Auction House Online: The Game (Diablo 3) is a MASSIVE decline

[Cowboy Moment]

Also STALKER, it doesn't really have stats, but allows you to equip and unequip weapons and armour with different stats, which, as we learn in this thread is totally the same as having stats.

Not to mention you can make different "builds" with different items in STALKER. heavy armor guy, light armor guy, light weapons guy, heavy weapons guy, sniper, etc and zillions of combinations with artefacts.. because you can't really haul everything on a single character.
Actually, we've had cockbreaths who posted STALKER topics in CRPG discussion in the past. It haz invetoty and questz!!1

Whats with this zillion artifact combinations?

In each of Stalker games i found you can only use two or three artifacts, which then get replaced with another two or three better versions later on.
the rest is unusable because FUCKING ALL OF THEM give you radiation which makes you die.

So... did i have some special bugged games?

Yes.

 

[DraQ]

Youtube commenter uses the Doom argument unsarcastically:

Customization is mostly removed? Not even remotely accurate. You have NOT EVEN PLAYED THE GAME. So how can you even say that? You say the classes are blurred yet they merely gave people more options on how to play, as in CUSTOMIZATION. The game will have plenty of customization and remove the need to redo characters because you fucked them up or changed your play style. IN YOUR OPINION STREAMLINING is rarely a virtue. Once again, you are not god. and you do not set the standard for everyone else

Kill.

 

[DragoFireheart]

Youtube commenter uses the Doom argument unsarcastically:

Customization is mostly removed? Not even remotely accurate. You have NOT EVEN PLAYED THE GAME. So how can you even say that? You say the classes are blurred yet they merely gave people more options on how to play, as in CUSTOMIZATION. The game will have plenty of customization and remove the need to redo characters because you fucked them up or changed your play style. IN YOUR OPINION STREAMLINING is rarely a virtue. Once again, you are not god. and you do not set the standard for everyone else

Kill.

Stop being nice. There are fates far worse than death.

Such as having him gang-raped by 30 donkeys.

 

[Whisper]

Whats with this zillion artifact combinations?

In each of Stalker games i found you can only use two or three artifacts, which then get replaced with another two or three better versions later on.
the rest is unusable because FUCKING ALL OF THEM give you radiation which makes you die.

So... did i have some special bugged games?

You need combine with radiation decreasing artefacts.

 

[hiver]

Which are shit, rare or non existent!!!!!!!!

What the fuck is an artifact, reducing rad by 10, good for if radiation giving artifacts with any worthwhile properties give 20, 30 or 50?
Bollocks!
Thats the worst fucking thing about Stalkers. Both of them!

And it could have been so good... but noooo, they simply HAD to make artifacts give radiation - fucking constantly! Like no other mechanic or idea was available....
Why only stupid radiation? Why not different properties you might need to combine at certain times? (yeah, yeah there was like two of those - shut up!)
Why not several different negative effects? Why not more diverse positive ones instead of fucking damage reduction or damage increase and SHIT!!!??!?!?!?!
Bollocks!

fuckin...mummble...vodka ideled...grummbble...lazy..mummbblee.. ruskies.... mummble...
:shakes fist in general direction of Russia:

 

[joeydohn]

Which are shit, rare or non existent!!!!!!!!

What the fuck is an artifact, reducing rad by 10, good for if radiation giving artifacts with any worthwhile properties give 20, 30 or 50?
Bollocks!
Thats the worst fucking thing about Stalkers. Both of them!

And it could have been so good... but noooo, they simply HAD to make artifacts give radiation - fucking constantly! Like no other mechanic or idea was available....
Why only stupid radiation? Why not different properties you might need to combine at certain times? (yeah, yeah there was like two of those - shut up!)
Why not several different negative effects? Why not more diverse positive ones instead of fucking damage reduction or damage increase and SHIT!!!??!?!?!?!
Bollocks!

fuckin...mummble...vodka ideled...grummbble...lazy..mummbblee.. ruskies.... mummble...
:shakes fist in general direction of Russia:

You've got to drink vodka inside the game to reduce your radiation, mmmkay.

 

[hiver]

There is not enough vodka in the whole game for that.
And there is no "replace your liver when old one explodes" mechanic either!

 

[chewie]

Youtube commenter uses the Doom argument unsarcastically:

Customization is mostly removed? Not even remotely accurate. You have NOT EVEN PLAYED THE GAME. So how can you even say that? You say the classes are blurred yet they merely gave people more options on how to play, as in CUSTOMIZATION. The game will have plenty of customization and remove the need to redo characters because you fucked them up or changed your play style. IN YOUR OPINION STREAMLINING is rarely a virtue. Once again, you are not god. and you do not set the standard for everyone else

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Jesus Christ you guys are upset about Diablo 3. You're not even talking about the real money auction house or the always online requirement, you're bitching about the gameplay (Even when shown Diablo 3 has more character builds and character customization than Diablo 1 and 2) and if it's RPG enough to be in GRPG. Skyway was a given, but damn. Didn't expect so many other Codexers to derp this hard.

Hell, for the sake of repetition, look at this.
http://www.diablofans.com/page/tools/skill/d2-barbarian.html Diablo 2 barbarian skill tree. There are 20 active skills (Though 2 are related to item finding) and 10 passive skills.
Combat masteries tree is entirely passive, and most of it is made up by individual weapon types. Extremely easy to fuck yourself with if you don't have gear farmed by other characters prepared for your barbarian to use, since that cool sword you found an act or two ago will inevitably be replaced by an axe, or a polearm, or a spear, or a club.
The warcries tree has the almost entirely useless find potion and find item, the mostly useless grim ward, and a variety of shouts.
The combat skills tree is where the meat of the barbarian is at, but due to the nature of Diablo 2 you'll most likely want to focus on one or two skills to the exclusion of others, even with the synergy system which was added long after release of the game. Being able to put your stat points in INT has less of an impact than skill selection since skills are what you'll be using for 90% of the game, not autoattack.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/barbarian Diablo 3 barbarian skill list. The last of which is available at level 30. Coincidentally, also when the last tier of the Diablo 2 skills are available. Since you aren't spending points on skills and are able to pick and choose at will so long as you have the levels, you're more free to try experimental builds without sinking hours in to a character that is locked down that route alone. There are also 22 active skills and 16 passive skills, with each active skill having 5 runes which dramatically alter the skill. Ignoring the fact that you can pick and choose among 6 active skills and 3 passive skills at a time (So you can try alternate builds) there are 2 more active and 6 more passive skills than the barbarian had in Diablo 2, even more if you consider the impact the runes have. Assuming you're willing to concede that skills have more impact in Diablo 2 and 3 than stat selection, 22 and 16 are bigger numbers and ghharuarhngmkhlaeiiii leik numbr giev me cok kotic nohm aglobble snorf itz soh hood ghnhomf gaben must nevr no

 

[Stabwound]

No one can say that characters aren't more flexible in D3 than D2 or D1. This is an objective fact; all you have to do is look at the skill lists for the games and compare them. Dumb fucks like Whisper will herp a derp all day about there being less choice in D3 and that is simply untrue if you take 5 seconds to look objectively at the skills and runes.

I understand the complaining about the complete lack of permanence in characters. Gutting the system and removing it entirely is a Bethesda type design decision. Sure, you either did skills and stats right or wrong in D2, but that doesn't mean they should just remove them altogether. I like being able to respec in games of this type; I think it strikes a good balance between having your character choices etched in stone and having them completely free. They could have just did something like Titan Quest, where each subsequent respec costs exponentially more gold. Hell, they could have setup micropayments for real cash to do respecs.

It's hard not to blame all of this on the real money auction house. Since the viability and strength of your character relies heavily on equipment, it doesn't take a large leap in logic to assume that they're trying to funnel everyone into the RMAH.

I'm just glad to know that hardcore mode will be untainted by the real money auction house, and I think the new skill system is much better suited for hardcore mode than softcore. I think I'll have some fun with it anyway.

 

[Damned Registrations]

This still boils down to how many of those skills matter/are optional. Looking at Diablo 2, you can build an entire character around Zeal + an elemental aura, for example. You can get items that suit it well, and max those out. And frost aura plays rather differently from shock aura. Or you can go for physical damage, which makes entirely different equipment, monsters, and sub skills and allies relevant. Or you could build around sacrifice, or vengeance + conviction, or charge. Or FotH. Or that stupid hammer. Or Smite.

I don't see how you can make builds like that in D3, since there's no way to concentrate significantly on a particular skill. Any skill can only have, at most, 1 rune. You can't use skillpoints to make it stronger. You can't spend statpoints to make it more viable than other skills that need other stats. Even equipment likely matters less, since skills scale off damage per second. So whereas before you'd want a fast weapon to go with an elemental aura as opposed to a strong, slow one to go with charge, now you just want the weapon with the highest DPS for any skill. Zzzz.

At best, you might be able to combine a set of skills that have good synergy, the way you could use cold spells with meteor to make it easier to land hits with a sorc. So you'll add slowing to an AoE skill and AoE to a slow high damage projectile skill or something. But that's a far cry from being able to heavily focus on particular character abilities. And there's probably be 2 or 3 skills on every character that are basically must have skills you'd be a fool to go without. And aside from those you'll just throw on whatever skill is good for the area/act you happen to be in, or maybe whichever suits the latest equipment you found bought from blizzard.

 

[Stabwound]

Does D3 have equipment that directly affects skills? Such as "increases duration of X" on class-specific equipment? I don't think there is anything in the beta, but then again I don't think there are many uniques/set pieces in the beta at all.

It would be pretty lame if there's no way to directly strengthen skills outside of "my sword has +5 strength so my whirlwind does 20 more damage."

edit: Apparently there ARE equipment pieces that directly alter skills. As in affixes on weapons that do +effectiveness to Cleave, or whatever other skills. There are also apparently unique items that change the effects of skills according to this Italian community manager: http://eu.battle.net/d3/it/forum/topic/3429854612?page=2#23

In the final game will have a wide choice of personalization, we will in fact be exhibited and legendary items that will alter the effects of the skills of your character. Obviously there are objects that can be found later in the game, and not in the current beta.

So at least there are items that directly enhance skills. It still makes the skill system heavily dependent on equipment but it's better than nothing.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

This still boils down to how many of those skills matter/are optional. Looking at Diablo 2, you can build an entire character around Zeal + an elemental aura, for example. You can get items that suit it well, and max those out. And frost aura plays rather differently from shock aura. Or you can go for physical damage, which makes entirely different equipment, monsters, and sub skills and allies relevant. Or you could build around sacrifice, or vengeance + conviction, or charge. Or FotH. Or that stupid hammer. Or Smite.

I don't see how you can make builds like that in D3, since there's no way to concentrate significantly on a particular skill. Any skill can only have, at most, 1 rune. You can't use skillpoints to make it stronger. You can't spend statpoints to make it more viable than other skills that need other stats. Even equipment likely matters less, since skills scale off damage per second. So whereas before you'd want a fast weapon to go with an elemental aura as opposed to a strong, slow one to go with charge, now you just want the weapon with the highest DPS for any skill. Zzzz.

At best, you might be able to combine a set of skills that have good synergy, the way you could use cold spells with meteor to make it easier to land hits with a sorc. So you'll add slowing to an AoE skill and AoE to a slow high damage projectile skill or something. But that's a far cry from being able to heavily focus on particular character abilities. And there's probably be 2 or 3 skills on every character that are basically must have skills you'd be a fool to go without. And aside from those you'll just throw on whatever skill is good for the area/act you happen to be in, or maybe whichever suits the latest equipment you found bought from blizzard.

It's true that you can't focus on a single skill as much in Diablo 3, but theoretically this means there will be more complicated (Deeper has yet to be seen) gameplay since you're strongly encouraged to be using multiple active skills as opposed to one or two active skills at a time for the most part as in Diablo 2. As mentioned by Stabwound the beta was too limited to get a good impression of how much impact items will have on skills and characters in the full game. Being forced (This is again an assumption since you weren't forced to use multiple skills in part of act 1 on normal difficulty in the beta) to use multiple skills as opposed to having a focused build is a valid complaint, but it mostly boils down to taste. And I like the idea of using multiple skills more than using just a few. In most Diablo-like games you're rewarded for focusing and having a narrow build, I kinda appreciate the freedom to dick around D3 seems to be offering.

And though it's not really related to what we were talking about, what the hell. Here are a couple demon hunter builds I pulled out of my ass just glancing at the skill calculator. No idea if they're shit or not but from just staring at it and playing to level 12 or whatever in the beta they sound viable.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/demon-hunter#beYdfP!acU!aaaZYa Kiting build. You use entangling shot and caltrops to slow and bunch up enemies, and vault and evasive fire to avoid enemies to bunch them up for slowing. You then use chakram if your enemies are in a line, or cluster arrow if they're bunched in a blob. Your passives give a speed boost to easily avoid enemies and projectiles, and increase damage they take while slowed. Since this calculator doesn't let you place skills freely and restricts you by category, you could theoretically replace evasive fire with "Marked for death" with the contagion rune, which increases damage a single enemy takes and spreads to other enemies on death.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/demon-hunter#WZgjki!bfT!ZaaYbZ Boss build. Bola shot and impale are both high damage and have a chance to stun and knockback, shadow power heals and recharges hatred so you can keep up the pressure, mortal enemy increases damage and hatred generation, turret with chain of torment spits out additional damage, and strafe is available at 100% move speed to keep summoned minions down. The passives increase max hatred, reduced discipline cost, and increased crit chance.

 

[Whisper]

There are also 22 active skills and 16 passive skills, with each active skill having 5 runes which dramatically alter the skill.

runes which dramatically alter the skill.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/class/wizard/active/magic-missile


Magic Missile
Primary
This is a Signature spell. Signature spells are free to cast.
Launch a missile of magic energy, causing 110% weapon damage as Arcane.

Runes:

6 Charged Blast
Increases the damage of Magic Missile to 143% weapon damage as Arcane.

13 Split
Fire 3 missiles that each deal 50% weapon damage as Arcane.

31 Penetrating Blast
Missiles have a 70% chance to pierce through their target and hit additional enemies.

42 Attunement
Whenever Magic Missile hits a target you gain 4 Arcane Power.

52 Seeker
Missiles track the nearest enemy and their damage is increased to 121% weapon damage as Arcane.



Not just "dramaticaly alter the skill, its just brand new spell, guys!

 

[Whisper]

I understand the complaining about the complete lack of permanence in characters.

As long as its not player who makes choices, when game makes choices instead of you, there is permanence actually. (stats at level up, also skills given at level up).

 

[Damned Registrations]

We honestly won't know jack until the game is out (and even then it could be improved dramatically with patches) because it depends more on the balance of the skills and enemies than anything else. You could have a game with 300 skills doing awesome cool amazing shit, but it won't matter much if one of those skills deal damage to everything on screen fast enough to kill it before you can employ a combination of other skills. The Laz mod had a lot of problems with this, where there'd be a skill that was cool in theory with some esoteric means of attack involve cursing enemies and then buffing yourself and using a strangely shaped AoE attack... but in practice was pretty meaningless because it was more efficient to summon a million zombies or whatever was broken at the moment. Like as an example (This is actually from vanilla D2, but the point stands):

Molten Boulder: Creates a boulder that rolls towards target point, knocking back enemies it collides with and damaging them, repeatedly, until it strikes a wall, where it explodes and leaves flames on the ground.

Cool skill right? But it was useless because the numbers were just too low. Especially compared to the hurricane skill that simply did cold and physical damage to everything within 15 yards every .5 seconds, forever. And of course the game is balanced assuming everyone uses this skill, and the people are just using the boulder 'wrong' when they complain.

It's shit like those examples that make or break a game as far as multiple viable builds are concerned.

But I still think, even assuming D3 has a good balance, it'll be rather difficult to differentiate between a build that uses Skills ABCD vs skills ACDE. Whereas in D2 it was more like you used skills ABcD because of how much you could emphasis the importance of each skill via your stats, gear, and skillpoints, instead of just which other skills you used at the same time.

All that said, this seems like a minor point to even discuss imo. Diablo 1 had no real skill builds or anything. Your build was essentially your class and which books you happened to find/buy. And even then there was very little variation. You'd be a retard to have your wizard do anything but pump mana for when you eventually get the totally broken mana shield spell. And chain lightning was blatantly superior to normal lightning. The game was still fucking fun for other reasons, most of which nobody here seems to give a crap about.

 

[Semper]

So why the fuck is that retard Semper blabbering about builds if there is no character development? Or is now a fucking selection of hotkeyed skills somehow a "build"?

because those are builds, you fuckin' moron... if i have to choose skills from a "big" pool and can't use them all at the same time*, it's called a fuckin' build and not a hotkey-pinball-button masher. it ain't rocket since but somehow even the most simple things are way too complex for your twisted mind. nobody said that the system is deep (fuck, it's diablo! you have to be a clotted mass of flesh lacking arms and a brain to feel it as a complex thing) nor that there's character development besides the hardcoded one. now you can post your retarded examples again... dunno why i even care but somehow i can't ignore your bullshit. this crap hurts my eyes.

*free respec is another story

All that said, this seems like a minor point to even discuss imo. Diablo 1 had no real skill builds or anything. Your build was essentially your class and which books you happened to find/buy. And even then there was very little variation. You'd be a retard to have your wizard do anything but pump mana for when you eventually get the totally broken mana shield spell. And chain lightning was blatantly superior to normal lightning. The game was still fucking fun for other reasons, most of which nobody here seems to give a crap about.

hey, it had stAddz and i kAn spänd 5 pointz! i am zooo intelligent and itzsh sho fUkkiN' komplecks and difficult!!11! M:
i wanna sign the last sentence

Not just "dramaticaly alter the skill, its just brand new spell, guys!

dunno what to say but... i really feel sry for your parents.

 

[Stabwound]

Might as well stop arguing with the troll, he's not even trying. At least some trolls come up with new lines, not just repeating the same thing over and over. It's one thing to have an intelligent discussion but it's impossible if one side only wants to imitate a parrot.

If you like the game, buy it. If not, don't. There's lots I don't like about the game and the beta, but it still made me decide to buy it at release rather than wait. I think it's going to be an enjoyable game, and I also think the skill system is going to be perfectly fine even if not optimal. Maybe I'll be wrong and it will be a total failure and suck, but if you look at how much Diablo 2 changed over time, things will change in D3 as well.

My only regret will be if lag makes it too annoying to play hardcore mode without dying due to disconnections or rubber banding. Always online DRM can eat a dick.

 

[sea]

because those are builds, you fuckin' moron... if i have to choose skills from a "big" pool and can't use them all at the same time*, it's called a fuckin' build and not a hotkey-pinball-button masher. it ain't rocket since but somehow even the most simple things are way too complex for your twisted mind. nobody said that the system is deep (fuck, it's diablo! you have to be a clotted mass of flesh lacking arms and a brain to feel it as a complex thing) nor that there's character development besides the hardcoded one. now you can post your retarded examples again... dunno why i even care but somehow i can't ignore your bullshit. this crap hurts my eyes.

"Builds" imply that there is... you know, building, over a period of time. Without investment into a character as far as leveling up goes, it's hard to call that character a "build" of any kind. I mean, you can unlock guns in Call of Duty and then kit yourself out from a number of them, as well as picking up perks and so on along the way. Is that "building" a character as well, if you can just change all that at any time? I don't think a loadout and a build are the same thing - they're two sides of the same coin (a character role) but without one, the whole character progressions system is always going to feel anemic and underdeveloped.

Again, not that you can't do interesting character progression without attributes, or without permanence (STALKER is basically identical to Diablo III in this respect), but as an RPG I would say it is significantly less compelling, especially when character building is literally the sole reason to play a Diablo game more than the 10-15 hours it takes to actually complete the campaign. Unless Blizzard plan to constantly add new content, constantly require players get new gear, constantly try new characters out, then there is nothing to sustain Diablo III in the long term. That is a serious problem for a game that seems to be modeling itself after an MMO.

 

[Black]

Posted it in the news but nobody seems to care so I'll try my luck here.

And http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/3811455085?page=1

 

[Damned Registrations]

Well, scientifically, being locked into your choice DOES instantly make it more palatable. If you ask someone to make a choice, then come back later and tell them they can change it, a higher % will be dissatisfied with their original choice than if you had come back and told them they were stuck with what they picked. I can dig up the youtube video where I learned about this if anyone is interested.

Edit: Also, I have to call total bullshit on implying that every single rune is a different skill. If you're going to call 143% weapon damage a different skill from 110% weapon damage, than every different skill level of a skill in D2 was a different skill, and the Diablo 2 barb had 20x30=600 different skills to choose from!!! AWESOME.

Some of that shit is different enough, but some of it really is not.

 

[Stabwound]

"Builds" imply that there is... you know, building, over a period of time. Without investment into a character as far as leveling up goes, it's hard to call that character a "build" of any kind. I mean, you can unlock guns in Call of Duty and then kit yourself out from a number of them, as well as picking up perks and so on along the way. Is that "building" a character as well, if you can just change all that at any time? I don't think a loadout and a build are the same thing - they're two sides of the same coin (a character role) but without one, the whole character progressions system is always going to feel anemic and underdeveloped.

Again, not that you can't do interesting character progression without attributes, or without permanence (STALKER is basically identical to Diablo III in this respect), but as an RPG I would say it is significantly less compelling, especially when character building is literally the sole reason to play a Diablo game more than the 10-15 hours it takes to actually complete the campaign. Unless Blizzard plan to constantly add new content, constantly require players get new gear, constantly try new characters out, then there is nothing to sustain Diablo III in the long term. That is a serious problem for a game that seems to be modeling itself after an MMO.

I wouldn't be surprised if frequent DLC/expansions is part of their business model. Think of how it would factor into the RMAH:

-Game launches, before long certain items become the "big" ones everyone wants; mainly endgame gear/rare shit.
-Blizzard makes a bunch of money from people trading these items on the RMAH
-They wait until it hits some kind of plateau or profits start to fall
-They release a new DLC with a new level cap, act, items, character class, etc.
-Suddenly, the goalposts have moved, and most everything that was selling for lots of money is now crap. There are a whole new set of items that are coveted and trading hits peak levels again
-Repeat ad-nauseam

I can see this being roughly the idea they came up with. It makes sense from a business standpoint, at least to me. There's a reason why D3 has a cap of level 60 in vanilla while D2 had 99. I'm going to throw out a random guess of 4 DLCs/"expansions" which increase the level cap by 10 each until 100.

It's hard not to feel like the entire game is modelled around funnelling as many people into the RMAH as possible, at least to me.

 

[Damned Registrations]

It's even easier than that. They don't even need people to buy expansions.

Patch notes:

'Blazing' prefix rebalanced from +20 fire damage to +16 fire damage.

....


20 NEW prefixes added at the top tier! Including 'Incinerating' which adds +20 fire damage!

Alternately they could just release new free higher level content. Of course, this will flood the market with the old crap people don't want any more and make items that crush the first 90% of the game dirt cheap on the auction house, whether for real money or gold.

 

[Black]

Well, scientifically, being locked into your choice DOES instantly make it more palatable. If you ask someone to make a choice, then come back later and tell them they can change it, a higher % will be dissatisfied with their original choice than if you had come back and told them they were stuck with what they picked. I can dig up the youtube video where I learned about this if anyone is interested.

Edit: Also, I have to call total bullshit on implying that every single rune is a different skill. If you're going to call 143% weapon damage a different skill from 110% weapon damage, than every different skill level of a skill in D2 was a different skill, and the Diablo 2 barb had 20x30=600 different skills to choose from!!! AWESOME.

Some of that shit is different enough, but some of it really is not.

I doubt 110% wd vs 143% wd will remain, as it seems very static, they will probably change skills/runes greatly on/after release. Just look at SC2, barely anything remains the same as it was in the beta.

 

[sea]

And here is really what we come to: Diablo and Diablo II were designed as self-contained experiences that could be played over and over again, with players being able to invest themselves into different builds, strategies, character types, and even gameplay focus (i.e. PvP, PvE, magic finding). Sure, not the deepest and most complicated stuff ever, but the "real" game was in optimizing character builds and playing multiple times, with different ways to enjoy the game depending on preferences.

Meanwhile, Diablo III is built primarily as a way to encourage users to spend more money over a longer period of time. Without permanence, there are no real choices to make, hence less replayability - the emphasis is now on new content which is either going to cost players extra or will in some way profit Blizzard (real money auction house). The greater and greater focus on the loot treadmill means not just that there's more of that stuff to go around, but that gameplay elements have actually been removed or reconfigured in order to support that treadmill, rather than coexisting with it to form overarching gameplay systems. Despite the superficial aesthetic similarities between the titles the fact is that the overarching design goals of Diablo III are very, very different from the first two games.