It's a good thing. Repeatedly running bosses is predictable and boring; being able to efficiently farm everywhere will keep the game fresh.
It runs counter to RPG conventions, but makes Diablo 3 a better game.
-Kardax
- lawless2788
- Registered User
-
Member for 12 years, 7 months, and 28 days
Last active Sun, Nov, 27 2011 21:34:58
- 0 Followers
- 124 Total Posts
- 9 Thanks
-
8
Kardax2 posted a message on Rare and Champion Loot > Boss LootPosted in: Diablo III General Discussion -
5
Rwitz posted a message on Blizzcon interviewshttp://d3db.com/article/read/blizzcon_2011_press_conferencePosted in: Diablo III General Discussion
Q. Can you talk a little bit more about the Halls of the Dead?
JW: The idea is when you lose a hardcore character, you don't really want that character to go away forever and you don't want it to take up a character slot. Well, it'll probably be optional where you can choose to free up the slot by archiving the dead character into the Halls of the Dead. You'll see the name, the gear on death, and maybe some other stuff.
Q. Is it actually part of the ui?
JW: It's part of your profile, so you just need to right click on your character to open up your profile and it tells you all about your character, your achievements and your progression.
Q. When you say Halls of the Dead I just imagined a hall where you walk around with statues of your characters.
JW: That would be awesome, but it's probably just going to be in the UI. Maybe someday it'll be a big awesome hall!
Q. Now that all spells are dependent on weapon speed and damage, are you getting rid of spell damage and increased cast rate?
JW: We are getting rid of increased cast rate, and increased weapon rate will replace it. Spell damage was a stat that only really appeared to the Witch Doctors and Wizards, we probably made this change for 2 reasons. The major one was we found casters were not valuing their weapons, that was a big problem with Diablo 2. The second one was Witch Doctor and Wizard randomly generated affixes were very confusing, our testers were coming back with questions like "What’s the math on this, when you say 20% increased damage does it apply to base damage, to spell damage?” If you can't understand it and can't understand which one is better than the other than that's a bad thing.
Q. What did you have to change in order to make followers viable in the end-game?
JW: The big one is we have to do a multiplier on your base stats, because you don't have the same item options as your character.
Q. So, do we still have to sacrifice passives to buff our followers? I remember back in the press event you said that.
JW: Oh, that what just an idea I had at the time, you won't have to sacrifice passives.
Q. What about the unattuned runestones on the homepage?
JW: Where is that system at? It's... interesting. It's not great, as one of our people said to us "It's kind of a new kind of horrible" because it just had different problems. It's really the last big system we have, the last big problem to solve.
Q. What's the biggest thing you've learned since the beta was released?
JW: Most of the beta has been useful to us from a technical standpoint, so there's not a lot of tuning stuff that the beta tells us about. The vast majority of feedback we've received has been "it's too easy". We really wanted the beta to test our hardware.
JAB: In the industry, it's really hard to test load and infrastructure without the players. Players play differently and are smart, our testing bots are not.
Q. Do you have to play through softcore to unlock hardcore?
JW: Oooh, good question, yes, you will have to play through to a certain point to unlock hardcore mode, I think it's through normal difficulty after you kill the end boss. I'm like 90% sure, so we could change our minds.
Q. We had a discussion on our forums about the color of resource systems, specifically the Demon Hunter and Monk, everyone got new resource systems other than the Witch Doctor who is stuck with mana. The same old blue orb, what are your thoughts on changing that to something more Witch Doctery like green?
JW: We like the Witch Doctor one the most, the biggest problem with green is its poison. So, if we put it in there that's going to be the reaction people have, like is that my poison vial... have I been poisoned? Some people have suggested we make the Monk orb Yellow, like the urine ball as opposed to the jizz ball. One of the suggestions we got for the Demon Hunter was to make it black... but that won't work since you just won't see it, and white is a massive contrast. If you do that you'll suddenly have a resource that you just can't see. So we were comfortable with the red and blue, they work better.
Q. Surely you have the resources to just add a new color to the spectrum.
JW: Umm, we have the power, but we don't have the will. (looks to JAB) You know it's true.
JAB: I don't know that.
Q. Are we going to be forced to use Real ID to add friends?
JW: No, and that's all I can say. We do have some plans; we aren't going to force you to be Real ID friends.
Q. With the banner system in Diablo III, are we going to start out with everything we see in the beta unlocked, or will we have to gain achievements to unlock them.
JW: It's just there for you to see, you'll have to gain achievements to unlock those.
Q. Do you have a number of achievements yet?
JW: Umm, no.
JAB: 12?
JW: No.
JAB: 13?
JW: More than 13.
JAB: 15?
JW: More than 15, would you like to take another shot?
JAB: 16.
JW: You're getting closer, very slowly. It'll be in the hundreds.
JAB: That was my next guess.
Q. How many hours do you anticipate the average player will have to invest to hit level 60 in Diablo III?
JW: This is a really hard question to answer, people ask me this all the time. The answer depends on how insane you are... I'm gonna say... I'm not even gonna guess, because if I do I know that's going to come back and haunt me. We're not really concerned about making 1-60 some ridiculously long grind. We're not douchebags, it'll be based upon what feels good.
Q. Compared to Diablo 2?
JW: Again, it's speculation that will come back to haunt me. It'll probably be shorter than Diablo II, but D2 also didn't have an end-game.
Q. With the rich lore and races of World of Warcraft, have you thought of incorporating some of that into Diablo III such as Dwarves?
JW: No, one of the things that is driving the Diablo universe is that it's a very human-centric place. Anything that isn't human is pretty much bad.
Q. Why isn't Diablo III supporting mods?
JW: There's a variety of reasons for that, one of the things people say a lot is "Oh, mods are such a hallmark of the previous games!" and I say... really?. There are mods, and there has been some developer support for those efforts, but that's not the same as us directly support it. To do that, we release tool sets and treat it like a product. We decided that the effort it would take to make mod tools would be a monumental effort. I know it seems like we're Blizzard and we have unlimited resources but we don't - we had to figure out our priorities to get the game out.
DTOID
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqbGG46plgQ&feature=player_embedded
GamerLiveTV
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LCHPoUnx7s&feature=player_embedded
Force
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zk8M8xOnLdI&feature=feedu -
3
Enkeria posted a message on Weapon Enchants and High End Armor SetsFound this.Posted in: Diablo III General Discussion
Weapon Enchants and High End Armor Sets!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEh5GZCV2yI&feature=related -
1
Mac_an_tSaoir posted a message on Played Beta TodayI played the D3 Beta today for the first time, I focused on a DH, and Wizard, I also had played a barb at lvl 9.Posted in: Diablo III General Discussion
On Randomization:
For it being early on in the game, only the first 1/3-1/2 of Act 1 and it being on normal difficulty I was satisfied with the randomization in the map and the dungeons. I played for about 8 hours and came across about 7-8 random events that I had not witnessed in a previous run. On avg I got about 1 random event an hour, this is pretty damn good for Act 1 normal difficulty, not even the whole act!
Overall I found that the event randomization was spectacular, but however the level randomization was lack luster ( you can still figure out pathing in dungeons to speed things up, like how people get lost and spend like 30m in the crypts I have no idea) the RNG of the dungeon itself was meh, pretty linear. This is expected though, It got to the point where I could get to Leoric in about 4-5 minutes.
On Difficulty:
A joke, I mean cmon its act1, the first 1/3-1/2 of the act, if you die... you obviously have no ARPG hacknslash experience. I never even needed to pot once? Even on Leoric it is easy to telegraph his attacks, the only time I was even hit for any real damage was when I was on the barb, but you just zerg him down.
On combat:
Combat was fluid on the Wiz, fluid on the DH (apparently the DH changes havent gone live yet, and I had no resource problems and finished the beta in 1:15m, never died once, never used a pot once) so I dont understand how people ever had problems with the DH resource system... they were probly spamming shit nonstop thinking that's how you win, instead of you know... placing bola with tactical use, or nades/hungering arrow. Fire up d2, log on an amazon in act1, get multishot, get cold arrow, get w.e, try to spam that shit and see what happens? you get off 4-5 shots before having to either stop or spam mana pots.
Combat overall I found was very fluid on the Wiz DH and Barb had no problems, never found myself starved for resources
Death Animations:
Are fucking wicked. That is all.
On which class I thought was most powerful up to that point:
Wizard hands down, every time I engaged a pack of mobs I got a bonus for killing so many in a chain, or killing them all in one shot. This ended up being a SHIT ton of extra experience. I mean every fight I was getting atleast +50 bonus exp, add all those up over time, i was flying. I mean being able to 1 shot everything in the middle of the screen in 0.5 seconds is... broken? lol. It gives you such a high chain, and one shot bonus exp that by the end of the beta i was getting +150 exp per pack of mobs
My combo was Wave of Force (the one shot move) Arcane Orb, and Electrocute with Power Hungry Passive = destruction. No class matches the destructive speed of the wizard at that point in the game.
However, the barbarian is the fastest at skipping shit, and getting to Leoric in no time at all in the beta. I mean u can leap walls and get there in like 2.5 minutes if you know the pathing.
If you have any questions, feel free to ask. I'm done with the beta for now, and probably wont touch it unless they let us go further in the act. It feels more like a Demo than a Beta, and in my honest opinion the game is ready, why they're delaying it... they keep changing their mind about shit they can change with a content patch, or a major update lol. Hopefully we dont have another Duke Nukem Forever on our hands here. -
5
DiabloFanUser47052 posted a message on Played Diablo 3 for the first time today (beta)I just wanted to send a ray of hope to anyone really looking forward to this game, whom might be cautiously optimistic. I played it for the first time today (beta), and it's everything i've been looking forward to and then some. I played Diablo 2 for years and years, was a pretty hardcore player and while Diablo 3 has some things different about it from D2, the newest Diablo has definitely captured what i found fun about Diablo and expanded upon it.Posted in: Diablo III General Discussion
I played the witchdoctor and barbarian to about level 10 each, and had tons of fun. The treasure goblins are always exciting (though it sux when you dont kill them in time before they escape) the random dungeon events are fun; Some games you'll find a "sub-area" then the next game it won't be there but something else will but it just expands upon the "randomness" that i found really satisfying in Diablo 1 and 2, which also is something that added and i think will definitely add to the longevity of Diablo 3.
The "randomness" element is everywhere too. Obviously the items are, and the levels, but i found some other things that people hadn't mentioned that i'd seen. For example, one time when i killed a treasure goblin he dropped several blues, a ton of gold, and a bunch of white items; then another time, he just dropped 1 blue, a few health orbs, but upon slaying him i got a buff cast on myself that gave me something like +20% to magic find for 5 minutes or something to that effect.
Also, when i had slain a treasure goblin another time, i got the "lore" popup that told me about the treasure goblins and how they escape from the realm of the lord of greed, and if you dont kill them you'll see them jump in a oddly colored town portal type thing and escape to this "greed realm" described in the lore. I just found it interesting cause it makes me wonder if in the full version or further down in the full version of the game game, if players will be maybe able to chase them into the "greed realm" and it's something like a treasure room. I thought that might be cool.
But yeah, the game feels really great; Also i didn't mention it looks absolutely fantastic! the environments and monsters are top notch in terms of coolness factor. Theres all kinds of interesting things to look at in the environment and things to explore and i'm sure you've all seen the characters and creatures. New Tristram from head to toe looks great and yeah, it's stylized IMO, but still Diablo. I'm going to be controversial here and say that i dont really think it looks WoWish, it's it's own thing, it's... Diablo.
Getting to my point though I can't express how much i've been looking forward to Diablo 3. I just wanted to stop in and say to everyone here who is amped to get and play it, i can say with quite a bit of confidence that i highly doubt you'll be disappointed and it's been worth the wait. Its extremely fun, it feels like Diablo, the skills are fun, the game looks great, and again, in my opinion it expands on the other two Diablo games in almost every way. It hasn't been bastardized despite what naysayers have said; It's Diablo and once the full version launches... Oh, it will be glorious. My one sentence review of the game based on my beta experience, playing all day today: Its everything i wanted it to be and more. This game is friggin awesome.
Images (witchdoctor):
-
5
kahdrick posted a message on I smell WoWPosted in: Diablo III General DiscussionQuote from chippydip
Quote from LordRayken
Diablo 3 is finished.
LOL
Having spent the past weeks digging through the data files and looking at the changes that have come since the original beta client build up through the current build 7338 (Patch 3), I can tell you the game most certainly is *not* done.
A few examples:
* An extra salvage treasure class was added to the item tables (ie internal data structures are still in flux)
* Many Legendary/Set items have associated affixes that aren't being applied due to affix level restrictions
* Many Legendary/set items are in the data files, but don't actually have any stats yet
* Some icons are still missing for items
* etc
Activision was most likely pushing for a holiday release for financial reasons, but at their latest status meeting the D3 team decided that they just weren't going to be able to make that deadline so they pushed the release date. (If they wanted to meet that date they really only have a little over a month left before the game would have to go Gold Master and be packaged and shipped to retailers. They could still have a patch on release, but testing release builds takes considerably longer than developer/beta builds so even that doesn't buy them all that much time.)
Having worked for Activision some years ago, and being familiar with both that company and the standard practices of several others, I can say that this assessment is almost certainly true. In fact, to maximize sales in December, the game would have to be on shelves by the 20th (and probably by the 15th) of December. To do that, the game would need at *least* 30 days of physical production (that is, the gold master would have to lock on November 15th). To actually deliver a locked gold master on the 15th, the game would have to be in release candidacy for a minimum of 2 weeks prior (which is no time at all and only terrible, awful games give themselves that little time) - which would be Nov 1st. Realistically, the game would want to be in release candidacy for 6 weeks (with a planned delivery date of the gold master on Nov 1st with a two week buffer in case of major issues), so the actually RC1 date would likely be Sept 15. Which we can quite confidently say that we missed.
I think the hope was to have the closed beta start on Sept 1 and for there to be zero issues aside from network-stress related ones. However, it's quite clear by reading the official bug report forum (why isn't there an interactive in-engine database for bugs? Or at least a web-based one? Seriously - forums are the second worst way to report bugs next to snail mail. But I digress) that major gameplay design choices are still going on, never mind actual bugs with the game in a non-net-stress situation.
In light of the overwhelming publicly available evidence, the game has to be pushed. I can only imagine how bad things are behind closed doors. Re-tooling fundamental game play design at this point in the process is a terrible idea. They really couldn't tell that weapon-based spells vs. flat damage spells was going to be an obvious consideration? They couldn't have figured out prior to the closed beta that the DH could run out of both resources? No one in their internal QA bothered to mention the questionable artwork of the monk resource?
I give blizzard a lot more credit than that, and I think December was - given the state of the beta - a pipe dream all along. January still might be. My money right now is evenly split between a botched January release combined with 2 GB of patches on day 1, or a clean March release. -
1
Gerahben posted a message on Release delay is such crap... My opinion, and thouths.I will never understand the feelings of entitlement that are found on the internet. Blizzard has made its name by making game the right way no matter how long it takes. Sure, I would love to have Diablo III out as soon as possible, but not if it means that it is released in a state that Blizzard feels is inadequate. This is actually somewhat reassuring to me that they are sticking to their old ways and are not being influenced by outside factors as many people suggest.Posted in: Diablo III General Discussion
-Gerahben -
3
Kiserai posted a message on Release delay is such crap... My opinion, and thouths.I love when the armchair game devs come out of the woodwork.Posted in: Diablo III General Discussion
Listen, none of us are happy about this. Also, none of us know what the state of the game really is. Would we be happy with what they've got by the end of the year? Maybe. Or maybe we'd be flooding the forums complaining about the bugs and broken mechanics and bemoaning Blizzard for delivering a poor experience and breaking their usual level of quality. It's easy to say "just give it to us" now, we might not be so happy if we got what we asked for.
We all enjoy the bar Blizzard sets for itself in regards to quality; this is price we pay for the luxury of that.
Blizzard only gets one chance to launch Diablo 3 and have the monstrous initial media / fan impression. Even if they zero-day patched the game into perfection, they'd catch seriously bad press for shipping a broken game. It'd be bad for us, bad for them.
That all said, no one was a more staunch defender / believer of a 2011 launch date than myself, so trust me I'm as upset as anyone. At this point I'm just looking forward (hopefully) to beta, as like many here I've never had the opportunity to play any iteration of D3 at all, as of yet. -
2
overneathe posted a message on Release delay is such crap... My opinion, and thouths.Posted in: Diablo III General Discussion
Well, the first 4 years they were making Diablo 3 and then Blizzard reviewed Blizz North's work, decided "holy sh*t" guys this is absolutely horrible", disbanded the smaller company and started working anew.Quote from HEET1330
So what have they been doing for ten years ?? I think someone had it correct about engineers. They never are finish on anything. When its dones its not really done. Nothing is ever done for their way of thinking. We the Diablo community have been left out in the cold more than any of their other franchises. We are their red headed step child. We were not Blizzards orginal development. They bought them kick them to the curb and were stuck with this crap now.
Also, SC2 fans waited 12 years. We've so far been waiting 10 years, and will only go to 11. Don't overdo it. :]
What about Warcraft 3 fans? Where is their Warcraft 4?
@Dezarius. "Most would be happy anyway" isn't how Blizz operates. All must be happy forever and always! :] -
14
fludDAstud posted a message on My Beta ThoughtsOkay so I am going to try and write this all down in an orderly fashion. I have well over 40 hours of gameplay as well as watching my girlfriend play(who knows nothing about pc games/diablo).Posted in: Diablo III General Discussion
Gameplay
Combat
To me the combat feels true to the Diablo series, I click all over the place and it feels good. They overhaul on the system was a good thing from what I can tell so far. Having an open skill system is nice and allows me to try out a bunch of new skills without worrying about making a new character but I feel its a little to forgiving. I think if they added a 1 minute cooldown on the skill you just switched out it would stop people from changing things in the middle of a battle and actually think about what they are doing before they change skills.
Overall combat is smooth and extremely fun. Having a mouse like the Razer Naga also helps because i can do all my skills right from the mouse instead of using the keyboard.
Another thing I want to say about the combat is that my girlfriend, who i mentioned above, could pick up the game and play it with only a little help from me all the way to a level 12 demon hunter without dying once. They have made combat easy enough for the casual gamer to understand but deep enough for hardcore gamers to get enjoyment out of it!
Crafting
Crafting is pretty straightforward, you break down items and build up your blacksmith and craft the items you want. The interface is easy to work through and its fun building up your blacksmith. I was very into using the BS until the gold Auction House hit.
Sound
The sound in Diablo 3 is AMAZING. For everyone who is hating on the sound in Diablo 3 just wait until you actually play. Turn down your effects volume to about 30 percent and leave the music and stuff maxed. This allows you to hear every creak and crackle and the music actually comes out more which makes you get immersed more into your game!
If you have a headset I suggest using it! if not I would suggest buying one!
The Game World
Okay so one of my main gripes so far is that most of the beta is planned out, you don't get much randomization unless you are in a dungeon and I am hoping that the outdoor areas end up being super random.
The world is alive, you will notice a lot of little things when you actually play like rats scurrying across a field or a building crumbling as you walk past. They have put the time to make you feel like you are a part of this world and it shows.
The art style, which has had much controversy is actually one of my favorite aspects of this game. The trees and ground feel like a painting and the more cartoony feel I think actually helps the gameplay. If we didnt have this art style classes like the witch doctor wouldnt work because how off the wall he is.
Favorite Characters
Witch Doctor
After playing the beta I am going to have to say that the witch doctor will be my first class i will be doing a full playthrough on. He is just so off the wall that i cant stop playing him.
Monk
I was most suprised by the monk. I love the fact that the monk is all about speed and getting in and out while doing your crazy combos. The combo system works well and mixing and matching your steps 1,2,3 are fun to do.
Demon Hunter
Even with all the complaints I think demon hunter will be my second class to do a full playthrough. I love the style and the skills and it brings me back to playing 2 of my favorite classes from D2, the assassin and amazon.
Wizard
The wizard is a lot of fun. The skills look great and function even better. Its great having a full party of wizards just destroying everything. I like the style of the male wizard better than the female. He is arrogant and I like that in the characters I play.
Barbarian
I actually really enjoyed the barb. He was my least favorite class in D2 but with the new systems they have in place for him he was a joy to play. When you kill something and their body goes flying at your camera its a very satisfying feeling.
Overall
Overall there is no class I didn't enjoy. Some had their perks to my play-style but from everything I have seen so far there will be no wrong choice of a class to play!
The game is a blast and it shows as people continue to do runs to get better gear on their level 13 characters. I cant wait for full release and plan on forking over the money for a collectors edition(if there is one). - To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
1
3
2
There seems to be some still moving parts in the game and coupled with some of the isssues of bnet 2.0 and the rmah and a brief look at blizz history, not making the 2011 target window really isn't too much of a shock.
2
1