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

[Average Manatee]

And the cooldown increases with the difficulty AFAIK.

Arbitrarily changing game mechanics based on difficulty is a sign of a poor designer. Not that D2 didn't suffer from this.

 

[ScottishMartialArts]

Arbitrarily changing game mechanics based on difficulty is a sign of a poor designer.

Would you mind defending that claim a bit? I've always thought difficulty levels that change the gameplay mechanics and encounter design were far better than simple enemy HP/damage buffs.

 

[Black]

And the cooldown increases with the difficulty AFAIK.

Arbitrarily changing game mechanics based on difficulty is a sign of a poor designer. Not that D2 didn't suffer from this.

Good to know, boar.

 

[joeydohn]

Arbitrarily changing game mechanics based on difficulty is a sign of a poor designer.

Would you mind defending that claim a bit? I've always thought difficulty levels that change the gameplay mechanics and encounter design were far better than simple enemy HP/damage buffs.

100% agreed, while increasing HP/damage is probably required for higher difficulties in most games if that's the only change then I find it quite boring. Oblivion did that and it was terrible, turning up the difficulty just made every enemy a damage sponge and playing at high levels was tranquillizing. Neverwinter Nights (and I assume other DnD based games) did it nice with higher difficulties changing lots of mechanics like friendly fire being enabled for aoe spells. In Deus Ex Human Revolution on the top setting alerted enemies alert nearby allies making it harder to escape if you're caught. I did like playing Ys: The Ark of Napishtim on hard though where bosses were huge damage sponges that could kill you in a few hits.

 

[Oriebam]

In Deus Ex Human Revolution on the top setting alerted enemies alert nearby allies

as in, they guess where you are?

 

[Average Manatee]

Arbitrarily changing game mechanics based on difficulty is a sign of a poor designer.

Would you mind defending that claim a bit? I've always thought difficulty levels that change the gameplay mechanics and encounter design were far better than simple enemy HP/damage buffs.

Key word is "arbitrarily". Giving enemies new skills, better intelligence, etc is good. Taking away abilities from players is just stupid. There's no reason characters should be suddenly unable to change skills in D3 just as there was no reason for characters in D2 to suddenly develop a critical weakness to elemental abilities. It would be like a DM in D&D saying that to make the game harder you aren't allowed to use a 5-foot step any more.

 

[joeydohn]

In Deus Ex Human Revolution on the top setting alerted enemies alert nearby allies

as in, they guess where you are?

As in if one catches a glimpse of you (or hears you open something, your footsteps, walking into boxes etc.) he'll tell his allies that are within earshot and all of them will do a sweep of the immediate area. If you're properly seen it will put enemies into a "Hostile" mode rather than "Alerted" and they will actively be looking for you, I'm not sure if this has a time limit like Alerted but in places where that happened to me there wasn't somewhere to hide where they couldn't access.

If you're playing stealthily on "Give me Deus Ex" difficulty you really don't want to alert enemies since a single shotgun at close-medium range, a good shot from a sniper, a couple of rounds from anything above an SMG and obviously a headshot from anything, this is with the 15% damage reduction (1st out of 3 physically damage reduction augs).

 

[Oriebam]

not really, even on give me deus ex it's still easy to popamole your way through the game

( I am not making nor defending no point )

 

[joeydohn]

not really, even on give me deus ex it's still easy to popamole your way through the game

( I am not making nor defending no point )

Yeah, you can but if you wanted to do that you might as well play Gears of War or Popamole of Duty 2012: Moledern Warfare: Prone Edition.

 

[Occasionally Fatal]

There's no reason characters should be suddenly unable to change skills in D3 just as there was no reason for characters in D2 to suddenly develop a critical weakness to elemental abilities. It would be like a DM in D&D saying that to make the game harder you aren't allowed to use a 5-foot step any more.

My understanding is in all difficulties there is a cooldown to change abilities, but it sounds like in higher difficulties, the cooldown is higher? That doesn't sound very sudden.

 

[Average Manatee]

If earlier difficulties have the cooldown low enough that you can switch in battle, while harder difficulties this is impossible, its almost like an anti player skill mechanic. Players are allowed to make use of more skills in Normal than in whatever the fuck they call normal++.

 

[joeydohn]

If earlier difficulties have the cooldown low enough that you can switch in battle, while harder difficulties this is impossible, its almost like an anti player skill mechanic. Players are allowed to make use of more skills in Normal than in whatever the fuck they call normal++.

 

[DragoFireheart]

I predict one of the following will happen during the life-span of Diablo 3:

A- Various bank accounts get hacked due to Bobby cutting back on security in the Auction Houses. A bot of some sort will get your account info.

B- Duped items will flood the auction house.

C- Rare items will be sold for $1,000+.

D- A new feature will allow WoW accounts to transfer assets directly from WoW (gold most likely) over to Diablo 3. Maybe vice versa.

E- Some combination of the above.

 

[Telengard]

All this equipment-only characters and Auction House shit? They're just prepping their followers for the day when they make it necessary to buy items with real money to defeat bosses - by giving the boss a status that makes them undamageable until the purchase-only item is used to it. At first, it'll only be alt bosses that this happens for, and it'll be "okay that they did this" because you don't have to kill those bosses to finish the game, it's only if you want to fight those special bosses. Then it'll be the final boss, but you'll still be able to get the same item by a huge amount of grinding, so it'll be "okay that they did this" because you can still finish the game without doing it. And then they'll make it so the final boss is unkillable without spending real money.

And it'll be okay, because Blizzard is awshum! After all, you can still "play" the game as much as you want, you only have to spend extra money to see the ending, and it's not that much $$$. Just a couple dollars.

 

[Stabwound]

Solution: play hardcore mode.

The real money auction house is not implemented in hardcore mode. Plus, it's much more challenging and exciting and the skill system seems better suited for that mode.

 

[DraQ]

Now that I think about it, why the fuck is it a skill 'tree' anyways? What does limiting abilities by level or prior investments add? Nothing. It just makes shit more limited.

(...)

If something like that were put in a diablo clone normally, they'd make flame wall level 1, firebolt level 16, and you couldn't learn firebolt until you'd learned flame wall and everything else in between. Which is a retarded way to set things up. I mean it was a novel idea... the first time. But it makes no sense. A tech tree makes sense in a strategy game because you want some tech to be plain better than other techs, so you don't want people researching tanks before chariots. But for character building you want as many viable options as possible, so forcing the player to pick obsolete shit to unlock the good stuff is stupid and makes everyone more similar.

This.

I always loathed the way skill trees often force you into picking skills you won't ever use in given build. For example take Skyrim, let's say I'm building a melee stealth guy/gal/cat/lizard specializing in daggers but shunning ranged weaponry. I have no use for perk that allows me to stealthy snipe someone for massive damage, yet I have to take it in order to get one allowing massively damaging backstabs with daggers.

Trees can make sense, but they only make sense if every build that can make use of a given leaf of a skill tree will also find every node leading to that leaf desirable.

Same with minimum level requirements for given skill - all this causes is shitty balance and limited freedom of builds.

The thing is, Earthquake of the Heavens doesn't need to be a spell on the list. You could start out with a Quake spell with a low radius at level 1 that just stuns enemies a bit. Ramp up the AoE, add damage, make it trigger lightning strikes, let it hit multiple times over a duration... THEN it's a fucking earthquake of the heavens- 30 levels later, when you've focused on it the whole time. Or it could be anywhere in between. Maybe it just stuns things near you repeatedly. Or in a big radius. Or does a lot of damage with insignificant stuns.

You can apply this line of thinking to any kind of spell. Summoning a demon going from a single weakling to a horde, or a huge spellcasting pit fiend, or it's a huge pitfiend but only has the melee still, or whatever. Curses starting as single target and scaling in duration, area and strength as you want, with additional side effects. Barrier spells that gain efficiency, strength, duration, and particular affinities.

Make some shit mutually exclusive or have some upgrades increase the cost of the ability, so summoning a horde of spellcasting pitfiends is prohibitively expensive, so you can't upgrade every part of a single skill and then spam just it.

This.


It would definitely be a good idea to just have set of independent skills, each getting its own tree of upgrades and modifiers - for example turning a regular firebolt into fireball by adding and increasing AoE, increasing it's speed, making it home on the target, decreasing it's cast time, making it cast multiple projectiles at once or allowing it ignite targets for lingering damage and status effects (or just plain increasing damage).

This way by focusing on your basic firebolt you could build it into your custom nuke spell tens of levels later by focusing on it rather than, say chain lighting.

 

[shihonage]

The new Sorceress is an "undisciplined" mage, obviously designed to appeal to 12-year-olds rebelling against their parents. A rogue, if you will. A rebellious sort of character. Like a rebel of some sort.

She's also now Asian and sounds like an obnoxious 12-year-old.

The game is a pure kindergarden, through and through.

 

[Black]

The new Sorceress is an "undisciplined" mage, obviously designed to appeal to 12-year-olds rebelling against their parents. A rogue, if you will. A rebellious sort of character. Like a rebel of some sort.

She's also now Asian and sounds like an obnoxious 12-year-old.

The game is a pure kindergarden, through and through.

Yeah, Jeanette and Therese Voerman also sounded like obnoxious 12-year-olds.

 

[attackfighter]

That video was embarrassing. Just thinking that they got some normal guy to VA their retarded fantasy names like "Khaldirim" or "Ariaxx" makes me facepalm. They truly have no shame.

And yeah their design is juvenile. That's what happens when your design team is saturated with WoWfags.

Also I found this really wimpy looking guy blabbing about D3 related stuff, thought he was funny looking:

Yeah, Jeanette and Therese Voerman also sounded like obnoxious 12-year-olds.

No they didn't. U r dumb.​

 

[attackfighter]

Here is Jeanette. If you think she sounds like a 12 year old you're beyond retarded:

 

[Black]

I'm sure we'd have people saying that she does indeed sound like a 12 year old if Bloodlines had Blizzard's logo anywhere near it.

 

[aron searle]

She's also now Asian and sounds like an obnoxious 12-year-old.

This thread isn't about diablo 2.

 

[shihonage]

I'm sure we'd have people saying that she does indeed sound like a 12 year old if Bloodlines had Blizzard's logo anywhere near it.

Correction.

If Bloodlines had Blizzard's logo on it, she would in fact sound like a 12-year-old because voice actors have this thing called "range", and they will read what they're paid to read, in a way they're told to read it.

Bloodlines had writing and art/sound direction. Diablo 3 is a noisy blob of color held together by Kotick's greed.

 

[Black]

Whoa, you and your big, solid arguments.

 

[Occasionally Fatal]

If you think the Sorceress is bad go look at the Demon Hunter. It's the same kind of crap they shoved in Starcraft. Blizzard gonna blizz, I guess.