System Changes

Jedimindtrixxx

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http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/4325959/Systems_Changes-1_19_2012#blog
click link^ for pics

Blizzard said:
We’re changing some of the systems we’ve gotten the most feedback on both internally and from the beta test, including crafting, items, core attributes, and inventory. We’ll go over those changes and the reasons for them. In addition we’re working on major changes to the skill and rune systems that we’re not ready to talk about

Scrolls of Identification are no longer in the game. Unidentified items and the act of identifying them is still very much part of the game, but now when obtaining an unidentified item you'll simply right click it, a short cast timer will occur as your character examines the item, and it will become identified. We love the double-discovery of finding a present and then unwrapping it, but we don't think it requires a physical item you have to find and keep in your bags to get the same effect. From now on you'll just be able to inherently identify all your items, no need to carry scrolls. Your character in Diablo III is just that badass now.

Moving the fifth quick slot button, which is becoming a dedicated potion button. A dedicated potion button is something we went back and forth on throughout development. Recently it became apparent that players need to be aware of their potions for emergency situations. Our combat model doesn’t promote or even allow chugging potions in rapid succession, but they’re certainly useful when you run into a string of bad luck with health globes, or if you just get in over your head. This is one of our newest changes, so the button and mechanics don’t actually function in beta Patch 10, but that’s our intent and you’ll be seeing it supported in future beta updates.

We're removing the Mystic artisan. As we look at the big picture, the Mystic simply wasn’t adding anything to our customization system. Enhancement was really just the socket and gem system with a different name, and it would prolong the release of the game even further to go back to the drawing board and differentiate it, so we’ll revisit the Mystic and enhancements at a later time. Removing her from the game took some time, but it’s nowhere near the efforts that would be required to flesh out a better customization system. We hope she’ll be able to join your caravan in the future, but for now we’re going to focus on the extensive customization options the game already offers.

We've decided to remove the Cauldron of Jordan and Nephalem Cube. They were implemented to allow for salvaging and selling items when there was no quick and easy way to return to town. Now that the Stone of Recall exists, we found that keeping the Cauldron and Cube in the game detracted from the benefits of returning to town to sell items, salvage, craft, and interact with the townsfolk. It’s a good idea to break up combat so that players have a moment to evaluate their gear and crafting options before venturing back out. In addition, we've decided to just call it what it is and the Stone of Recall is now Town Portal, and is integrated directly onto the skill bar UI.

The Blacksmith artisan will now salvage items. With removal of the Cube we needed some mechanic in town that allowed you to salvage your items, and it just makes sense for the Blacksmith to offer it.

common (white) items will no longer be salvageable. We found that it caused a few itemization issues, but mostly this is due to a general philosophy shift on the importance of items. Previously, our thinking was that when an item dropped it should always be useful to you in some way, either the stats could be an improvement for you, or in the case of white items you could break it down and craft something better. Through a lot of play testing we have come full circle to the Diablo II methodology -- a lot of stuff that drops just isn’t worth picking up. Diablo II captured the loot piñata feel by dropping a lot of crap, mostly arrows and bolts, and we of course still very much want that feeling of item-explosions. To do that we need to be able to balance the value of items to how many we’re throwing at you.

We're changing core character attributes to Strength, Dexterity, Intellect, and Vitality, and the benefits each stat provides is being broken down as:

Strength
+Barbarian damage
+Armor
Dexterity
+Demon Hunter damage
+Monk damage
+Dodge
Intellect
+Wizard damage
+Witch Doctor damage
+Health from globes
Vitality
+Health

We're dropping Defense, Attack, and Precision as attributes, Armor is taking over for what Defense used to provide, +Physical Resist will take over for Armor, and +Chance to Crit will fill in for Precision. Obviously these stat changes are one of the bigger systems changes we're currently working on as they have far reaching requirements to re-itemize and balance the game.

This change makes the stats more intuitive and fixes some of the itemization issues we were running into. We want to make it clear that junk items aren’t worth picking up, and make it easy to identify other items as not for your character. We want to drop a ton of items, but to really pull off a sense of excitement when finding a great item, there needs to be non-optimal items, both for your class, and in general. By specifically targeting stats at classes, we can reduce the amount of item overlap, diversify our item pool, and create a cleaner, more exciting itemization system.

By and large these changes have little impact on which items you’re going to want. The item hunt has always been based on secondary stats and affixes, and we’re working hard to ensure build diversity is as large as possible by getting as many affixes into the game as possible (adding more item affixes is also something we’ve been working on). Simply including affixes that augment specific skills greatly expands the itemization pool and build possibilities.

We're now displaying character stats directly on the inventory UI. Now you can see your stats go up and down as you try on different items. All the same info is available; we’re just streamlining the UI, making it more useful. It might seem insignificant but we're pleased with the results.


tl;dr summary:
Scrolls of Identification are no longer in the game.
Moving the fifth quick slot button, which is becoming a dedicated potion button
Mystic Artisan is removed.
Cauldron of Jordan & Nephalem Cube are removed.
The Blacksmith artisan will now salvage items
Common (white) items will no longer be salvageable
Core character attributes are changed to Strength, Dexterity, Intellect, and Vitality
Defense, Attack, and Precision as attributes are dropped, Armor is taking over for what Defense used to provide, +Physical Resist will take over for Armor, and +Chance to Crit will fill in for Precision
Character stats are displayed directly on the inventory UI

--------------

thoughts?
 

Dan

The New Helper.Net gives me great Anxiety... o.O;;
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They attacked too many things at once when they were trying to fix the problems with inventory management from D2.

D2 had several issues with inventory:
1. Tetris -> solved (1X2 max size in D3)
2. Bag space -> added more in D3
3. Stash space -> added more in D3
4. 7 types of gems -> changed to 5 types for D3 and removed skulls/runewords
5. Potions took up mega room -> D3 potions are rare and unnecessary
6. Town portals and scrolls of identify took up room -> removed
7. CULDRON AND CUBE DESTROY THE NEED FOR INVENTORY ROOM

If you're following, then you should realize that they completely trivialized storage space necessity. Why? Because they needed room for the rune system and for items so that they could promote the RMAH.

ALL of the changes make sense if you realize that they over-solved the inventory management problem. They have been working hard on the rune system for a while too, without giving us any details. My guess is that they figured out how to reduce the space that the rune system takes up, and with it, realized that they should probably let inventory management be part of the game again. It was a big part of D2. If you factor in the fact that they decided to drop more white items and not allow them to be broken down into mats...


WELL WOW THAT MAKES A LOT OF SENSE... :) I'm a genius I know. They really just need to find a balance to where inventory management is fun and not too tedious. Every change really comes back to itemization / inventory issues
 

Dan

The New Helper.Net gives me great Anxiety... o.O;;
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The stat changes are a result of itemization too. They want stats that are essentially bad for your class. It makes for more combinations of items in the game that your character may not like. They didn't actually remove any stats, just changed them around. Defense is now "physical resist" and armor does what defense did... etc.

The mystic fits into the itemization equation too. They are going to save her for later, as all she was was another gem system. Nothing more.

The UI stuff is just for our benefit really.
 

Jedimindtrixxx

┻━┻ ︵ ¯\(ツ)/¯ ︵ ┻━┻
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personally i never had a problem with diablo 2 tetris. sort of enjoyed it actually. always been a fan of tetris.
 

Bloodcount

Starcraft II Moderator
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Blizzard are sooo ruining the game for me. This is becoming like a hack and slash version of wow T_T Time will tell if I am right or not, but I might go for torchlight or path of exile instead of Diablo...
 

Accname

2D-Graphics enthusiast
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Blizzard are sooo ruining the game for me. This is becoming like a hack and slash version of wow T_T Time will tell if I am right or not, but I might go for torchlight or path of exile instead of Diablo...

I thought diabolo always was a hack and slay. Hell isnt it even the archetype of a hack and slay by any definition?
 

Bloodcount

Starcraft II Moderator
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Yes, and hack and slash is the only thing which makes it different from wow...
 

tommerbob

Minecraft. :D
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Thank god they are reverting the changes to the stats. Why? Let me quote myself from over a year ago:

To be honest, I'm pretty hesitant about these changes. I like that they are trying to simplify things, but I'm not sure I like how they are doing it, at least with the Attack stat. For one thing, "Attack" is just a horrible name for an RPG stat.

The main concern with the new Attack stat I have is the fact that it increases all damage. That means that items with the "+Attack" mod will be beneficial to all players regardless of their build. Why is that bad? Because it reduces a player's customizing options for their character. They no longer need to choose between Spell Damage and Physical damage. All they need is +Attack and they are set. I just don't like it. Spell Damage and Physical Damage are inherently different damage types, and therefore should be treated differently. It doesn't make any sense for the same stat that makes me hit harder with my sword also makes my spells more powerful.

The excuses that Blizzard has given for these changes are completely lame. Example:

"Willpower increased damage for casters (wizard, witch doctor), and Strength increased damage for weapon users (monk, barb, demon hunter). This is inherently confusing" -Bashiok

Someone please explain to me how that is confusing. It's only confusing for stupid 10 year olds who shouldn't be playing this game anyway because it is intentionally M-rated. I understand that it can be difficult for some character balancing because some skill-damage should be based on Willpower, while others should be based on Dexterity or Strength. But I don't think the solution is combining the stats. Just change the way skills are affected by stats. WoW does it just fine.

I just love how Blizzard changes their argument as they go along.
 

Accname

2D-Graphics enthusiast
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1,462
Creating games isnt easy. At some point you might have a great new idea which will change the game completely to the better and then, next day, you suddenly realize that the idea is complete and utter bullshit and you try to revert everything back...
That happens to everybody sometimes. Its because you try to be innovative and spice things up every now and then. However, the results can vary.
 

Bloodcount

Starcraft II Moderator
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297
The good thing is that Blizzard seem to be okay with changing everything in the game as long as it makes it better (so seems to be their policy atleast)
 

tommerbob

Minecraft. :D
Reaction score
110
Creating games isnt easy. At some point you might have a great new idea which will change the game completely to the better and then, next day, you suddenly realize that the idea is complete and utter bullshit and you try to revert everything back...
That happens to everybody sometimes. Its because you try to be innovative and spice things up every now and then. However, the results can vary.

Its just amusing to me that many fans told them exactly why their changes wouldn't work. They refused to listen, and now a year later, they revert their changes for those exact reasons that they refused to acknowledge before.

You are right though. I understand that changing one system can greatly impact many other systems in a game, which requires more changes and more iteration. Hell, with the map I'm currently working on I totally understand that. Its just ironic how they've come full circle and we were right all along.
 

Accname

2D-Graphics enthusiast
Reaction score
1,462
Its just amusing to me that many fans told them exactly why their changes wouldn't work. They refused to listen, and now a year later, they revert their changes for those exact reasons that they refused to acknowledge before.

You are right though. I understand that changing one system can greatly impact many other systems in a game, which requires more changes and more iteration. Hell, with the map I'm currently working on I totally understand that. Its just ironic how they've come full circle and we were right all along.

Who knows? Maybe a week later it will be completely different again, and maybe the week after it will be yet another change.

Blizzard got my respect at least for the fact that they really care enough to change those things so often if they acknowledge a mistake. Just think about how much time they wasted to create those systems, scripts, graphics, brainstorming, and now they just throw them away to start all over again. Thats frustrating and can really ruin your motivation.
It isnt easy to carry on with your work after such a throw back, i can understand that.
 
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