here equal to or better than this 6whatever here... And what about if I put it in combination with.... With removal of secondary attributes like attack and defence it becomes ... 8 str vs 10 str... Uhhh derrrrrrr.... It is an rpg, there is supposed to be some thought involved...
I will buy the game but my interest level is rapidly approaching zero... which is sad because this had so much promise 10 years ago.
Yup...
This is 100% the opposite of what they said months ago!!! "We would like to keep the "action" in "action roleplying" when we designed Diablo 3. You will always be in the action." Hence the fucking reason they added the CoJ and Nethelam or what ever it's called into the game...to keep the players busy "slaying demons" and not having to go back to town!
This can't possibly have delayed the game! This is minor changes. Even if each of those changes (7 or 8 I think) took 1 month each to change, it should have been finished by now anyways!! Remember they have different teams for some of those stuff, it probably just the programmers that is gonna have a hard time with the changes...still not even 7 or 8 months worth of dev time.
And still no news about the runes-system? That's not cool. Not even a simple outlay?
Just trying to add a bit of comic relief? That's not even funny...
Fuck WoW, fuck Korea. Just release Diablo 3. JUST Diablo 3. Not Diablo 3 with added agendas with WoW. It's sad that Blizz know that everybody complaining/QQing about this and D3 as a whole will buy the game no matter when they release.
I'm 100% for the fact that they want to release a bug free game no matter how long it takes, but this...fuck.
//rant off
//happy face initialized! :Thumbs Up:
So who will be playing Torchlight 2 and Grim Dawn before Diablo 3!!!
I smell shit spewing for a certain person's mouth...
That was good...