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Diablo 3 @ Blizzcon [Update: Information And Videos Added]

KAL2006

Banned
I found the Q&A hilarious

-the guy who said Dual Crossbow sucks, and is uncreative
-the WoW fanboy asking for WASD controls
 

Won

Member
KAL2006 said:
I found the Q&A hilarious

-the guy who said Dual Crossbow sucks, and is uncreative
-the WoW fanboy asking for WASD controls

Both valid questions/concerns.

Hazaro said:
What was the response to it?

I think they said they tried it, but weren't happy with it/it wasn't good enough.
 

Bitmap Frogs

Mr. Community
Auto stat distribution, 7 skill limit... clearly this won't be the character building playground D2 was. Sure, most chars focused on very few skills in order to be efficient but for caster builds these 1 point prereqs combined with massive +skill level items greatly increased the weapon arsenal.

Damn.
 

Raide

Member
KAL2006 said:
I found the Q&A hilarious

-the guy who said Dual Crossbow sucks, and is uncreative
-the WoW fanboy asking for WASD controls

Dual Crossbow is a pure John Woo/Hard Boiled tip of the hat. Dual Crossbow=Dual Pistols. :lol

I can see why they would want it but since the camera seems to be in a fixed perspective, WSAD just ain't needed. The controls from pervious Diablo games worked, no need to change the old point and click, click, click, click, click, click, click. :lol
 

V_Arnold

Member
Bitmap Frogs said:
Auto stat distribution, 7 skill limit... clearly this won't be the character building playground D2 was. Sure, most chars focused on very few skills in order to be efficient but for caster builds these 1 point prereqs combined with massive +skill level items greatly increased the weapon arsenal.

Damn.

Did you even see how awesome the variety gets with different runes used with your skills?
Check that out, it will have more variety alone than anything you could do with the stat distribution and the supporting skills where you only put 1 points and used the spell in question if you ran into an Immune miniboss/pack somwhere...
 

Scrow

Still Tagged Accordingly
KAL2006 said:
I found the Q&A hilarious

-the guy who said Dual Crossbow sucks, and is uncreative
-the WoW fanboy asking for WASD controls
i think the dual crossbows are kinda boring tbh

and i also prefer controlling characters with WASD rather than clicking to make them move... however i'm not sure WASD would work in a game like Diablo
 

Bitmap Frogs

Mr. Community
V_Arnold said:
Did you even see how awesome the variety gets with different runes used with your skills?
Check that out, it will have more variety alone than anything you could do with the stat distribution and the supporting skills where you only put 1 points and used the spell in question if you ran into an Immune miniboss/pack somwhere...

Autostat distribution did a lot... mostly because some items meant for certain classes allowed new builds on others.

And it isn't just immunes... a staple of necro builds was 1 point on curses on top of whatever the main path was.
 

Won

Member
Bitmap Frogs said:
Auto stat distribution, 7 skill limit... clearly this won't be the character building playground D2 was. Sure, most chars focused on very few skills in order to be efficient but for caster builds these 1 point prereqs combined with massive +skill level items greatly increased the weapon arsenal.

Damn.


96,886,969,344 builds per class.
 

undu

Member
Won said:
96,886,969,344 builds per class.
I want to know where this number comes from, for curiosity, because it looks too big, it wouldn't be the first company that advertises a humongous number to impress and it calculates it wrong :p
 

Ettie

Member
undu said:
I want to know where this number comes from, for curiosity, because it looks too big, it wouldn't be the first company that advertises a humongous number to impress and it calculates it wrong :p


I think they are using the term build very loosely. Just because you slap some skills on the bar doesn't make it a viable build.
 

John_B

Member
V_Arnold said:
Did you even see how awesome the variety gets with different runes used with your skills?
Check that out, it will have more variety alone than anything you could do with the stat distribution and the supporting skills where you only put 1 points and used the spell in question if you ran into an Immune miniboss/pack somwhere...
In Diablo 2 it felt like you had to choose a class and then a sub class. Some classes were more sub specific than others, but with the Amazon you could build two completely different types of Amazons that require different gear and plays totally different.

It seems like in Diablo 3 you can tune your class to be offensive or defensive and perhaps for pvp, but the feel and how the class plays will remain the same. This is probably better to maintain a solid class balance.

However you really feel locked in Diablo 2 when you run into a pack of double immunity shit that just happens to counter what you build does. I think the monsters in Diablo 3 will be less forgiving in that direction, but the new awesome runes system pretty much gives you the tools to defeat anything because you can fine tune the skills of your build to any immunity.
 

Tacitus_

Member
Fallout-NL said:
How meaningful are the differences though with a number like that?

Each different Rune adds a different effect to a spell, then there's the different levels of the runes. Of course the lower level runes won't be so meaningful at higher character levels but they're still there.
 

V_Arnold

Member
John_B said:
In Diablo 2 it felt like you had to choose a class and then a sub class. Some classes were more sub specific than others, but with the Amazon you could build two completely different types of Amazons that require different gear and plays totally different.

It seems like in Diablo 3 you can tune your class to be offensive or defensive and perhaps for pvp, but the feel and how the class plays will remain the same. This is probably better to maintain a solid class balance.

However you really feel locked in Diablo 2 when you run into a pack of double immunity shit that just happens to counter what you build does. I think the monsters in Diablo 3 will be less forgiving in that direction, but the new awesome runes system pretty much gives you the tools to defeat anything because you can fine tune the skills of your build to any immunity.

I do not really think that you will be locked into anything in D3, based on the Rune system.
Two wizards cannot really start a conversation of "hey, I pumped my skills into Spell X and Spell Y", because maybe one of them uses rune x on the first and y on the second, playing totally differently because of that (just see the AOE hydra vs the Fire Wall hydra or the "precision" lightning hydra, and the magic missile's strengths vs the aoe magic missile builds").

In Diablo 3, people with the same builds will play totally differently just because they use different runes with their spells.
 

V_Arnold

Member
TheExodu5 said:
I find dual-crossbows kind of retarded. How the hell do you reload them?

If this is the reason why you find it retarded, then you have a pretty bad imagination :D
(How do you reload dual pistols? ;) )

Or: SHADOW MAGIC! :D
 

bdouble

Member
TheExodu5 said:
I find dual-crossbows kind of retarded. How the hell do you reload them?
haha I thought the same thing after the intro cinematic. She loads them up at first and then keeps on shooting
 

Draft

Member
Fallout-NL said:
How meaningful are the differences though with a number like that?
I think the point is only to illustrate that the current system has a lot of depth. No doubt that D3, like every RPG that's come before it, will only have a few viable builds per class.
 
Bitmap Frogs said:
Autostat distribution did a lot... mostly because some items meant for certain classes allowed new builds on others.

And it isn't just immunes... a staple of necro builds was 1 point on curses on top of whatever the main path was.

Given that stat distribution was 99% of the time 'pump STR to gear needs, then pump VIT to max', I don't really agree that it "did a lot".
 

TheExodu5

Banned
FieryBalrog said:
Given that stat distribution was 99% of the time 'pump STR to gear needs, then pump VIT to max', I don't really agree that it "did a lot".

Pretty much. The only exception was if you were going for max block, then you'd also pump DEX after STR. It was a very useless system.

Have they talked about whether or not skills synergise?
 

Draft

Member
I don't think it's out of line to be concerned with these changes. The game industry has a lousy track record when it comes to replacing very deep systems like pure stat distribution with something streamlined. More often than not it results in a less complicated and less fun gameplay system.

However, based on what's been shown, I think that traits+runes takes a giant, steaming dump on stat allocation.
 
Bitmap Frogs said:
Auto stat distribution, 7 skill limit... clearly this won't be the character building playground D2 was. Sure, most chars focused on very few skills in order to be efficient but for caster builds these 1 point prereqs combined with massive +skill level items greatly increased the weapon arsenal.

Damn.

If anything, it looks like there'll be more meaningful and real customization in D3 than there was in D2. Between runes, traits, skils and gear, there should be a ton of options.

The other thing is I played 5 different sorceresses to lvl 85+ in D2 and while I outfitted and customized each differently (mostly in skill choices) that was because each character only used like 2-3 skills for 90% of the game. When I went back in 2008 to level another character in D2 I found it got rather boring spamming Blizzard and Meteor constantly. I for one welcome our new Diablo 3 overlords.
 

John_B

Member
Draft said:
However, based on what's been shown, I think that traits+runes takes a giant, steaming dump on stat allocation.
Alone the separation of active and passive skills is pretty clever. The thing I hate most about talent/skill trees is the forcing of spending points on passive skills, that you might not want, to unlock active skills and vice versa.

The trees are mixed like this because the developers don't want the players to spend all their points on either active or passive skills making the characters full of spells, but severely underbuffed or severely overbuffed, but without spells, either way totally broken characters.

The skill runes is also a huge improvement. You don't need to spend points on "backup" skills in case you run into some weird pack of elemental monsters, and because we can change the properties of the skills, the developers can focus on making 10 great and fun skills that can be adjusted to suit needs instead of trying to make 30 skills that covers everything.

These guys got in under control and Diablo 3 will be worthy of the series.
 

verbatimo

Member
I don't know but the gameplay footage didn't look so good. Part of Diablo charm has always been constant enemy swarms, where dozens of enemies are attacking. The gameplay only shows couple of that kind of spots and more of stuff where there are only few enemies. Is it because of the engine limitations? I hope I am wrong and the full game is as much hack and slahs as Diablo 2.
 

V_Arnold

Member
verbatimo said:
I don't know but the gameplay footage didn't look so good. Part of Diablo charm has always been constant enemy swarms, where dozens of enemies are attacking. The gameplay only shows couple of that kind of spots and more of stuff where there are only few enemies. Is it because of the engine limitations? I hope I am wrong and the full game is as much hack and slahs as Diablo 2.

They are most likely not showing act 4-5 hell stuff just yet ;)
 

Zek

Contempt For Challenge
verbatimo said:
I don't know but the gameplay footage didn't look so good. Part of Diablo charm has always been constant enemy swarms, where dozens of enemies are attacking. The gameplay only shows couple of that kind of spots and more of stuff where there are only few enemies. Is it because of the engine limitations? I hope I am wrong and the full game is as much hack and slahs as Diablo 2.
Engine limitations, seriously? They're just showing simple stuff for the demos.
 
Draft said:
I don't think it's out of line to be concerned with these changes. The game industry has a lousy track record when it comes to replacing very deep systems like pure stat distribution with something streamlined. More often than not it results in a less complicated and less fun gameplay system.

I agree with the concept here but I actually am generally pretty down on pure stat distribution systems. Lots of games have them but in almost every case there are either god stats and dump stats, or straightforward builds that rely on maxing one or two stats at the expense of all others. Diablo 2 and the Megaten games both fall victim to this; D&D avoids it (when it manages to) mostly by restricting how many stat points you can allocate, not by actually fixing the problem.

Skill/ability systems are almost always better for real customization (i.e. the option to create multiple distinct viable builds) IMO, and multiple overlapping customization options each are better. The trait/rune/charm system described upthread sounds ideal to me because it should open up a wide range of possible skillsets for each character and then let you pick passives that fit well with them.

dude said:
I'm rather worried about the 7 skill limit

Why?
 

Teknoman

Member
Zek said:
Engine limitations, seriously? They're just showing simple stuff for the demos.

Yup, plus there were loads of enemies in the first gameplay video.


Has it been said whether or not its still possible to play with someone over LAN?
 

Instro

Member
verbatimo said:
I don't know but the gameplay footage didn't look so good. Part of Diablo charm has always been constant enemy swarms, where dozens of enemies are attacking. The gameplay only shows couple of that kind of spots and more of stuff where there are only few enemies. Is it because of the engine limitations? I hope I am wrong and the full game is as much hack and slahs as Diablo 2.

There are some older videos showing significantly more monsters on screen I think. Also they specifically mentioned a random event during the game where you could have 50 zombies pop out of the ground and attack at once, so I dont think there will be any issues with the amount of monsters.
 
watching these panel videos only confirms to me that we probably won't see this game sooner than we would have liked. it just seems like a lot of mechanical concepts, like how they plan on handling the end game, have yet to be incorporated.
 
Played both PvP and PvE portions at Blizzcon.

So good. So so good.

The PvP was so incredibly fun.

It was me and a friend with a random dude vs 3 guys. We lost 9-7 but it was so fun. So much better than WoW Arena. We had a Wiz/Witch Doc/Barb combo on each time.

Wizard was the glass cannon that people tried going for.. But Witch Doctor felt like a rogue with pets and explosions. The Barb just tanked and ate a lot of dmg and kept drawing people in with stuns and his chain move (almost like Scorpion).

The Witch Doctor was able to stealth for 5 secs and run around and get out of binds.. Then they also had a bind themselves.. and a fear.


So much fun. We were down 9-6 with 10 secs left. Their team only had a Sorc left.. My Witch Doctors dogs chasing her down.. 2 seconds left.. we weren't going to get this last point.. then I just hit the explosion button for my dogs and I see her body flying and us scoring a point. Haha.
 

V_Arnold

Member
Deadly said:
Region locking in D3 too. That fuckin sucks =(

Hopefully we could get it out of the way by the time it arrives.
Yes, Blizzard will ban cheaters in the game.
Yes, it will not have cross-region play.
Yes, Blizzard will ban you for going online with modified clients.
And no, it wont have LAN.

It will still be just as awesome as SCII is :)
 

bdouble

Member
dude said:
Numbers don't mean shit.

I'm rather worried about the 7 skill limit, I really hope it's gone by the time the game ships.
really? How many skills did you use at a time in D2? Torchlight? Titan Quest?
These games all should have a limit imo cause no one uses more than a few.

You also have to realize those are all active non of them are passives those are now called traits. Then add in that there are 5 different versions (leaving out rune levels) of each skill. Then further customization of what the skill is and does from the skill tree distribution thing.
 

HolyCheck

I want a tag give me a tag
V_Arnold said:
Hopefully we could get it out of the way by the time it arrives.
Yes, Blizzard will ban cheaters in the game.
Yes, it will not have cross-region play.
Yes, Blizzard will ban you for going online with modified clients.
And no, it wont have LAN.

It will still be just as awesome as SCII is :)

+ Yes Australians/NZ/South East Asians will be able to go on two servers :D (we can hope again)
 
Not sure why people are worried about the seven skill limit, in d2 you had at best 4-5 useful castable abilities. Shit even in WoW you would be lucky to use 7 abilities in an encounter and some of those would be cooldowns.
 
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