Diablo® III

04/23/2012 09:40 PMPosted by Centminor

I remember my first D2 character. It was a paladin. I would spread my stat points evenly across the board. I would put skill points into whatever looked useful at the time. Blessed hammer looked useless to me because I couldn't control it. How about an aura that does nothing but puts some pretty colors around my feet? That will certainly help me kill Diablo. Needless to say, I don't think I ever finished normal mode with that character. I hated how D2 made you think you had lots of choices. It felt like a waste of time to play the way you wanted to.

Exactly! I can still remember my first necromancer. I wanted to go pure summoner, LOTS of skeletons. I tore through the first act of the game and then I get to Act 2 and Duriel and my character went from a God to completely impotent. None of my summons lasted more than seconds and I couldn't do enough damage to Duriel to make any difference.

Did I make the "right" choices? Obviously not, but to someone fresh in to the game there was absolutely no reason to believe that my build would go from hero to zero in a matter of moments. Afterwards I found out that a summoner necro is worthless without x, y, and z.

That's not compelling game-play, I didn't learn a valuable lesson--well, I did, I just learned that you can't really customize your character to play the way you like to play.

04/23/2012 09:37 PMPosted by Rabbit

I'd love to see this. Nostalgia + proof, all in one.

Diablo 2 Barbarian skill progression
Ignores all passive skills

Level 1:
Bash
Howl
Find Potion

Level 6:
Leap
Double Swing
Taunt
Shout

Level 12:
Stun
Double Throw
Find Item

Level 18:
Leap Attack
Concentrate
Battle Cry

Level 24:
Frenzy
Battle Orders
Grim Ward

Level 30:
Whirlwind
Berserk
War Cry
Battle Command

=========================

Diablo 3 Barbarian skill progression
Ignores passive skills and runes

1 Bash
2 Hammer of the Ancients
3 Cleave
4 Ground Stomp
5 Rend
-
8 Leap
9 Ancient Spear
-
11 Frenzy
12 Seismic Slam
13 Revenge
14 Weapon Throw
-
16 Sprint
17 Threatening Shout
-
19 Earthquake
20 Whirlwind
21 Furious Charge
22 Battle Rage
22 Ignore Pain
-
25 Call of the Ancients
26 Overpower
-
28 War Cry
-
30 Wrath of the Berserker

===

If we are to take the estimate that a Normal difficulty playthrough will take you to level 20, then by the end of Normal difficulty a Diablo 3 Barbarian will have about 15 different skills to choose from, plus passives and runes

In comparison, Diablo 2 Barbarian, who would have hit level 30 by the time he slays Diablo (and definitely by the time he slays Baal) and finishes Normal mode would have about 20 different skills to choose from, 18 if we disregard Find Potion and Find Item as being non-combat. 6 of these 18 are the various shouts, although they're not as directly dismissable since there's some overlap between being buffs and crowd control effects.

However, by the time Diablo 3's Barbarian gets to level 30, which will probably be somewhere in Nightmare, he will by then have 22 skills to choose from, plus passives and runes. He will also continue to unlock more runes and passives up until the final level of 60.

Pacing is also something to consider here, as Diablo 2 has gaps 6 levels apart where you won't unlock anything new until then, whereas the largest active skill gap in Diablo 3 is just 3 levels apart, from 5 to 8 and again from 22 to 25.

Yes, it was compelling. It made the player actually have to think about what they were doing versus seeing another players build and going, "That's better than mine! Good thing I can just change it with no penalty!" instead of having to find a way to make their build effective, or leveling again and changing their spec. Which, in turn makes them think harder about their choices, so the player actually LEARNS something and the game doesn't continually just hand it to them.

No, it did not make it compelling, it only made it frustrating. It made the player think about what they were doing and STILL get many many hours in to the game and realize that for no good reason, without putting points in to anything obviously stupid, they were suddenly brick walled and could not progress any further in the game. That is not compelling, that makes people go to other games.

A player should NOT have to research a game for hours before even playing to make viable choices. They don't need to be able to make optimal choices without research and time commitment, but they the game should at least be playable. If you didn't know exactly where you were going from beginning to end in Diablo 2, you most likely screwed yourself over at some point.

I agree. The beauty of the new system is that theoretically every skill is viable for an endgame build. And with automatic stat allocation its hard to mess your character up. Why are people complaining about this? As Bashiok said ~150 skills per class, sounds like a lot of customization to me!

Then why didn't they go to other games ? Why is D2 one of the most enduring and popular games of all time ??? Again it was in the top 20 selling games in 2008, like a decade after release ... Sorry, but your assertion and the facts just don't add up.

Many people did go to other games.

What made D2 enduring and popular was that it was fun DESPITE its flawed customization system, not because of it.

04/23/2012 07:36 PMPosted by Bashiok

It would be a lot more exciting for more players if they knew about elective mode.

Seriously, why is elective mode hidden? It's causing a lot of unnecessary frustration, confusion and complaints.

Well I wouldn't say it's hidden, and we have a loading screen tip that calls it out. We honestly didn't want to continue adding things to the skill UI, and as a more advanced option it felt right for it to be found or learned about through 'tribal knowledge', as it were. We intend for the game to be played at first with the current set up, and if someone wants to try a more advanced option they can turn on Elective.

I'm REALLY tired of telling people over and over about Elective Mode. I've never come across a person who DOESN'T like it an enable it immediately after hearing about it. Can I get some help here Blizz?

Well it's late. I've read a lot of the discussion but I'm not sure I have much more to add at this point (or the steam to add it). I do want to thank everyone, regardless of how you feel, for investing the time to discussing the game. I understand none of us would be here if we didn't care, and for that I appreciate the energy you're putting in to wanting Diablo III to be the best game it can be.

Have a good night. Stay civil.

Sleep tight, Bashiok. I'll be keeping the midnight oil burning.

Just make a D2 HD and both sides will be happy. Remove the hacks, tighen up the graphics, add shared stash, add AH, and you have another great game.

Sorry but you guys are wrong, and hypocritical. There is always going to be the "best" build for w/e game in any RPG ever made, d3 is not excluded from this, and if people choose to play the "Best" (because according to bashiok , if you dont aim to be the best then you are just terrible and building a bad character) then guess whats going to happen. Less than a year from now you will have 6 different classes, all of which everyone will have the exact same gear , the exact same build, using the exact same 'rune's. Thanks to no stat allocation, even that, will be the exact same.

I won't bother explaining why that's going to happen to anyone who doesn't understand, I'll just laugh when in less than a year it is happening and all these people arguing that "there are so many options" are arguing "why is blah blah strong than blah blah', i want to play THIS , but it's not as strong as THAT so i don't get to"

Some of you are such hypocrites, but I forgive you because you are just ignorant to the truth that lies underneath all of this.

Of course there will be optimum builds. However, due to the amount of runes/skills, there are going to be MUCH more VIABLE builds that, although may not be the best, will still be usable even in later difficulties.

04/23/2012 09:57 PMPosted by Skizzle

Just make a D2 HD and both sides will be happy. Remove the hacks, tighen up the graphics, add shared stash, add AH, and you have another great game.

No.

04/23/2012 09:55 PMPosted by Bashiok

I should have expected someone to try to twist it. Runes are themselves the class skills. You can't ignore them for an honest comparison, sorry.

I honestly wasn't trying to make it look like Diablo 3 was worse off.

If anything, I kept mentioning that Diablo 3's Barbarian has just as many skills as the Diablo 2 Barbarian before runes ever come into play, AND the rate of acquisition is much better spread out AND the lack of commitment encourages experimentation.

The D3 system working:

For my barb, I felt like I needed a balance between single target and aoe damage. I accomplished this in a multitude of ways: (1)bash/hammer of the ancients (2)frenzy/hammer of the ancients (3) Cleave/Rend...etc. All options felt right and it felt like the difference between them was a matter of preference.

Good job blizzard, the beta was fun and my hopes are actually up after playing the beta.

Thanks to no stat allocation, even that, will be the exact same.

Because everyone didn't use the exact same stat allocation in D2.