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Quote from SFJake

Quote from Ruppgu

I'm all for meaningful choices and this change is what has finally swayed me into liking the D3 skill system. Finally, we have a meaningful reason to stick with our builds.

There are no meaningful choices at all. There is actually no penalty whatsoever, you just have to stick to your build for the duration of the game, until you die, or until you beat a boss. Again, that changes nothing. It would have been mostly like that with or without this feature.

Quote from GladHeHasBeta

E-X-A-C-T-L-Y

thank you for actually using your brain and thinking about the system. you are one of the few

Your definition of having a brain is agreeing with your non-sense.

There isn't even a semblant of permanent choices that this make at all. It does not affect the leveling process, it does not even affect how most people would have been playing end game.

I don't expect you to understand anything further than that. I am NOT for absolutely permanent characters, but the game should reward proper building of a character and using what you have.

Where is the satisfaction of building a character? A lot of it was lost and you probably don't care but most importantly, I don't think you have the ability to even understand it. Like someone that cannot understand challenge and hardships presents rewards and satisfaction from it. Absolute freedom of manoeuvre makes this game shallower.

But I'm sure I'm talking way too dumb for you to comprehend the meaning of rewards in diversity. Apparently, everybody loves to be hand-fed every possibility. Imagine a game with 2 completely different endings and different routes to this. Current generation of gaming dictates that you should just be able to -switch- to the other ending for the sake of it.

Forced repetition through builds absolutely set in stone that can't accept any mistake whatsoever (like D2 mostly was) = too much.

But the absolute opposite, while better, is by no means ideal, and much was lost. Can you see that? I don't expect you to.

no one should be hindered while leveling with builds. period. absolute freedom should be the case. with the billions of choices you have at your disposal it would be nothing short of fail city if there was ANY form of permanancy while leveilng and experiencing the game. you MUST be one of those few like maka whos greatest satisfaction in the game was re-leveling the same class over n over n over just to try different builds.

now with leveling put aside. this system completely removes the possibility of people switching skills in combat in order to tackle individual situations, they would be gimping the hell out of their farming potency by switcing anything therefor your "reward" for sticking to your build is more loot/better loot. thats THE greatest reward ANYONE could ask for in diablo. period. you act like im close minded and ignorant to the system when you cant even wrap your mind around any of this. you gave nothing supporting your statements just anger.

you want a reward for sticking to your build. you have it now. stop bitching about NOTHING and get over yourself.

PS. happy 2000th post!

On my opinion this is a very good idea.

Here are my overall thoughts on it :

1. The buff should be stackable but not give too much MF/Gold% per level. That way it makes you wanting to kill everything and it makes it feel worthwhile. You could make it so that it adds higher percentages on the first instances so that players that have short play session don't feel like they're not as efficient as someone beating a whole act.

2. The bonuses when killing a boss should be pretty good so that it makes you feel that killing everything else before it was worth it and that killing the boss itself feels rewarding too.

3. The buff should expire only when you modify your skills, when you go to a new act map or I believe, when you die.

4. When playing in a party, every players should have its own buff and it should expire only for the persons who do one of the things mentioned above.

Have it stack up to 6 times. 0/1/1/2/2/3 bonus items on next boss kill. Also 25/50/75/100/125/150 bonus magic find applied on next boss kill. Would be perfect.

A few of you guys (myself included) were worried about building up the buff and then farming all the bosses in the game. It was brought to my attention on the blizzard forums that this will be impossible in D3.

Thanks to the way the quest system is in the game, you will not have the waypoints to the future bosses in the act if for example, you pick a quest in Act I. Also, if you pick to start on Act 4, you won't be able to go backwards because the previous bosses will already be dead.

Thanks to this, I think the buff should stay when you kill the act boss. This would give you even more reason to keep playing through the game on to the next act.

Quote from Xerlane

Quote from Ruppgu

Thanks to this, I think the buff should stay when you kill the act boss. This would give you even more reason to keep playing through the game on to the next act.

I'm not sure I agree with this. Will this not simply mean that it will mostly benefit people playing like 6-8+ hours a day much more then the average guy who can only get a maximum of a few hours every now and again?

Another thing to note is that it'd most likely encourage people never logging out seeing as how they would lose their buff and bonuses after killing a boss. In that case it could be an issue on public multiplayer games since some people will simply be AFK for quite some time, perhaps having a dinner break or whatever. This could possibly be happening when you actually want to go for the next boss or rare/champion monster group.

At inferno difficulty, having only one AFK player would probably be quite noticeable. Here's hoping they have good ways of removing AFK players from public games

In conclusion: it could possibly encourage gaming sessions of more hours then most people would want to see? I could be wrong on this though, who knows? I suppose we'll have to wait and see how all this works out come release!

I'm sure they'll kick you from the game AND b.net if you're idle for 15+ minutes. Also, I'm sure there will be some sort of duration on the buff.

You're right though, it would favor people with more time slightly (depending on how high the stack is). I doubt the stack will be higher than 5-10 so it won't be the end of the world for players without as much time as others.

It's all up to personal preference. Personally, I'd enjoy it more if it didn't reset because if it does reset it will be similar to boss farming. You farm x number of champions, hit the boss and then start a new game. I would prefer being encouraged to continue on with the current game.

builds shouldn't be more permanent

it's bad design now and it was in d2 as well

Quote from maka

Thanks for naming me, looks like I made an impact.

On the topic, this does nothing to reward people that stick with their build. It just rewards people for sticking with their build for the duration of that game. That person can then leave the game, create a new one and completely change their build. Permanence? Please...
And you say that absolute freedom should be the case? Well, where is it? Why is it that I have to start with Magic Missile? Why do I have to unlock Ray of Frost at level 2? What if I want Electrocute instead? Where's my freedom?
The truth is, you only shout "FREEDOM!" when it suits your ridiculous arguments. For everything else, you play(?) dumb.
The one good thing that this brings is that it promotes exploration instead of rushing (if it's implemented just right), and that's a really good thing.

lol.... i said it removes the motivation to switch skills IN COMBAT> which is what i said. did i say anything about permantly sticking to your build through multiple games? no, not at all. because it shouldnt be like that.

if your idea of freedom is having access to all skills at lvl 1 or you just get to pick whatever skill you want before they are available. cool story bro. the leveling system dictates what levels certain skills become available just like ANY other game genius. once you unlock the skills you have the freedom to swap them to test them and then stick to your build while farming.

using your same argument i should say i deserve to choose ANY skill to unlock per level not just the runes. which is absurd. obviously

Im loving this.

Hope they make some sort of stackable buff, so clearing alot of championmobs before heading for the boss to end the run will be the way to do things.

Quote from maka

Quote from GladHeHasBeta

no one should be hindered while leveling with builds. period. absolute freedom should be the case. with the billions of choices you have at your disposal it would be nothing short of fail city if there was ANY form of permanancy while leveilng and experiencing the game. you MUST be one of those few like maka whos greatest satisfaction in the game was re-leveling the same class over n over n over just to try different builds.

now with leveling put aside. this system completely removes the possibility of people switching skills in combat in order to tackle individual situations, they would be gimping the hell out of their farming potency by switcing anything therefor your "reward" for sticking to your build is more loot/better loot. thats THE greatest reward ANYONE could ask for in diablo. period. you act like im close minded and ignorant to the system when you cant even wrap your mind around any of this. you gave nothing supporting your statements just anger.

you want a reward for sticking to your build. you have it now. stop bitching about NOTHING and get over yourself.

PS. happy 2000th post!

Thanks for naming me, looks like I made an impact.

On the topic, this does nothing to reward people that stick with their build. It just rewards people for sticking with their build for the duration of that game. That person can then leave the game, create a new one and completely change their build. Permanence? Please...
And you say that absolute freedom should be the case? Well, where is it? Why is it that I have to start with Magic Missile? Why do I have to unlock Ray of Frost at level 2? What if I want Electrocute instead? Where's my freedom?
The truth is, you only shout "FREEDOM!" when it suits your ridiculous arguments. For everything else, you play(?) dumb.
The one good thing that this brings is that it promotes exploration instead of rushing (if it's implemented just right), and that's a really good thing.

Sure, there ARE limitations as you level. But that is the case for almost every single RPG out there. It is a necessary function that forces players to try differant things throughout the leveling process. Not to mention, you will already have all of your base skills by level 30, leaving only runes to unlock, and by that time you will have a pretty good idea of how these spells behave and you can anticipate how the runes will work in conjuction with your other abilities. So what is the problem here?

As to the whole permanence debate, I think it is just silly. A desire to go back to a time of nostalgia. But the problem is that once you do, you realize that it wasn't quite as good as you remembered it to be because you have had better things since. I played a LOT of diablo 2. I loved it. But there were also some painful hurdles. I remember leveling my first necromancer back before LOD came out and I wanted to make a skeleton army. Then I found out it was completely worthless and I would have to start over. That wasn't fun. So I did some research and I made an iron maiden/blood golem necro. Then came patch 1.09, and Blizzard broke that combo. But my necro was already level 99 and skill resets hadn't been brought into the game yet. So I basically lost that necro and all the time put into him. That wasn't fun either.

As things stand with this new feature it allows for enormouse flexability. There is no need to make things permanent outside of the instance of the game you are already playing. I agree that swapping spells on the fly was a bit much, but now if you want to truly be a cut above the average players, you can set up your skills in such a way that you don't have to swap them around and you will get the most milage.

More importantly, Diablo 3 is very much a multiplayer experiance. Now you can also set up your skills around the group that you are in, rather than what would work best solo. And because there are more classes than are allowed in a group, it means that most groups you are in will be differant. This adds a layer of strategy that is far deeper than anything that was in Diablo 2, and if you really want to be the elite, this is going to be how you will play. And you will be rewarded for it by actually being able to clear all the elite monsters and bosses without deaths and skill swaps, because you and your team know what is up. I really don't see the problem with this.

Article wasn't quite as in-depth as I had hoped, but at least it clarifies a bit Blizzard's intent behind the mechanic.


Edit: By the by, the third issue of Sword of Justice is now available for purchasing.

It was a sign!!!!

Well not really, the Magic Find news piece reminded me of what I read on incgamers and just posted it here.

This is really a good solution for the skill swapping system. "We will rather reward you" is much better that "we will punish you" for swapping out skills at any time. Love it.

Well the only thing I don't like that much is that it only starts at level 60...yes this is more focused for end game Inferno gear runs, but 95% of people that's going to play D3 isn't even going to get to level 60, even less are going to play after level 60 for better gear.

If this system is activated at the beginning of Hell (or level 45-50) rather than at Level 60, more players will get to experience and appreciate the system.

This sounds awesome ^^ I'm wondering though... does this mean that if 1 person changes skills, everyones buff disappears, or just that one person's? And with the shared magic find, should only the one person's magic find buff disappear, do the other buffs get lowered to average it out again?

looks great

I love the buff idea. I am kind of shocked, however, (and a little worried) that Blizz is working on such unfinished stuff at this time. I thought they would be on the "finishing touches" by now, and this Nephalem Buff seems kind of major

That said, here are my opinions of how I would like it to work:

1) It should stack to 100% within 1 hour and, fall of gradually at half that rate.
2) It should be halfed when killing a boss, like others suggested. This would give you the feeling that you can freely take a break from the game without being punished too badly, but it also encourages you to keep going.
3) Dying should also cut your buff in half. Removing it completely seems too harsh, especially if you die at the boss which is your goal and which has been the reason of you farming the buff. However halving the buff is enogh punishment for you to avoid death at all costs.

Quote from Veggie50

This sounds awesome ^^ I'm wondering though... does this mean that if 1 person changes skills, everyones buff disappears, or just that one person's? And with the shared magic find, should only the one person's magic find buff disappear, do the other buffs get lowered to average it out again?

Well it wouldn't make any sense ruining everyone's buff if you personally had to effect the buff status. I definitely will be individual.

Quote from VladDracul

In other words, Blizzard has realized their systems they created to "better" Diablo 2 are broken and do not end up being fun or creating any sort of true connection with the player after playing for an extended period of tme. Stop carebearing the damn game Blizzard, give us optional stats, and real skill system. Trying to be lazy about it and have everything on auto will bite you in the ass and make you create dumb fixes like this, no better then runewords in Diablo 2.

How is it being lazy, and why is having everything on "auto" dumb?

Quote from MasterFischer

want to change your skills, gear, passives? TOO BAD.. you are stuck with them... unless of course... u want to have crappy loot chances at boss and champs... trolololol

This is good, because it promotes thinking about your skills, combining them with teammates... and PLAYING a hard hard challenge... very good

who said anything about gear changing affecting the buff

And I had been hoping the MF/GF buff would be the exception to the "averaging". What a shame...