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Before, stats were largely customized by jewels and mystics. As well, we had a tough choice to choose between damage, critical hits (for skill benefits), life, and protection. Now the choices are far more trivial.
Not only is the Mystic gone, but stats are way more class-specific now. For example, a Barbarian gets both "resist-all" armor and Attack-like damage from "Strength", so why would he ever choose Dexterity's dodge over that? Also, would he truly ever choose to go after a stat that increases health globe benefits, over strength? Barbs, from now on, will focus entirely on Strength and Vitality (mostly strength). Assuming dodge is about as good as resistance (I showed earlier that you can dodge magic attacks), DHs and Monks will treat Dexterity as barbs treat Strength. They won't touch anything except dexterity, and sometimes vitality. Some classes, such as Wizards and WDs, will have a harder time deciding customization than the other three. Since Intelligence doesn't give you as much intrinsic protection as strength and dodge, they'll only focus on intelligence for damage, and balance between Strength and Dexterity (since armor and dodge are separate multiplicative protection bonuses, it's optimal to keep them even for protection; there goes another customization choice for them). Anyways, I just wanted to mention that. I was a little disappointed with the stat change choices. Before there was nothing close to an optimal stat choice, and it was very heavily customized by jewels and mystics. Now there will very likely be an optimal stat choice for every class, and it will only be customized via gems (and gear). Let's discuss this. I hope we can keep this thread constructive, on both sides of the argument. |
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Edited by D3BETA on 1/19/12 10:40 AM (PST)
Going from 4 viable stats to 2 viable stats is just dumb.
and the removal of defense means they need to retune the damage of EVERY SINGLE MOB IN THE GAME |
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Edited by Giraffasaur on 1/19/12 10:40 AM (PST)
To be honest, I agree with you.
I was quite pleased with the new stat system they had reached. I feel like they took a step backward on this one. Everything else, I was okay with. Mystic sounds like an expansion artisan now. |
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Edited by ACPRO on 1/19/12 10:51 AM (PST)
i used to be on blizzards decisions. But after this system change post, i have to say i think they went full blown dumb.
Some of these systems were actually liked by people since they were announced to beta gameplay and they completely changed them. Are they even listening to the community or are they running off on tangents? I agree with you. I feel that this really dumbed down gear choices for all classes. For some it will clearly make a right and wrong way to gear your class. This is exactly what is going to happen. Prior to these changes with the previous stat system all stats were viable for all classes. Now there targetting certain stats specifically for one class. Have people actually read the post and thought this out? |
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ugh... i already didnt like the new (old) stats... now i dont like them even more
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I think it's fair to say that most of this is brought on by the casual gamer. Blizzard, being a large company, obviously wants to bring in as much profit as possible with Diablo 3. Making the game more accessible to a larger audience will do just that for them. By reducing the customization options in the game, they make the game easier which could bring in younger (We all know there will be kids under 17 playing this game, it's inevitable) and much older members to the community since the game isn't going to be exactly hard to jump into.
It is simple enough to build one stat on a specific character because that's the "best" stat for them. Anyone can do that. I mean look at the whole specified hotkey for potions ordeal. Before this change, we could make potions be in slot 5 if we wanted, but now we have no choice. Sure it takes a little know-how to get the potions to be in slot 5, but we could do it. Blizzard made this change to make the game even easier for it's audience. TL;DR - Unfortunately, the casual gamer is ruining Diablo 3 just as he ruins most other games in today's generation. |
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Edited by Honor on 1/19/12 5:36 PM (PST)
2 stats to choose from.. whoopy. unless ur a caster, then there is 4 diablo 3 now has an error diablo 2 had, that was once fixed in earlier versions of diablo 3 |
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Edited by Halloom on 1/19/12 5:43 PM (PST)
As the blog post dances around with but doesn't quite say blatantly, they had a choice between emphasizing the 'loot pinata', as it is referenced by, and emphasizing interesting choices and thinking about gear.
The more you think about gear, the less time you spend mindlessly grinding for new shinies, you see. And making players think doesn't hook them as well as addicting them to the loot treadmill. It is a sound game design decision, if you want people to buy and play your game, but I'm not sure it's really an ethical one, insofar as game design has ethics (and it does, and they recognize that, Blizzard's written blog posts about it). |
Community Manager
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Edited by Bashiok on 1/19/12 6:52 PM (PST)
Core attributes are important. They're your core attributes! But they have never been and continue not to be the primary driving force behind your itemization choices. At all times you're going to need to keep doing and avoiding more damage. Enemies get tougher, they hit harder, and take more hits. No matter who you are you have to counter those inevitable truths. No character would ever say "I can ignore defensive stats because I am a glass cannon!" no, you get to Inferno and you'll die. You can be a glass cannon, but it's going to be a balance between offense and defense, not an all-in decision. There is an inevitable requirement to have a variety of the core stats, offensive and defensive. It's the balance that's important.
Ok, so, core stats are super great, but they're still just four of all the bonuses that items can roll and provide your character. Four. And for most builds they're never going to be where you're focusing your attention. The other things that can roll up (which still include +armor, +dodge, +health globe, +crit chance, +crit damage, by the way) have always been the more important decision. It's your choice between doing more damage or being more defensive, but that's a forgone conclusion. That's not where true build diversity ever comes from, it's too broad a plateau. Are you taking Attack (before) or your classes' core damage stat (now)? Are you taking Armor (now) or Defense (before)? Are you taking Precision (before) or +crit (now)? These are the same things. For example, a Barbarian gets both "resist-all" armor and Attack-like damage from "Strength", so why would he ever choose Dexterity's dodge over that? Barbarian's will always want Strength now just like they always wanted Attack before. Armor is a damage reduction. Dodge completely negates damage. They're extremely different in practice and your survivability, and at high difficulty play barbarians will absolutely want +dodge. And they don't have to take Dexterity to get it. Ideally a barbarian would find an item with +Stength and +Dodge on it. It would be devalued for the barb if it had +Dexterity on it. (tah dah itemization diversity) Also, would he truly ever choose to go after a stat that increases health globe benefits, over strength? Up to that player and their build. Would he ever want crit over flat damage increases? Would he take an increase to the damage of cleave over a crit damage increase? These are the choices you'll have to make and what makes building characters fun. |
#16
1/19/2012
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I plan on playing wizard and I don't want health globe increases. I want MR.
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Previously, from what we've seen in Beta (and later on, it seems), your gear decision went something like:
Item A: +Vit +health globe pickup radius +mf +precision "Meh...no attack..." Item B: +Attack +anything else +anything else +anything else "excellent, finally got that attack I needed" Now, obviously the class stats are the top priority, but each stat has equal value, simply because it can be used by somebody. This also leaves more potential for extremely valuable items that could combine class specific affixes with the given class core stat (+int and arcane power generation, for example). A lot of this really depends on just how many and what type of other affixes they are adding, but it has much more potential than the previous system IMO. |
