Diablo III

[Gelsamel]

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/3967848172

That link goes to a shader that sharpens the game up, also can increase contrast. Really simple to use, unzip to D3 dir and press Pause to enable once in game.

Wow, awesome. That "mod" is basically required for playing D3.

[Ryom]

Yes, I would use it JUST for the sharpening effect alone. I immediately noticed how soft everything was and it was a bit irritating to my eyes.

[Diadem]

By how much does such a mod slow your game down?

[Endless Mike]

Anyone know when this will be available for preloading? It's looking like I'll be out of town on the 15th, and it would be really nice to have it on my laptop to play in my hotel.

[Ryom]

By how much does such a mod slow your game down?

I'm on a GTX 260 at 1920x1080 and I didn't perceive any slowdowns. As far as shaders go, it's a really simple one. Sharpen and darken aren't going to be huge performance hits.

[philsov]

Despite the servers having a massive downtime I managed to hop onto the open beta and do a playthrough as a demon hunter.

So far, I really like it over Diablo II, if for nothing else of additional ability slots. I like having two active abilities (one of which is spammable, even as a Sorc) and then additional ones to throw around at any given time. I'm kind of ambivalent about the level up and rune system -- it pretty much means I won't need more than one of any given class EVER, but the lack of permanence means I can play with all sorts of builds and not get penalized for it. The Merc twist is a good one; they have a much larger degree of customization with the beta paladin rocking either a heal or taunt function and additional functions from there for given levels.

Crafting system... eh. While I like the thought of recycling magic items I pick up on the field, the fact that they're head and shoulders above everything in the field means I'll barely look at the items I pick up, and given how the gold system seems to work ignore white/gray drops almost completely because they sell for crap and I'll never use em. And the loot system was one of the awesome aspects of D2; I feel it has been greatly reduced here.

[Chen]

Crafting system... eh. While I like the thought of recycling magic items I pick up on the field, the fact that they're head and shoulders above everything in the field means I'll barely look at the items I pick up, and given how the gold system seems to work ignore white/gray drops almost completely because they sell for crap and I'll never use em. And the loot system was one of the awesome aspects of D2; I feel it has been greatly reduced here.

Even in Diablo 2 you were really only looking for rares or better when drops were happening, except right at the very start. Also what I noticed was that grinding through the beginning let you craft things that were way better than the drops because you were way outleveling the area. I suspect it'll be more balanced in the full game.

[Coin]

My guess is that the money system is going to be rebalanced a bit. As it is now the quest rewards net you something silly like 10k gold in total for the whole beta, while a pair of boots sell for 3gold. Either quest rewards are going down with increased difficulty level (beta is on easiest) or they will be changing them because now they are just ridiculous.

[Nylonathatep]

I've got onto the Beta on Sunday (while I should be studying ) and got a level 13 Wizard, 13 Demonhunter, and 11 Barbarian in the span of playing 13 hours non-stop. Here's a few thougts about Diablo 3 in general:

1) Despite the improve graphics and gameplay, It still feels a lot like Diablo 2. That's actually a positive for me because I get a sense of nostiga playing D3. That also says a lot about the wisdom of the design team to stick to a winning forumla. It's the feel of the game including the music, the art style, the lore, the overlay...

2) On that note, they really haven't changed the mechanics between the classes. The player can choose between a frorntal Assault guy, a melee guy with some utility skills, an archer guy with traps, a full on caster, and a pet user with debuffer skills. Again it's just sticking to the fundamentals.

3) There's areas where they definately improve over Diablo 2: It's no longer a spamming click-fest, and there's resource generation to consider when you choose your skills. I was about to complain about how you are stick with assigning certain skills to certain buttons but I was just a n00b and never figured out how to change them! (Turn on elective mode) lol. Still... 8 slots (?) is still too little, but I understand they limited it for PvP purposes.

4) The Random Map Pool seems very limited. In my 13 hours of play I could probably memorized the different possible maps the game could generate and find the exit to the next level easily. Maybe that will change in live thou.

5) Even with all the different skill-sets and combinations, most players would choose the most optimal combination of skills to play their character. Again that maybe because it's still level 1-13 so not that much choices are avilable. I do have this weird thing for Shocking grasp/Arcane Orb wielding a high damage weapon, however that's because I don't dps spam fast enough with Magic Missile.

6) Crafting is very interesting. However it seems that you can only get materials from disenchanting items. That just means you farm items to disenchant, instead of collecting and selling off useless items until you run the boss 1 million times so that something you liked dropped. I think gameplay would be immensely enhanced if players would need to collect certain items to craft what they need.

7) Hatred regeneration isn't enough for a Demonhunter to do sufficient DPS in my opinion. Rapid-shot goes thru hatred faster then my girlfriend goes through money and that's bad. I feel like I need to be an emo to play DH. Quick! Demonhunter needs buffs, nerf Witchdocs!

8 ) I think what made WoW shines in comparison to the other MMO out there is user generated content like custome overlay and User interface; Wc3, Sc and Sc2 also have customizable maps that let casual players have fun, design, and play their own content. (Some genius created DoTa, which eveuntually turned into LoL... lol) I think what'll make Diablo 3 stand out is user generated content. However I don't see how Blizzard is able to do that on a Hack and Slash game at this point. If they were able to pull it off thou...

9) I wonder what's the conversion rate between D3 Gold to real currency. I calcuated that I made like 50k Gold in 13 hours and I'm not even purposely farming for gold.

[Gelsamel]

The end of my playthrough I did when the beta first launched, if anyone is interested. After that I had not played anymore, just playing the TERA beta... which has the exact same start time as the D2 beta and I think it runs for the same duration too...

http://youtu.be/nvWshvIGE7c

[mfb]

So far, I really like it over Diablo II, if for nothing else of additional ability slots. I like having two active abilities (one of which is spammable, even as a Sorc) and then additional ones to throw around at any given time.

Where is the difference? Apart from the fact that you could do this with up to 16 skills in Diablo 2. It required more clicks, but it was easy to switch the skills quick enough.

4) The Random Map Pool seems very limited. In my 13 hours of play I could probably memorized the different possible maps the game could generate and find the exit to the next level easily.

Blizzard announced that the levels later will be more open, so I expect a bit more variety as well.

Rapid-shot goes thru hatred faster then my girlfriend goes through money and that's bad.

Better than otherwise?
Oh, and there is a rune which reduces the hatred costs a lot.

I calcuated that I made like 50k Gold in 13 hours and I'm not even purposely farming for gold.

In addition, you farmed in the first part of act 1 on normal difficulty. Expect millions in hell.

[Izawwlgood]

Where is the difference? Apart from the fact that you could do this with up to 16 skills in Diablo 2. It required more clicks, but it was easy to switch the skills quick enough.

D2 suffered from a bunch of useless skills that you were forced to still have points in. Especially once synergies came out. Ultimately, you probably only really used 3-6 skills with any regularity, and most builds probably only had you using 1-3. Ish.

D3 changes the set up, encouraging you to make use of all 6 of your abilities.

[philsov]

Where is the difference?

The more clicking, as you said. I disagree that hotkey -> right click -> new hotkey -> more right click (etc) was "easy enough." I found it very cumbersome, and coupled with above where most builds focused on about 3 skills max anyways it meant for boring gameplay.

[Lostdreams]

I've got onto the Beta on Sunday (while I should be studying ) and got a level 13 Wizard, 13 Demonhunter, and 11 Barbarian in the span of playing 13 hours non-stop. Here's a few thougts about Diablo 3 in general:

1) Despite the improve graphics and gameplay, It still feels a lot like Diablo 2. That's actually a positive for me because I get a sense of nostiga playing D3. That also says a lot about the wisdom of the design team to stick to a winning forumla. It's the feel of the game including the music, the art style, the lore, the overlay...

2) On that note, they really haven't changed the mechanics between the classes. The player can choose between a frorntal Assault guy, a melee guy with some utility skills, an archer guy with traps, a full on caster, and a pet user with debuffer skills. Again it's just sticking to the fundamentals.

3) There's areas where they definately improve over Diablo 2: It's no longer a spamming click-fest, and there's resource generation to consider when you choose your skills. I was about to complain about how you are stick with assigning certain skills to certain buttons but I was just a n00b and never figured out how to change them! (Turn on elective mode) lol. Still... 8 slots (?) is still too little, but I understand they limited it for PvP purposes.

4) The Random Map Pool seems very limited. In my 13 hours of play I could probably memorized the different possible maps the game could generate and find the exit to the next level easily. Maybe that will change in live thou.

5) Even with all the different skill-sets and combinations, most players would choose the most optimal combination of skills to play their character. Again that maybe because it's still level 1-13 so not that much choices are avilable. I do have this weird thing for Shocking grasp/Arcane Orb wielding a high damage weapon, however that's because I don't dps spam fast enough with Magic Missile.

6) Crafting is very interesting. However it seems that you can only get materials from disenchanting items. That just means you farm items to disenchant, instead of collecting and selling off useless items until you run the boss 1 million times so that something you liked dropped. I think gameplay would be immensely enhanced if players would need to collect certain items to craft what they need.

7) Hatred regeneration isn't enough for a Demonhunter to do sufficient DPS in my opinion. Rapid-shot goes thru hatred faster then my girlfriend goes through money and that's bad. I feel like I need to be an emo to play DH. Quick! Demonhunter needs buffs, nerf Witchdocs!

8 ) I think what made WoW shines in comparison to the other MMO out there is user generated content like custome overlay and User interface; Wc3, Sc and Sc2 also have customizable maps that let casual players have fun, design, and play their own content. (Some genius created DoTa, which eveuntually turned into LoL... lol) I think what'll make Diablo 3 stand out is user generated content. However I don't see how Blizzard is able to do that on a Hack and Slash game at this point. If they were able to pull it off thou...

9) I wonder what's the conversion rate between D3 Gold to real currency. I calcuated that I made like 50k Gold in 13 hours and I'm not even purposely farming for gold.

1. Yes

2. They didn't keep the same class mechanics, they shuffled them back into the deck and drew a couple for each class and gave those classes names.

3. It still feels like a spammy-clickfest to me but I am ok with that

4. They could quintuple the pool and you will eventually learn them all over time. That sad, it is too small a pool.

5. I expect 4 major builds per character: PVE solo, PVE team, PVP solo, PVP team, unless they make some items strong/quirky enough to build around. They said they were trying to move away from items like that but I still don't believe it.

6. Crafting is broken unless they work past using only item rarity for breakdowns. As it is now the first thing I will be doing is farming lowbie areas with high drop rates to get parts to make max level craftables because the rare parts that salvage from lvl 10 items are the same as the ones from max lvl.

7. There are passives for that I think.

8. I very much doubt that will happen, sadly.

9. I wondered that too. I could definitely see myself making some money in this game. I'd have to dredge it up from somewhere but there was an article posted on Diabloii.net a looooong time ago about a guy who was a real estate agent or somesuch and played around 10 hours on the weekends doing runs and trading. He started selling items right as the first big boom hit and was making ~10k a month if I remember right.

I expect the first one to the item loopholes will make 50k in a week.

[mike-l]

6. Crafting is broken unless they work past using only item rarity for breakdowns. As it is now the first thing I will be doing is farming lowbie areas with high drop rates to get parts to make max level craftables because the rare parts that salvage from lvl 10 items are the same as the ones from max lvl.

Where do you get that idea?
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/crafting-material/

And just because the level 10 items that dropped in beta gave the same amount of mats as the level 2 items, doesn't mean that you won't get more mats from act 4 items. We've only seen act 1.

[Izawwlgood]

5. I expect 4 major builds per character: PVE solo, PVE team, PVP solo, PVP team, unless they make some items strong/quirky enough to build around. They said they were trying to move away from items like that but I still don't believe it.

I think you are likely very, very wrong about this. I predict many different builds, some admittedly not as effective as others for, say, single/multi- target damage, but virtually every skill in the game having a useful niche.

[Lostdreams]

I suppose requiring greater number of crafting item would work. What do the salvaged pieces stack to right now? It's probably going to get messy if max lvl items take 50 pieces of rare/legendary to craft one item late-game.

Regardless people will probably be farming lower areas for craftables because you can afford to run with a larger amount of magic find. Even if a higher area has a 20% higher item salvage breakdown rate, a higher magic find % will still put you ahead overall and, as a bonus, the lower area is safer to farm.

5. I expect 4 major builds per character: PVE solo, PVE team, PVP solo, PVP team, unless they make some items strong/quirky enough to build around. They said they were trying to move away from items like that but I still don't believe it.

I think you are likely very, very wrong about this. I predict many different builds, some admittedly not as effective as others for, say, single/multi- target damage, but virtually every skill in the game having a useful niche.

There are quite a few paladin builds but people only really run hammerdins because they are the best, the others are just screw-around builds like the poison dagger necro. People will figure out what works the best and cookie cutter from there.

Having looked over the skills, there are quite a few bad ones that I don't see people using, like, ever. When I get home I'll bring up some of the list.

[Chen]

5. I expect 4 major builds per character: PVE solo, PVE team, PVP solo, PVP team, unless they make some items strong/quirky enough to build around. They said they were trying to move away from items like that but I still don't believe it.

I think you are likely very, very wrong about this. I predict many different builds, some admittedly not as effective as others for, say, single/multi- target damage, but virtually every skill in the game having a useful niche.

Depending on how they do items it could make a difference too. Any word on if there will be items that increase effectiveness of singular skills? (e.g., a unique orb that adds 10% damage to arcane orb?).

[Spambot5546]

The difference in this case is that you're not locked into a given build. You have your loadout for dealing with regular mobs, then when it comes time for the boss you switch to your loadout for that boss. Working with a barb? Okay, let me get out my skills that best support a barb. They're not the same as the ones that work with a witch doctor. And so on.

The only forseeable LIMFAC is equipment, since at higher levels there's a good chance gear will pigeon-hole you a bit.

[Izawwlgood]

There are a couple skills that I felt weren't particularly great, but I'm sure they have situational value and/or good rune augments. For example, for the Witch Doctor, I found the Zombie Charger to be fairly shitty, but maybe with some runes it'll turn into something more useful. Similarly, now that they've broken skills into the specific slots you can put them in, each skills roll (CC or rdps or such) is further clarified, and the options you have now can be fit to better suit a given situation.

[philsov]

The difference in this case is that you're not locked into a given build.

And it is awesome for group dynamics. For example, I joined a multiplayer game in the beta (making 4 total demon hunters, lul). When I got the skeleton king, I swapped into the knife-throwing ability and selected the rune that made it stun and knockback. I stunlocked the crap out the King while everyone else melted him with autofire and reckless abandon.

[mike-l]

Skill swapping may not be that common, just because of this http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/4241234476

And Lostdreams, you seem to have missed the part where there is a different crafting material for every difficulty level. So you could farm Act 1 normal for hours, and you'd get a single piece of gear that you could have got just playing through act 1-4. And the buff I link here says I probably won't just farm Act 1 inferno either, not that that would be any different, I spent a lot of time farming Hell Countess and Andarial in D2 for Runes and SOJs.

[Izawwlgood]

Nephalem Valor is one of the major new systems in Diablo III and it kicks in at level 60. Keep in mind that this is still in testing and we’re still working out the details. Here’s how it currently works internally: Rare and Champion packs already have great loot on them. By killing a Rare or Champion pack, not only do you get their loot, but you’ll also receive a buff granting you increased magic find and gold find. However, if you change a skill, skill rune, passive, or leave the game, the buff disappears. As an extra reward, if you kill a boss while this buff is active, you’ll receive extra loot drops from that boss.

That is... a refreshingly good idea.

[Gelsamel]

Out of the weird classes I've played I've fully kitted out and leveled a:

• Nova/Dagger Necro
• Blade Fury Assassin
• Melee Sorc
• Finder Barb
• Vengeance Paladin
• Holy Shock Paladin
• Cleric Paladin
• Holy Freeze Paladin
• Rabies Druid
• Passive Amazon

Normal characters I've fully kitted out and leveled:

• Trap Assassin
• Martial Arts Assassin
• Orb Sorc
• Blizzard Sorc
• WW Barb
• Zealot Paladin
• 1pt Smiter Paladin (Basically a Zealot with different equipment and strategy)
• Lightning Javazon
• Elemental Druid
• Ribcracker Warebear Druid
• Summon Necro
• WW Assassin

Every single one was completely viable for soloing Hell Mode with the gear I had with them. Perhaps not in normal solo play but with a bit of trading online it was doable with each of these characters, although easier for some than others (Rabies druid, despite being a weird build basically makes Hell Mode a joke).





I have a few main problems with Diablo 3:

First: Arcadey Aesthetic
I was sure they'd fix it after the first images of D3 came out, but they have not done so yet... I dislike the change to a more arcadey and cartoonish aesthetic. Though this is, to a large extent, a personal thing I do think that it harms the tone and ambience that Diablo 2 pulled off so well. D2 felt like a dark dank crap sack world where little was left and what was left was shambles of random people trying to survive in worn down cities. D3 feels much closer to Torchlight, which was very lighthearted and quirky, than Diablo.



Second: Shallow Skill System
I wouldn't argue that having a bunch of useless skills was a good thing, but what they've changed it to removes what was really fun about Diablo 2. Having a set goal for your character build, working towards it, and having extremely meaningful skill CHOICES all the way through the skill-gaining process. If I want to play a Blizzard Sorc over a Meteor sorc then I personally go and put points into the cold spell tree... but in D3 I have essentially no choice in what skills I get, just which ones I use and even then not until much later on.

Example:
I want to do an orb sorc? I start off putting heaps of points into the first cold bolt skill and use that to kill things, look I'm already icing it up! I'm already differentiated and special, it's awesome! Sure Cold bolt is useless for combat at 30 or whenever you get orb, but you know what isn't useless to me as a player? How much fun it is to have feedback in my choices and build early on in the game!

But in D3 if I want to play a trap Demon Hunter then I need to play a generic bow DH until level 21 when I get the turret so I can use Spike Trap + Sentry, or maybe I can switch it up and use chakrams for a while but I still have to spend 20 levels playing the gameplay I don't want to play. The D2 Assassin, I get bombs and traps straight away, I don't have to bother with that martial stuff at all!

What if I want to play a Melee Demon Hunter? Well I can't because even the skills that work with melee weapons on (chakram, traps, bombs, etc) don't actually ever swing the weapon and are all ranged/trap stuff anyway... I can't even really just 'focus' on passives to make autoattacking awesome (Like with the passive amazon I made, who was a sword'n'board user), because I D3 I have to get and specialise in every one of the abilities my character learns, there is no 'focusing' on a certain type of gameplay.

In fact, the one possibly playable melee DH build I've managed to come up with (a playstyle which is only unlocked after FIFTY levels of gameplay I don't want) is prevented by the item system. Namely a sharpshooter passive (doesn't mention weapon type) with a hit-and-run style attack method and a big hulking 2 handed weapon to maximize crit-and-run damage... except DHs can't use two-handed weapons.



Third: Uninteresting Itemization
Admittedly we've only seen a bit of act one and so we can't exactly comment too much on this. However we had a glimpse of their philosophy towards items this time when they had the items up on the game guide. They all had only a few modifiers and always only stuff like +stats and +damage, never anything interesting and fun like +X% Chance to cast Level Y Z on Hit/Taking Damage/Level Up, no +Skills (because of the skill change) no +Other Class Skills no +X Y Per character level, no crushing, deadly or open wounds.

Okay, so, yeah, they said that those weren't finalised and took them off the game guide. But lets compare early A1 normal items from D2 to early A1 D3 items that people commonly found.

D2: Griswolds Edge: http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/it ... ords.shtml
One-Hand Damage: (12-15) To (25-30) (18.5-22.5 Avg)
Required Level: 17
Required Strength: 48
Durability: 32
Base Weapon Speed: [0]
+80-120% Enhanced Damage (varies)
Adds (10-12) to (15-25) Fire Damage (varies)
10% Increased Attack Speed
+100 to Attack Rating
+12 To Strength
Knockback
(Only Spawns In Patch 1.09 or later)

D3: Griswolds Edge: (from information I found during older betas, if anyone had found gris in the open beta feel free to update the stats)
+1-2 damage
+2 Random Properties

Random properties all seem generic things related to resource generation, crit, damage or stats.


D2: Act 1 Normal Rare bow example: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v341/ ... re_bow.jpg

D3: Act 1 Rare Bow examples: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWX9ULk3E3s
Notice how samey and generic they all are? All fire bow, ice bow, holy bow, more damage, etc. No bow that curses the opponent, no bow that bleeds the opponent, no bow that sometimes casts a wizard spell when you shoot it, no bow that hits so hard it knocks things back.

D2: Act 1 Normal Set item example, Cleglaw's Tooth: http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/it ... l#cleglaws
One-Hand Damage: 3 to 19 (11 Avg)
One-Hand Damage: 3 to (20-142) (11.5-72.5 Avg)
Required Level: 4
Required Strength: 55
Required Dexterity: 39
Durability: 44
Base Weapon Speed: [-10]
50% Deadly Strike
30% Bonus to Attack rating
+ (1.25 Per Character Level) +1-123 To Maximum Damage (Based On Character Level) (2 Items)

D3: I've not seen any low level set items at all. But the possible item properties are all similar to what is going on with uniques and rares in D3.


Fourth: Stupid Statistics
Everyone agrees that D2's stat/attribute system needed fixing. Min str/dex to use items then all in vitality was boring, you should be able to choose to invest in stats for more damage while foregoing stamina and just making sure to not get hit... but that really wasn't even viable in D2.

The solution to that, however is NOT to completely remove stat customisation and dumb stats down. Right now the stat system of Strength/Dexterity/Intelligence/Vitality where STR/DEX/INT is the damage stat for Barb/DH+Monk/WD+Wiz is incredibly boring and stupid. D3 might as well be changed it so that Barbarians only have 1 stat called "Barbarianism" and Demon Hunters only have one stat called "Demonology" and Witch Doctors only have one stat called "Voodoo Pharmacy" and Monks only have one stat called "Enlightenment" and Wizards only have one stat called "Wizardry" where each stat's tooltip says "How good your character is at being X" where "X" is the name of their class. Thats how pointless the stats are right now.

Hell if you're going to do that, just scrap attributes entirely and ONLY have weapon damage, armor, resistances, and hp.

The true solution, however, is to keep the D2 attribute system but fix up how str and dex scale and integrate with weapons and skills so going "full strength" is as viable as going "full dex" or "full vit" as long as you build your items/skills around it.

Fifth: Active Narrative
D2 had this great ambience about it, you were in some fucked up world full of zombies and demons and shit and everything was dark and scary. There was a story but it was in the background, you had to explore and really get into the story to find out everything. This was great because if you were interested in the story you really had to get sucked into the world and experience it from that point of view, they weren't just throwing the story at you and expecting you to love it. They hid it away in dark corners so when you found the story you are surrounded in darkness and in the perfect mood to experience it.

If you didn't care for the story you could just run through this awesome setting and let the tone and ambience flow through you.

In D3 however, I'm explicitly following a storyline. To avoid it and just experience the setting itself I have to escape or turn off all the cinematics and close all the popup windows when people tell you stuff and even then I still have to finish all the main storyline quests. It can't be that I'm just going through and killing King Leoric because I'm a bad ass, I HAVE to save Cain (when I didn't have to do anything I didn't want to do in D2) and then go back and go through more storyline to get the key or whatever it was so I can go further in the dungeon to fight Leoric.

Diablo has never had an amazing narrative or plot, though the setting and tone in D2 was amazing... yet in D3 they're arrogant enough so as to FORCE me to experience their shitty plot. Even if I skip all the words and cinematics I still have to go through story events to continue. I can't rush through Leoric's dungeon like a badass like I could ignore tristram in D2. I can't get past the cart until I do some crappy storyline quest. What the hell.





Now, you may say all of this is moot because we played a BETA and the full game could be completely different. But, come on, really? It comes out on the 15th and we just played a stress test beta (not a bug/balance/gameplay test beta), a beta which would have no point if the game we were playing was not largely similar to what is being released. Plus how much can really be done to a game from now till release? Certainly the game is already finalised and this open beta is just related to making sure the servers are ready.

It is theretically possible that the beta we played is super old and the currently finalised version is actually completely different, but then why give us a misleading preview? If it turns out the release version is completely different some of these criticisms may be invalid, but I'm talking about what we're presented with here.

[Izawwlgood]

Huh. I disagree with every one of those points.

[Gelsamel]

Huh. I disagree with every one of those points.

Interesting, want to say any more than that? Discussions where one person just says 'I disagree' area really boring. I really want to know others opinions on these things.

[Nylonathatep]

In addition, you farmed in the first part of act 1 on normal difficulty. Expect millions in hell.

This quote needs to be in golden color, cuz it's 'Gold'

Rapid-shot goes thru hatred faster then my girlfriend goes through money and that's bad.

Better than otherwise?
Oh, and there is a rune which reduces the hatred costs a lot.

In addition to having the reduce hatred rune active, I also found a quiver that gives me +10% regeneration to Hate. It's an improvement, but in a full 4 party party the DPS isn't enough.

I also have the chance to play around with the skill calculator. I found that most of the useful stuff comes in at low level and the higher level skills and runes feel very 'Gimicy', they look fun but not that useful. One could say they can make a level 20-30 character and they can stick to using the same build until 60. Maybe I was wrong about that and a change of play-style is needed at higher level.

I'll just show you an example of my demon hunter build and you can critique it.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/d ... cbY!aaaZaa

[Vaniver]

I want to do an orb sorc? I start off putting heaps of points into the first cold bolt skill and use that to kill things, look I'm already icing it up! I'm already differentiated and special, it's awesome! Sure Cold bolt is useless for combat at 30 or whenever you get orb, but you know what isn't useless to me as a player? How much fun it is to have feedback in my choices and build early on in the game!

This seems like a really weird point. Before the synergy update, things were worse than the situation you describe in D3: there were several builds in which it was strictly suboptimal to put any points in skills until level 18 or 30 or whatever. D3's system gives you the freedom to change builds throughout the game, instead of having a poor build early game and a great build lategame, or the reverse.

My first and favorite char in D2 was a sorceress named Frost- unsurprisingly, cold specced. Duriel, in Nightmare mode, is immune to cold- which the cold -resist ability was worthless against. So the only method I had to fight him was TPing in, having my mercenary stab him two or three times before he died, then TPing back to town to resurrect the mercenary. Not Fun. With D3's skill system, I could switch to be a fire sorc and continue.

But in D3 if I want to play a trap Demon Hunter then I need to play a generic bow DH until level 21 when I get the turret so I can use Spike Trap + Sentry, or maybe I can switch it up and use chakrams for a while but I still have to spend 20 levels playing the gameplay I don't want to play. The D2 Assassin, I get bombs and traps straight away, I don't have to bother with that martial stuff at all!

Again, this was also a problem in D2- if you wanted to play a Hammerdin, you had to suffer through 18 levels of playing an almost entirely different class.

I agree with you that it's a problem- but one of the neat things about the D3 skill system is that you only need one of each character. Want to turn your wizard's build? You don't need to make a new one from scratch- you just need to go to town and swap out your skills. Sit through that once, and then you're fine.

To avoid it and just experience the setting itself I have to escape or turn off all the cinematics and close all the popup windows when people tell you stuff and even then I still have to finish all the main storyline quests.

This also strikes me as similar to D2, though who knows how uniform the story density of D3 will be. I mean, most of the main storyline things in D2 were not optional, unless you wanted to just stay in the previous portion of the game forever, and they've still got the optional exposition, like the diary of the guy who killed Leoric (the first time).

Would you include stuff like the follower banter in this? I found myself really enjoying that- even though it constrains your character's personality without your choice.

[Lostdreams]

And Lostdreams, you seem to have missed the part where there is a different crafting material for every difficulty level. So you could farm Act 1 normal for hours, and you'd get a single piece of gear that you could have got just playing through act 1-4. And the buff I link here says I probably won't just farm Act 1 inferno either, not that that would be any different, I spent a lot of time farming Hell Countess and Andarial in D2 for Runes and SOJs.

Yes, I missed that. I suspect that all of the inferno acts will be close to equally hard to prevent act 1 farming then. If not then you'll see the farming there.

[skeptical scientist]

I expect the first one to the item loopholes will make 50k in a week.

I suspect the auction house legalese will be written so that anyone who violates the EULA forfeits all auction house earnings, and Blizzard can temporarily freeze the funds of suspected EULA-violators, just so this sort of thing won't happen.

[Gelsamel]

This seems like a really weird point. Before the synergy update, things were worse than the situation you describe in D3: there were several builds in which it was strictly suboptimal to put any points in skills until level 18 or 30 or whatever. D3's system gives you the freedom to change builds throughout the game, instead of having a poor build early game and a great build lategame, or the reverse.

How is it weird wanting choices and gameplay that reflects that? I'm not talking presynergy Diablo, we're past that already. As I said in the bit you didn't quote, D2's skill system certainly had problems, but at least I got to choose the gameplay I want. In D3 I don't have a choice what skills I use at the start and in low levels, I don't get to choose my gameplay like I did in D2. Like I said, the skill system wasn't the best, but its better than in D3 because at least I chose to put points in cold bolt and had fun with it. If I had to take cold bolt and use that to level early on while waiting for lightning later on, that would be terrible. D3 does that.

My first and favorite char in D2 was a sorceress named Frost- unsurprisingly, cold specced. Duriel, in Nightmare mode, is immune to cold- which the cold -resist ability was worthless against. So the only method I had to fight him was TPing in, having my mercenary stab him two or three times before he died, then TPing back to town to resurrect the mercenary. Not Fun. With D3's skill system, I could switch to be a fire sorc and continue.

Duriel isn't immune to cold, just very resistant to it. None of the act bosses have immunities. Just take a full inventory of mana pots and you'll eventually wear him down.

But in D3 if I want to play a trap Demon Hunter then I need to play a generic bow DH until level 21 when I get the turret so I can use Spike Trap + Sentry, or maybe I can switch it up and use chakrams for a while but I still have to spend 20 levels playing the gameplay I don't want to play. The D2 Assassin, I get bombs and traps straight away, I don't have to bother with that martial stuff at all!

Again, this was also a problem in D2- if you wanted to play a Hammerdin, you had to suffer through 18 levels of playing an almost entirely different class.

I agree with you that it's a problem- but one of the neat things about the D3 skill system is that you only need one of each character. Want to turn your wizard's build? You don't need to make a new one from scratch- you just need to go to town and swap out your skills. Sit through that once, and then you're fine.

But it's not a problem in D2 because you -choose- your build all the way up to 18, that was my point. Sure, there aren't very many hammer gameplay like skills in the skill tree until you hit the hammer itself. But that is the exception (most builds have similar gameplay from early levels on) and you still get choices that differentiate you from people doing other builds. If I want to be a fire sorc, I use fire from the start. If I want to be a meteor sorc, I have to wait for meteor... but I'm still using fire and differentiated from OTHER sorcs who don't spec exactly like I do early on.

The sorc leveling up to use orb is totally different to the sorc leveling up to use meteor right from your first skill point. The sin leveling up to use WW and the sin leveling up to use traps, is totally different from your first skill point. Even the hammerdin is completely different to how a zealot is built right from your first skill point. This is awesome because it makes you feel unique and like you're really building your character how you want it. It gives you feedback (visual, audio and gameplay) on your choices and, with a few exceptions (like Hammerdin, Poison Necro, Rabies Druid, stuff like that) lets you experience the style of gameplay you want right from the start.

In D3 every character for QUITE some time is completely undifferentiable from another character of the same class. In D3 the game chooses your skills for you and you have to put up with it until you get to the ones you want. If those happen to be higher level unlocks, too bad.

As for switching out skills, D2 had respecs in the last patch but they were limited. As for being able to redo your character whenever in D3, I don't have much comment on that other than to say I don't personally like it because it makes me feel like I have less invested in the character. But I wouldn't say it's a detriment to the game or makes D3 worse or anything, just a personal preference, which is why I didn't list it in the problems I have with D3.

To avoid it and just experience the setting itself I have to escape or turn off all the cinematics and close all the popup windows when people tell you stuff and even then I still have to finish all the main storyline quests.

This also strikes me as similar to D2, though who knows how uniform the story density of D3 will be. I mean, most of the main storyline things in D2 were not optional, unless you wanted to just stay in the previous portion of the game forever, and they've still got the optional exposition, like the diary of the guy who killed Leoric (the first time).

Would you include stuff like the follower banter in this? I found myself really enjoying that- even though it constrains your character's personality without your choice.

The character banter I'm also not fond of for the reason you say.

But the big point I'm getting at here is that D2's story was passive. Yes, you had to do Arreat, Arcane Sancturary, and you had to get the Harodric Staff, but ultimately those are just gameplay goals. You also had to kill the prime evils, you could claim that that is 'requiring story' too (they're as much 'story' as collecting the staff is). But the bosses are just the same as the pieces of the Harodric Staff, gameplay goals. You didn't have to pay attention to the story, could skip all the dialog and ultimately just run through the actual content of the game.

The way you have to 'follow' the storypath in D3 is very intrusive though. There is a cart blocking your way, you literally cannot leave the first area of the game without doing what the narrative tells you to do. Whereas in D2 they just set you down and said "Go", and you could go straight to Andy if you wanted. You could do the staff and flail pieces in any order, you could skip the book dialogue at Arreats and otherwise do little else. Hell, you could find the staff and flail pieces without even knowing a story quest for those EXISTs. The other difference is that D3's story is a lot more explicit. Back to some D2 examples: Cain tells you to get the staff but thats about it, yeah you can get the staff without talking to him or ever being forced into the story but even if you were forced into the story it wasn't an explicit storyline, it was "The staff is the key go find it".

In D3 we get this explicit story arc about saving Cain and him telling you about Leoric's crown or something and then you going to find it and then you saving the Paladin dude and then you slaying Leoric. All this from a main character with almost no character who randomly agrees to do everything and we have no reason to care for nor do we even know anything about... perhaps the biggest reason why an explicit character involved storyline is bad in a game like Diablo and even worse if you can't, or it's hard to, ignore. And even if you can ignore it, it's clearly shaped the level and map design and prorgession in a negative way.

I hope you see what I mean.

[Izawwlgood]

@Gel: Yeah, I wasn't feeling argumentative and didn't want it to come off as such. But you're right, here are my thoughts on the matter:

Spoiler:

First: Arcadey Aesthetic

I think D2's graphics were great at the time, but the 'grittiness' was mostly a product of undersaturated colors, a lack of good lighting dynamics, and over pixelated color palette swaps among enemies. D3 on the other hand, feels vibrant and lush, the mists eerie and foreboding, the gore visceral and chunky. It's entirely a personal taste thing, but I just found the landscape to be more interactive in a sensible way. Random 'tree stumps' didn't seem to just be sitting there, they had roots, they felt part of the terrain.

Second: Shallow Skill System

I actually feel D3's skill placement system is MORE nuanced than the skill trees from D2. For starters, I LOATHE the notion of not being able to respec; my investment in my character should be a one time thing and I should NOT be required to level up an entirely new character of the same class to explore other skills. Similarly, I should NOT be penalized for misclicking points.

That said, the six skill system + rune augmentation means that the skills you place matter. Gone are the days of single builds being 'max dps against mobs' or 'max dps against fire' or some such. Now you can tweak your character design in accordance to your play style, to the challenges that face you. I view this as an incredibly wise step for Blizzard. Looking over the abilities and passives for all the classes, I feel there's an incredible diversity of options, for a really wide breadth of arrangements. That said, we obviously haven't seen all the abilities, so, it's a bit early to tell.

Third: Uninteresting Itemization

Way to early to tell. And from what we've seen, it looks like they're AT LEAST starting from D2 itemization as a baseline. I like the crafting system a lot, as it helps convert random shit drops into at least a decent baseline of gear you can run with. I sort of prefer the abilities doing damage as a reflection of weapon damage, but am disappointed they brought back the basic stats, which segues to...

Fourth: Stupid Statistics

For now, I agree with this point, but don't think it's a deal breaker. That you can't customize your stats is a good thing in my mind, but because you can't customize them, I agree, they should just do away with it entirely and have damage be a function of weapon and level. That said, it provides a decent platform for gear to have a wide range of augments, and possibly, depending on what sort of stat boosting potions exist in game, possibly add a touch of customization.

Fifth: Active Narrative

I wholly disagree with you here, but it's a matter of preference. I felt the storyline of D2 was kind of silly for most legs of the journey. Oh, gotta find this cube now in some desert, so I gotta find some staff and head of a staff...? Uh, sure. At least in D3, the narrative is drawing a connection to individuals, showing us that the events in the world are affecting PEOPLE. D2 was fun, but felt sort of like a romp through an empty world. Deckard Cain was there to identify our items and tell us where the next checkpoint was, but otherwise, it was bland and void. What we've seen of D3, the world is inhabited. I prefer this.

[Gelsamel]

Spoiler:

I think D2's graphics were great at the time, but the 'grittiness' was mostly a product of undersaturated colors, a lack of good lighting dynamics, and over pixelated color palette swaps among enemies. D3 on the other hand, feels vibrant and lush, the mists eerie and foreboding, the gore visceral and chunky. It's entirely a personal taste thing, but I just found the landscape to be more interactive in a sensible way. Random 'tree stumps' didn't seem to just be sitting there, they had roots, they felt part of the terrain.

Regardless of what they were a product of, I feel they gave a good sense of forboding and seriousness that D3 really doesn't. The gibs in D3 are silly and cartoonish. It's personal taste as to whether you like it or not, but I think it sets an visual tone that conflicts with the gameplay/audio/lore tone of the setting.

I actually feel D3's skill placement system is MORE nuanced than the skill trees from D2. For starters, I LOATHE the notion of not being able to respec; my investment in my character should be a one time thing and I should NOT be required to level up an entirely new character of the same class to explore other skills. Similarly, I should NOT be penalized for misclicking points.

You can respec in Diablo 2. But even so, no one is saying the D2 skill system is perfect.

That said, the six skill system + rune augmentation means that the skills you place matter. Gone are the days of single builds being 'max dps against mobs' or 'max dps against fire' or some such. Now you can tweak your character design in accordance to your play style, to the challenges that face you. I view this as an incredibly wise step for Blizzard. Looking over the abilities and passives for all the classes, I feel there's an incredible diversity of options, for a really wide breadth of arrangements. That said, we obviously haven't seen all the abilities, so, it's a bit early to tell.

The skills you place matter in D2 as well, and builds have never really been like that either; read the list of viable builds I've played back in my post. Regardless of the number of skills you can swap out, my point was less about the amount and more about the fact that everyone gets the same skills and the same customisations. And I'm pretty sure we've seen all the abilties, unless I've been reading, seeing, and playing the wrong stuff.

Getting everything as your class in D3 makes your choices less meaningful. It doesn't matter that you leveled a character to max as a trap/sentry DH because that isn't tied to any effort or plan or development you put in, anyone can just switch to that. There isn't any sense of achievement or any sense of you forging your character's path in life. In the long run, every max level character is the same as every other max level character of the same class.

At least a respec in D2 seems like a retcon or something. In D3 being able to change whenever just makes skill customisation meaningless.

Way to early to tell. And from what we've seen, it looks like they're AT LEAST starting from D2 itemization as a baseline. I like the crafting system a lot, as it helps convert random shit drops into at least a decent baseline of gear you can run with. I sort of prefer the abilities doing damage as a reflection of weapon damage, but am disappointed they brought back the basic stats, which segues to...

At least? Baseline? Did you see the examples I gave? It looks like they're starting WAY below the baseline.

I didn't mention the crafting system in D3 in my post. I think it's personal taste as to whether you like D2 crafting or D3 crafting better, though D3 crafting is obviously a lot more user friendly.

For now, I agree with this point, but don't think it's a deal breaker. That you can't customize your stats is a good thing in my mind, but because you can't customize them, I agree, they should just do away with it entirely and have damage be a function of weapon and level. That said, it provides a decent platform for gear to have a wide range of augments, and possibly, depending on what sort of stat boosting potions exist in game, possibly add a touch of customization.

Why do you find non-customization a good thing? Shouldn't I have the choice to be able to pump damage at the cost of survivability? I want to be able to differentiate my character from other characters, yet in both the skill and stat system, I can't do that.

I wholly disagree with you here, but it's a matter of preference. I felt the storyline of D2 was kind of silly for most legs of the journey. Oh, gotta find this cube now in some desert, so I gotta find some staff and head of a staff...? Uh, sure. At least in D3, the narrative is drawing a connection to individuals, showing us that the events in the world are affecting PEOPLE. D2 was fun, but felt sort of like a romp through an empty world. Deckard Cain was there to identify our items and tell us where the next checkpoint was, but otherwise, it was bland and void. What we've seen of D3, the world is inhabited. I prefer this.

The narrative writing in both D2 and D3 (so far) has been terrible. But in D2 I could ignore it and just have fun experiencing the setting and gameplay. I didn't have to save Cain if I didn't want to acknowledge that part of the story, I could just go straight to Andy. In D3 the narrative has connection to individuals I don't care about because they spend no time on making us care for them (movies take hours to get you attached to the main character and maybe some friends, D3 shows you a guy saying "Help me kill my wife" and then you do and it feels completely contrived and disingenuous) with a main character whose movitations and history we know little to nothing about beyond perhaps 'hates demons and wants to kill them all' for the DH who only has a name because you gave them one.

D2 feeling void helped set the tone of a world on the brink of collapse from Diablo's reign. It's still inhabited (Hello Lut Gholein) but everything has gone to shit and everything outside the main settlements in the game seems overrun and destroyed.

[Izawwlgood]

Spoiler:

Regardless of what they were a product of, I feel they gave a good sense of forboding and seriousness that D3 really doesn't. The gibs in D3 are silly and cartoonish. It's personal taste as to whether you like it or not, but I think it sets an visual tone that conflicts with the gameplay/audio/lore tone of the setting.

I really felt that wandering the crypts in D3 was scarier than wandering any part of D2. I think the tone isn't 'cartoonish' as much as 'more detailed'. The mind fills in the gaps in D2, and there's less to fill in in D3.

Getting everything as your class in D3 makes your choices less meaningful.

I really disagree with you here. I think it enhances customization. I also think you're undervaluing the diversity of the number of skills (less of which are filler, I feel) and the runes that change them quite significantly. There are 6 runes per ability, and I admit that at least one tends to be 'make ability do more damage at virtually no cost', so is kind of a no brainer, but that there are at least 3-4 significant changes you can instill to every skill I think is pretty huge. I just wholly disagree with your assertion that D2's 'locking you into a skill/stat progression' somehow equals more customization than D3's 'let you select any skill from a pools' method, but that's because I find the notion of punishing gamers to be unnecessary for a games enjoyment. Requiring I play through as the same class numerous times to simply experience different play styles inherent to the class to me is NOT a good thing.

At least a respec in D2 seems like a retcon or something. In D3 being able to change whenever just makes skill customisation meaningless.

Yeah, I just wholly disagree with you. Customization to me doesn't equal 'I spent a billion hours playing the game over and over to test a number of characters' it means 'I selected these available skills to come up with a play style that I enjoy the most'.

At least? Baseline? Did you see the examples I gave? It looks like they're starting WAY below the baseline.

I don't see significant differences truthfully. We don't know what the full pool of modifiers is going to be, and we don't know how things will be tweaked as the game is released. So saying D2's Griswald's edge had 4 modifiers, while D3s only has 2-3 isn't really proof that D2 has MORE itemization.

Why do you find non-customization a good thing? Shouldn't I have the choice to be able to pump damage at the cost of survivability? I want to be able to differentiate my character from other characters, yet in both the skill and stat system, I can't do that.

Sure you can; and this ties into my previous statement about customization:
D3 has transitioned your customization away from stat and skill pt placement into skill/ability/passive selection. So, in D2 you may have pumped a sorceress' Int for more mana and not bumped her Con (or whatever) to maintain a 'Glass Cannon' build, but in D3, you will select the 'Glass Cannon' passive which bumps her damage at the cost of armor/HP whatever. The idea here is that you can generate the same degree of customization, but don't have to fret over every stat/skill point placement. You can try a combination of skills/passives to create a character you want to play, find it isn't to your liking, and shift it around. It's more fluid, it's more responsive, and it's more reasonable.

Out of curiosity, do you know how many abilities were available to each class in D2 vs D3? I would be willing to bet D3 has significantly more abilities, not even counting rune modifications of those abilities into actual different skills (I'm not just saying 'applies a DoT' or 'changes damage to cold', I mean, 'changes spell from single target + aoe explosion to halo around caster + push back'). Coupled with a fairly large pool of passives, and I'm really surprised anyone would claim that the customization in D3 is LESS than the customization in D2. Truthfully, the only thing it's LESS than, is permanence, which as I've said a few times, I think is a really really good thing.

But in D2 I could ignore it and just have fun experiencing the setting and gameplay. I didn't have to save Cain if I didn't want to acknowledge that part of the story, I could just go straight to Andy. In D3 the narrative has connection to individuals I don't care about because they spend no time on making us care for them...

Yeah, this is a personal preference thing. I felt D2 was too much of just going wherever the next quest was, and from the beta of D3, it didn't. But I agree with you that the narrative for both is pretty much just icing. I don't really give a fuck whose uncle is missing or why, I'm just going to go click on monsters. You finding killing Haedric's wife contrived is fine, that's your take on the matter. I found exploring the jungles of Kurast was cool, but I don't remember why I was there at all.

[Gelsamel]

Spoiler:

I really felt that wandering the crypts in D3 was scarier than wandering any part of D2. I think the tone isn't 'cartoonish' as much as 'more detailed'. The mind fills in the gaps in D2, and there's less to fill in in D3.

Regardless of the cause whether by lack of detail or by design (and I would argue it was deisgn, but it doesn't matter) D3 is a lot more cartoonish than D2. Compare Torchlight which was completely cartoonish to D3 and you'll see what I mean. Sometimes I have trouble telling if something from Torchlight is actually D3 or vice versa.

I really disagree with you here. I think it enhances customization. I also think you're undervaluing the diversity of the number of skills (less of which are filler, I feel) and the runes that change them quite significantly. There are 6 runes per ability, and I admit that at least one tends to be 'make ability do more damage at virtually no cost', so is kind of a no brainer, but that there are at least 3-4 significant changes you can instill to every skill I think is pretty huge. I just wholly disagree with your assertion that D2's 'locking you into a skill/stat progression' somehow equals more customization than D3's 'let you select any skill from a pools' method, but that's because I find the notion of punishing gamers to be unnecessary for a games enjoyment. Requiring I play through as the same class numerous times to simply experience different play styles inherent to the class to me is NOT a good thing.

I'm not undervaluing diversity because I'm not talking about diversity. I specifically said that the customisation was 'shallow', shallow pools can be wide. And I didn't say locking you into skills was 'more customization' I said not having your choices mean anything about your character is little to no customisation because customisation isn't the 6 skills you choose to have on your bar... it's how you're differentiated from other characters. None of that happens in D3 because everyone gets anything at the click of a button.

Is buying the rifle instead of the pistol at the start of the round in Counter Strike customisation? I don't know anyone that would call it that, but what you have in D3 is essentially that with a whole lot of different guns.

And I reject your characterization of playing the game as 'punishing' the player, I think that is ridiculous. Why not remove other classes then? Classes are intrinsic to the game, why should you have to play another class through to get that gameplay? What about choices in ME and DA? Finally, the whole point is that no particular play style is 'inherent' to the class in D2... it's all YOUR CHOICE. In D3 there is no choice because it's all inherent to the class.

Yeah, I just wholly disagree with you. Customization to me doesn't equal 'I spent a billion hours playing the game over and over to test a number of characters' it means 'I selected these available skills to come up with a play style that I enjoy the most'.

Lucky that isn't what I said, eh? As I said above it's about setting your character apart from others, D3 doesn't let you do that. And how does one not select the skills for the play style you want in D2?

I don't see significant differences truthfully. We don't know what the full pool of modifiers is going to be, and we don't know how things will be tweaked as the game is released. So saying D2's Griswald's edge had 4 modifiers, while D3s only has 2-3 isn't really proof that D2 has MORE itemization.

Do you have reason to believe that what we experienced in the beta will be significantly different to what the release version will be like given that the game releases in a few weeks?

We know with pretty good certainty that the interesting modifiers that enabled many of the more fun builds in D2 aren't going to be there (Add skills from other classes, procs on hit/being hit, open wounds/crushing/deadly etc.). We also know with pretty good certainty that crafted items won't get above 6 modifiers (check the Diablo 3 game guide). What we absolutely do know is that early A1 D3 items have much less modifiers than early A1 D2 modifiers and also much less interesting ones.

Maybe at 60 they'll get more/better but it definitely doesn't start at the same level. You can get virtualy any modifier type bar +other class skills on blues and yellows at level 1 in Diablo 2, not so in 3.

Sure you can; and this ties into my previous statement about customization:
D3 has transitioned your customization away from stat and skill pt placement into skill/ability/passive selection. So, in D2 you may have pumped a sorceress' Int for more mana and not bumped her Con (or whatever) to maintain a 'Glass Cannon' build, but in D3, you will select the 'Glass Cannon' passive which bumps her damage at the cost of armor/HP whatever. The idea here is that you can generate the same degree of customization, but don't have to fret over every stat/skill point placement. You can try a combination of skills/passives to create a character you want to play, find it isn't to your liking, and shift it around. It's more fluid, it's more responsive, and it's more reasonable.

So you're saying less customisation is good because it's replaced with more customisation? I wanted to know why you don't like stats not why you like traits. In any case, do you really not realise how not having the granularity of stat placement means that the customisation is more shallow in D3? Hopefully you can see that being able to distribute 500 stat points how you want it (assuming D2 had a better stat system and those stats actually meant something past putting them in Vitality) is much deeper (less shallow, in other words) than being able to choose a few traits? You can customise the character to exactly how you want it, vs. choosing the bonus that most increases the benefits of you chosen skills.

Out of curiosity, do you know how many abilities were available to each class in D2 vs D3? I would be willing to bet D3 has significantly more abilities, not even counting rune modifications of those abilities into actual different skills (I'm not just saying 'applies a DoT' or 'changes damage to cold', I mean, 'changes spell from single target + aoe explosion to halo around caster + push back'). Coupled with a fairly large pool of passives, and I'm really surprised anyone would claim that the customization in D3 is LESS than the customization in D2. Truthfully, the only thing it's LESS than, is permanence, which as I've said a few times, I think is a really really good thing.

Again, you can respec in Diablo 2. And it's not permenance or amount of skills... it's whether those skills differentiate you that is customisation. In D3 they don't, because at the click of a button any character can be your character. No differentiation = no customisation. If in Skyrim all that happened was you had to choose 5 of the constellation things and you got all those benefits, but you could change them at any time, would you really call that customising your character? No, it's customisation because my character is different from yours because I wanted to play them differently and I did.

Yeah, this is a personal preference thing. I felt D2 was too much of just going wherever the next quest was, and from the beta of D3, it didn't. But I agree with you that the narrative for both is pretty much just icing. I don't really give a fuck whose uncle is missing or why, I'm just going to go click on monsters. You finding killing Haedric's wife contrived is fine, that's your take on the matter. I found exploring the jungles of Kurast was cool, but I don't remember why I was there at all.

But they weren't even 'quests', because you could ignore the story... like I said. To me, they were just clearing out areas and getting loot. You were in the Jungles of Kurast because there are shit tonnes of undead and demons and shit that needs killing, including a Prime Evil. The fact that you can not remember why you were there is proof of how easy it was to ignore the story if you don't like it. I bet I won't be able to get to further acts in D3 without knowing why... because the game forces it's crappy story on me. I'll have to be on quests to get the crown rather than just killing the demons and stumbling across the key to the beast's lair.

[Chen]

Do you have reason to believe that what we experienced in the beta will be significantly different to what the release version will be like given that the game releases in a few weeks?

We know with pretty good certainty that the interesting modifiers that enabled many of the more fun builds in D2 aren't going to be there (Add skills from other classes, procs on hit/being hit, open wounds/crushing/deadly etc.). We also know with pretty good certainty that crafted items won't get above 6 modifiers (check the Diablo 3 game guide). What we absolutely do know is that early A1 D3 items have much less modifiers than early A1 D2 modifiers and also much less interesting ones.

Maybe at 60 they'll get more/better but it definitely doesn't start at the same level. You can get virtualy any modifier type bar +other class skills on blues and yellows at level 1 in Diablo 2, not so in 3.

Where's all this coming from? All the legendary items are "in progress" on the Game guide. Maybe I'm remembering wrong, but I thought there used to be ones that had procs and the like a while back though. Where do we find the early act 1 items have less modifiers in D3 than D2? Didn't they specify the beta only had certain modifiers in it anyway?

[Lostdreams]

I expect the first one to the item loopholes will make 50k in a week.

I suspect the auction house legalese will be written so that anyone who violates the EULA forfeits all auction house earnings, and Blizzard can temporarily freeze the funds of suspected EULA-violators, just so this sort of thing won't happen.

It depends on the speed of the transactions. If they can manage either sell the items fast enough or disperse the goods across enough accounts then it won't matter. Bans are futile as buying more accounts becomes a necessary investment to make a profit. As long as the profit margin is high and steady then this will continue. The ease with which goods were dispersed and the low cost for an account is one of the main reasons D2 was always plagued with bots/spam/cheats.

The only real way to eliminate this type of thing is to make only account-bound items significant, thus tying the investment to the account and making a ban something to be feared. If anything is of significant market value and not account-bound it will be farmed, duped, traded and sold in bulk.


nonedit-edit: I completely forgot the banking aspect of the new auction house. Can you just use a "dummy" Paypal account for auction house transactions? Can Blizzard sue you if you exploit and then sell on their auction house? If the seller is in another less "cooperative" country would they ban auction house use from users originating in those countries?

This feels like a more exploitable version of ebay.

actual edit-edit: In regards to the visuals and gameplay, D3 feels a little too much like Dungeon Siege 3 right now. Level-wise it maintains almost the exact same feel with the only real difference I can see so far is the boss fights are more epic.

With repect to customization of player stats, they were always worthless. You might argue that it added customization but it was only a frivolous offshoot of a more important choice the player already made about their playstyle and even more importantly, their item choice. They eliminated player picked stats because characters would pick just enough of the stats they needed to wear or use their gearset and then dump the rest either into health or the primary damage stat for the character.

All of the meaningful playstyle stats still appear to be there. Defense/magic resists, offensive damage types and skill alterations are all still there. They are crappy because beta is limited but they are still there.

[Izawwlgood]

Spoiler:

Regardless of the cause whether by lack of detail or by design (and I would argue it was deisgn, but it doesn't matter) D3 is a lot more cartoonish than D2. Compare Torchlight which was completely cartoonish to D3 and you'll see what I mean. Sometimes I have trouble telling if something from Torchlight is actually D3 or vice versa.

I just don't see it as cartoonish, I see it as vibrant and more detailed. If it's not to your liking that's fine, I can't argue taste. Your qualm, to me, seems like saying you preferred SC1 graphics over SC2's graphics because SC2 isn't as pixel-y or 'flat'.

And I didn't say locking you into skills was 'more customization' I said not having your choices mean anything about your character is little to no customisation because customisation isn't the 6 skills you choose to have on your bar... it's how you're differentiated from other characters. None of that happens in D3 because everyone gets anything at the click of a button.

Yup, this absolutely confirms my previous point on where we disagree; you are under the impression that 'customization' means 'choices I made that permanently differentiate me from other characters'. I do not think that. I think 'customization' means 'choice I make that let me decide how I will play this character'. If it bothers you that anyone can readily and quickly change their character around, because you feel that's not customization, I suggest trying a run through in a self imposed 'hardmode', wherein you set up a skill placement progression and don't allow yourself to deviate from it. That self imposed rigidity to me, is about the equivalent of D2 retconning respecs in a way later patch; I played D2 for close to 2 years after it was released, and don't recall being able to respec then.

So no, picking a different gun in call of duty is a rather shallow example of customization. But given the depth and diversity of customization options available to you in D3, I feel you are offered MORE customization over your character/play style/combat options; that it's not permanent is a good thing. Similarly, in WoW, there was nothing to really differentiate two max lvl, equally geared characters of the same class, and allowing them to dual spec and respec for a fee is a good thing. Also, *IF* you want to point to D2's ability to respec, that just means that there really ISN'T any more customization, it just means selecting a character build is conducted by placing points instead of slotting skills.

This is just a point we differ on; I don't think allowing you to customize yourself at the drop of a hat is a bad thing, and you do. In fact, since you keep pointing out D2 allowed respecs, there's really not even much of a difference in the ways you can differenciate your character from another character. Based on the number of abilities/passives/runes, I'm inclined to believe D3 allows more customization (which you should like), and allows you to switch around to different builds more easily (which I like).

Do you have reason to believe that what we experienced in the beta will be significantly different to what the release version will be like given that the game releases in a few weeks?

Well, yeah, I do, considering how often they've updated things in the last few months, AND how the beta only revealed a part of Act 1.

Did you read about Nephalim Valor (I think it was called?)? The idea being after lvl 60, you get rolling cumulative benefits (xp, better gear) for staying in game and not respeccing. This rewards staying with a single high level build, which is exactly what you're after.

I wanted to know why you don't like stats not why you like traits. In any case, do you really not realise how not having the granularity of stat placement means that the customisation is more shallow in D3? Hopefully you can see that being able to distribute 500 stat points how you want it (assuming D2 had a better stat system and those stats actually meant something past putting them in Vitality) is much deeper (less shallow, in other words) than being able to choose a few traits? You can customise the character to exactly how you want it, vs. choosing the bonus that most increases the benefits of you chosen skills.

Because builds in D2 were just setting a ratio of stat placement. 'For every 4 pts in dex, 1 in str, 1 in con, and .5 in int'. You could move stuff around a bit, or just seek out gear that boosted a give stat, but that generally amounted to having a 'general build' instead of a specific one. And if the same thing can be accomplished by slotting some combination of the 'Dextrous but not Strong' and 'Sword of +5 dexterity', then you still have the same options available to you, it's just not predicated on placing 500 stat points. You look at 500 stat points as individual ways to customize a character, when in fact, you should be looking at the end result. 500 stat points doesn't mean you have 500! different options, it just means at lvl 100, you have a 'couple' different finalize placement spreads that correspond to a 'couple' different finalized skill point placement builds. D3, at level 100, still allows this, but, like I said, instead of clicking on Strength 100 times, dex 250 times, int 100 times, and con 50 times, you slot a combination of passives and abilities and runes that reflect making a dextrous character.

The funny thing about your complaint too, is that with respecs, D2 effectively means nothing differentiates your character from mine. If I get shit stomped by your poison dagger necromancer, and you tell me what your build is, I can just go respec over to that and buy some gear that better corresponds to it. Poof. I'm now just like you.

[Vaniver]

Duriel isn't immune to cold, just very resistant to it. None of the act bosses have immunities. Just take a full inventory of mana pots and you'll eventually wear him down.

For the first four years that the game was out, he was. They wisely fixed that because it was a really bad idea.

Think of the early levels of the class as an extended tutorial- "you want to be a demon hunter? Here's how!". I can see how forced tutorials are unappetizing, but don't get too worked up about it because it only needs to happen once.

But, if it's a big deal to you that demon hunters can't get access to sentries as early as assassins got access to traps, try submitting feedback? That might be a thing they'd be willing to change. I know the Wizard skill order has been shuffled around a lot, but haven't been paying attention to the other classes.

[mike-l]

Do you have reason to believe that what we experienced in the beta will be significantly different to what the release version will be like given that the game releases in a few weeks?

We know with pretty good certainty that the interesting modifiers that enabled many of the more fun builds in D2 aren't going to be there (Add skills from other classes, procs on hit/being hit, open wounds/crushing/deadly etc.). We also know with pretty good certainty that crafted items won't get above 6 modifiers (check the Diablo 3 game guide). What we absolutely do know is that early A1 D3 items have much less modifiers than early A1 D2 modifiers and also much less interesting ones.

Maybe at 60 they'll get more/better but it definitely doesn't start at the same level. You can get virtualy any modifier type bar +other class skills on blues and yellows at level 1 in Diablo 2, not so in 3.

Where's all this coming from? All the legendary items are "in progress" on the Game guide. Maybe I'm remembering wrong, but I thought there used to be ones that had procs and the like a while back though. Where do we find the early act 1 items have less modifiers in D3 than D2? Didn't they specify the beta only had certain modifiers in it anyway?

Besides, it's just completely untrue that you can get pretty much any mod at level 1. Of the 98 groups of mods in D2, only 18 are available at level 1, and only 35 are available at level 10 or under (which is all we see in the beta)

At level 1 (in D2), you can get +attributes, resists, light radius, increased damage, increased armor, add poison damage, attack rating, life regen, and gold find. That's it.

Notable post level 10 mods are mana and life leach, any charges, magic find, movement speed, procs (chance to cast skill on hitting/being hit), elemental damage, +to skills.

Oh yeah, and you're vaunted open wounds/crushing blow (broken mechanics IMO), not even available on blues. They were unique only, and we know absolutely nothing about uniques in D3 yet.