if WD is the blacksheep it wont be because its abilities and class mechanics arent on par with the other classes, itll be because its more difficult to play to get the same effect as the other classes (thus far released) as far as i can tell. Simple math, you have barb, direct damage and some support, wiz, all direct damage, and wd, some direct damage but mainly support / debuff. Summons and fear will still make it a somewhat easy class to solo with but it will take more mental acuity than shout --> ww --> ww --> ww --> ww --> leap --> ww
can make the class more interesting but it seems like itll be slower to level depending on how brutal they make nm and hell (harder difficulties mean harder to solo without summons/merc/etc)
1. Life tap (health --> mana)
2. Steal gold/item/xp, perhaps on a long cooldown or some other reasonable restriction
3. Temporarily circumvent collision detection to walk through mobs and get out of tight spots
4. Passive higher stats/hp/damage/speed/etc under certain health percentage thresholds
5. Passive increased chance for RNG stats to be higher on variable stat items
6. Maphack of course
sorry if there were repeats i didnt read the thread
if he gave the actual hex line address the error message spat out it would be checkable, he cleverly didn't and therefore it's not. (you could even patch in increments version by version and check each one)
if I make a post on microsoft's website saying their hex code has a line that reads "WINDOWS 7 RELEASED 09/09/09," hundreds or perhaps thousands of flamers will ask for an address to prove it
WoW is a hardcore game? PvP 2200+ sure, but we're talking about PvE here.
Last I checked, several hundred guilds had completed SWP, WoW's most challenging raid experience relative to the state of the game at the time since its release. Aside from glitches and bugs (C'thun, Four Horseman) almost every raid boss ever introduced in WoW was downed within a month of content release. You don't have to be good at doing anything other than watching a video / reading a diagram and following instructions to acheive the highest attainable status in that game. In early stages of WotLK the raids are pathetic enough that anything other than 2/3 drake OS can be done by casual guilds in all ilvl 187 with players mediocre at their class. Level cap is attainable in less than 10 days (with some help).
This is your idea of a hardcore game? O.o have you played FFXI? WoW and D2's "hardcore" feel came from the necessity of massive amounts of time and luck required to become level capped / rich. Neither of those relate to the general mental acuity or adeptness of the player, and I don't see them breaking the mold in D3 like they did with Starcraft just because the dev team is different. D2's devs went on to make one of the most extreme competitive and arguably the most balanced game ever created, guild wars. I'm pretty sure all of the competitive gamer catering went with them.
and: to make Hell difficulty "hard" would require a sizeable central game concept adjustment, since the current model basically makes everything hit harder and resist more crap. It doesn't make them smarter, it doesn't give them extra abilities, and it doesn't make you have to play any smarter to succeed. Roll a ranged class, hit stuff, and dodge stuff. They made characters borderline invincible if you're clever enough to take advantage of every capability. Sure, Hell difficulty will have a smaller margin of error, but that's nothing like going from fighting Normalsims in Perfect Dark to fighting Darksims, where the computer AI was enhanced and they received augmented abilities to gain a competetive edge over you, forcing you to reinvent strategies against them if you hadn't played on that difficulty before. You'd need more than "Immune to Cold" to make mobs hard enough to kill that the game becomes Hardcore. So yes, they are still appealing to the median.
It just happens to be that I'm part of the median too. Ive burned myself out on enough games.
blizzard creates games with only one gamer demographic in mind: the average and median gamer. If your idea appeals only to people who want D3 to be brimming with potential and personality, and most specifically fun, they're unlikely to listen to it. The game's top priorities to them are going to be:
a. user friendly
b. easy
c. rewarding
the average gamer likes to play without challenges and be rewarded for doing next to nothing. The average gamer also loves timesinks. If your class idea fits those criteria, they would probably take a serious look at it. So far, none of the 3 classes revealed look like they would be remotely as difficult to play as say a druid or pre-1.1 paladin. If your knight idea has some aspect of replayability that makes players enjoy the timesink then it's a successful one. How cool the character's synopsis, story, concept, abilities etc are dont hold a whole lot of weight.
Besides, they have always divided their characters into extreme archetypes based on the model of Diablo - warrior, rogue, mage (lets not count the Monk. No one liked him). Another heavy hitting tank melee class wouldnt be different enough to create a sense that you hadn't already gotten the experience from playing barb unless it was a caster hybrid (hence the pally suggestion, although this could be any other type of melee/caster hybrid such as, to name some from wow, shaman, death knight, or druid). Besides, a Knight is basically a paladin anyway in the diablo lore if I understand it correctly. The only Knights usually presented are the ones appointed by Tyrael, more holy and/or benevolent religion motifs associated with them than just an order of chivalry.
Besides, a Knight would generally denote a tank, of which there is little need for in D3 since almost everything can be killed before it lands a hit on you, there are no (yet revealed) healers, and no discernable aggro system. What would be left without tanking or casting? Just another brute force character that few people would bother to roll, even if it's presented with a different appearance and style.
The barb having a tree named berserker does kind of tip you off though. Theyve never attempted to make him honorable or penitent in any other games and he doesn't appear that way in any synopses or pics yet, so I'm not sure there's a good chance of them doing anything along Knight lines with him. In D2 the pally -was- the holy caster, he could buff (auras), heal, cast holy damage spells, etc. I don't think they'll make a priest/cleric/monk type of class simply because theyre designing every class to be able to beat the game solo as well as cooperatively. They've never made a class that was only able to fulfill its potential of fun in multiplayer.
For example, in D2 you had 3 major support only builds, Warcry barb, Curse necro, Auradin. They split those builds across 3 different classes so each could still have skills to solo crap if they needed to. A class that had cries, curses, and auras would fail because it couldnt kill anything.
And without adding holy to a current character or adding a priest, they're gonna need a pally to fill the gap. Thats just my hypothesis though. It may change as we see more information about the game. I just wish theyd bring sins back in D3 but im sure they wont :[
The second melee class will almost definitely be the black sheep. And they're definitely going to add paladins, based on their success after addition in D2, massive popularity especially .09+, and obvious associations with the Diablo storyline (fighting demons). If the Paladin is the other melee class, and everyone rolls one expecting the reincarnation of the Hammerdin, it's going to disappoint. (Let's face it, Smiteadins or Anythingdins were more fun to play than nigma+hammerdin. Might as well play a sorc.)
On the other hand, if it ends up being thief/rogue/ranger/sin type of melee class, it will likely have a huge playerbase, but I doubt any way they manipulate the class mechanics of those characters will enable them to level up more efficiently and safely than using a barb. Signature class in d2 was sorc (pre 1.1), signature class in D3 will be barb.
Dangerous Dan is spot on.
That said, I'll end up playing every possible pure and hybrid version of each class, but of the 3 revealed, I'll enjoy WD the least.
0
can make the class more interesting but it seems like itll be slower to level depending on how brutal they make nm and hell (harder difficulties mean harder to solo without summons/merc/etc)
0
godly.
1. Life tap (health --> mana)
2. Steal gold/item/xp, perhaps on a long cooldown or some other reasonable restriction
3. Temporarily circumvent collision detection to walk through mobs and get out of tight spots
4. Passive higher stats/hp/damage/speed/etc under certain health percentage thresholds
5. Passive increased chance for RNG stats to be higher on variable stat items
6. Maphack of course
sorry if there were repeats i didnt read the thread
0
if I make a post on microsoft's website saying their hex code has a line that reads "WINDOWS 7 RELEASED 09/09/09," hundreds or perhaps thousands of flamers will ask for an address to prove it
0
i think i saw one of them once
0
I think
0
Last I checked, several hundred guilds had completed SWP, WoW's most challenging raid experience relative to the state of the game at the time since its release. Aside from glitches and bugs (C'thun, Four Horseman) almost every raid boss ever introduced in WoW was downed within a month of content release. You don't have to be good at doing anything other than watching a video / reading a diagram and following instructions to acheive the highest attainable status in that game. In early stages of WotLK the raids are pathetic enough that anything other than 2/3 drake OS can be done by casual guilds in all ilvl 187 with players mediocre at their class. Level cap is attainable in less than 10 days (with some help).
This is your idea of a hardcore game? O.o have you played FFXI? WoW and D2's "hardcore" feel came from the necessity of massive amounts of time and luck required to become level capped / rich. Neither of those relate to the general mental acuity or adeptness of the player, and I don't see them breaking the mold in D3 like they did with Starcraft just because the dev team is different. D2's devs went on to make one of the most extreme competitive and arguably the most balanced game ever created, guild wars. I'm pretty sure all of the competitive gamer catering went with them.
and: to make Hell difficulty "hard" would require a sizeable central game concept adjustment, since the current model basically makes everything hit harder and resist more crap. It doesn't make them smarter, it doesn't give them extra abilities, and it doesn't make you have to play any smarter to succeed. Roll a ranged class, hit stuff, and dodge stuff. They made characters borderline invincible if you're clever enough to take advantage of every capability. Sure, Hell difficulty will have a smaller margin of error, but that's nothing like going from fighting Normalsims in Perfect Dark to fighting Darksims, where the computer AI was enhanced and they received augmented abilities to gain a competetive edge over you, forcing you to reinvent strategies against them if you hadn't played on that difficulty before. You'd need more than "Immune to Cold" to make mobs hard enough to kill that the game becomes Hardcore. So yes, they are still appealing to the median.
It just happens to be that I'm part of the median too. Ive burned myself out on enough games.
0
a. user friendly
b. easy
c. rewarding
the average gamer likes to play without challenges and be rewarded for doing next to nothing. The average gamer also loves timesinks. If your class idea fits those criteria, they would probably take a serious look at it. So far, none of the 3 classes revealed look like they would be remotely as difficult to play as say a druid or pre-1.1 paladin. If your knight idea has some aspect of replayability that makes players enjoy the timesink then it's a successful one. How cool the character's synopsis, story, concept, abilities etc are dont hold a whole lot of weight.
Besides, they have always divided their characters into extreme archetypes based on the model of Diablo - warrior, rogue, mage (lets not count the Monk. No one liked him). Another heavy hitting tank melee class wouldnt be different enough to create a sense that you hadn't already gotten the experience from playing barb unless it was a caster hybrid (hence the pally suggestion, although this could be any other type of melee/caster hybrid such as, to name some from wow, shaman, death knight, or druid). Besides, a Knight is basically a paladin anyway in the diablo lore if I understand it correctly. The only Knights usually presented are the ones appointed by Tyrael, more holy and/or benevolent religion motifs associated with them than just an order of chivalry.
Besides, a Knight would generally denote a tank, of which there is little need for in D3 since almost everything can be killed before it lands a hit on you, there are no (yet revealed) healers, and no discernable aggro system. What would be left without tanking or casting? Just another brute force character that few people would bother to roll, even if it's presented with a different appearance and style.
0
The barb having a tree named berserker does kind of tip you off though. Theyve never attempted to make him honorable or penitent in any other games and he doesn't appear that way in any synopses or pics yet, so I'm not sure there's a good chance of them doing anything along Knight lines with him. In D2 the pally -was- the holy caster, he could buff (auras), heal, cast holy damage spells, etc. I don't think they'll make a priest/cleric/monk type of class simply because theyre designing every class to be able to beat the game solo as well as cooperatively. They've never made a class that was only able to fulfill its potential of fun in multiplayer.
For example, in D2 you had 3 major support only builds, Warcry barb, Curse necro, Auradin. They split those builds across 3 different classes so each could still have skills to solo crap if they needed to. A class that had cries, curses, and auras would fail because it couldnt kill anything.
And without adding holy to a current character or adding a priest, they're gonna need a pally to fill the gap. Thats just my hypothesis though. It may change as we see more information about the game. I just wish theyd bring sins back in D3 but im sure they wont :[
0
On the other hand, if it ends up being thief/rogue/ranger/sin type of melee class, it will likely have a huge playerbase, but I doubt any way they manipulate the class mechanics of those characters will enable them to level up more efficiently and safely than using a barb. Signature class in d2 was sorc (pre 1.1), signature class in D3 will be barb.
Dangerous Dan is spot on.
That said, I'll end up playing every possible pure and hybrid version of each class, but of the 3 revealed, I'll enjoy WD the least.