On August 04 2011 03:48 trainRiderJ wrote: You can definitely reclaim runes from your skills, but they remain "attuned", "activated", "identified", or whatever you want to call it. At that point you can sell them, keep them for other builds, etc.
Note that per Bashiok's latest comments this system isn't set in stone. Runes seem like the last game feature to be really locked down.
Regarding the beta, there have been a couple good Blizzard quotes and I'll try to paraphrase: Basically, they don't need to test balance even remotely as much as for SC2 because it's a cooperative game and they can always go back and change things. They don't need us to test quests, "fun factor" of abilities, or the story itself either. What they DO need us to test is the completely new battle.net infrastructure. Apparently although it's still "Battle.net 2" and tied to SC2, most or all of the Diablo 3 battle.net systems are completely new. Another major testing point is the wide variety of PC hardware configurations. Because of the this, the beta should be smaller in scope as compared to SC2, both in terms of duration and number of testers.
I surprised anyone didn't think anything else, the diablo 2 beta was purely a stress test on bnet 1. Theres nothing else they can really do without you know giving the full game free to beta testers to try.
On August 04 2011 02:50 Probe1 wrote: Just to finish out your post Diks.. Roaches were 1 supply. The balance of beta SC2 was so supremely fucked up that I'd say it was an unfinished game until they tweaked it!
Yep. You had to have 2 Phoenixes for every 3 Mutalisks to end harassment because they couldn't kite. Going Phoenixes in response to a Muta+Ling build was utterly suicidal (they could just fly in and snipe them one by one as you made them at 45s a piece) and always ended in getting overrun by economy and Speedlings because you had to make too many Cannons and/or Blink Stalkers to keep the Mutas at bay.
Then there was the 1 Immortal, 3-Gate Bunker Bust against Terran that just facerolled over every opening build.
Oh, except Marauder spam, prior to the Conc Shell upgrade. Terran could just pump out early Marauders one by one and charge head-first into your base as they came out. You couldn't hope to equal their number, or accumulate even a half-decent gateway force to hold them off, since they could beat Stalkers 1on1, and kill Zealots and Sentries with ease. Always ended up in a pulled mineral line and eventual defeat.
And this has changed?
In a straight-up stand-still fight, no. But, they can fire while moving now, thus they can kite and deal damage without getting hit. One or two phoenixes in the hands of a good player is enough to scare off a much bigger blob of Mutalisks than they could before that change.
Not really... they deal damage to slow... can just mass mutas up at home and gg.
How the hell did diablo 3 talk become sc2 balance talk?
I wonder how bnet 2.0 under D3 will be like: will they learn the lessons from the sc2 implementation and roll out with a much stronger community support? Will we have clan support and chat rooms?
On August 04 2011 04:13 Hikari wrote: How the hell did diablo 3 talk become sc2 balance talk?
I wonder how bnet 2.0 under D3 will be like: will they learn the lessons from the sc2 implementation and roll out with a much stronger community support? Will we have clan support and chat rooms?
Everything can become a SC2 balance thread.
Chat rooms, yes, they mentioned it. I don't think they talked about clan support, and I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't implemented. I'm more curious about the games lobby system, if they are going to try something crazy and possibly mess it up.
Honestly, I'm wondering how much longer before Battle.net is a pay-per-month/per game thing. All games only available with online connection. Subscription increase per game. Micro-transactions, with a slight cut of course, per game Micro-transactions from Blizzard direct, per game. Web 2.0 social media log ins
On August 04 2011 03:29 Bibdy wrote: I think that his point was that it's gambling. You might have a decent Rune in your slot now, but you have to sacrifice that to have a chance that the new one you slot in will be better. The better the current Rune is, the more you risk, because you can't get that Rune back and the new one you tried might be utter garbage.
On the bright side, it means the value of Runes will plummet, since every Rune will come attached with a stipulation that even though it could be the best rune ever, it might also be a colossal pile of doggy doo and you have to take the personal risk to find out.
In essence, it's like he said; a casino system.
Edit: Going to digest it all again to make sure I'm not talking out of my ass with the 'not being able to get the old Rune back' thing.
You don't have to sacrifice the rune so it's not really gambling. It's no different than how items work really. You find an item and it will have random modifiers. It could be complete shit or it could be amazing. This makes the game more compelling and provides more reason to continue playing because you will always be searching for something better, even if it's only a few more stats. If all rank 7 runes were the same, then you wouldn't have to worry about them once you got six rank 7 runes. Ultimately, runes would become pretty worthless and common, especially since they don't disenigrate upon unsocketing. With random affixes, some runes could potentially become extremely valuable and desirable.
And to the person who said this is too much for new players to figure out...jeez...this is why blizzard keeps dumbing down their game. Honestly, it's not a hard concept to understand anyways. And it's not like you will have to find the perfect rune to complete the game anyways.
On August 04 2011 04:13 Hikari wrote: How the hell did diablo 3 talk become sc2 balance talk?
I wonder how bnet 2.0 under D3 will be like: will they learn the lessons from the sc2 implementation and roll out with a much stronger community support? Will we have clan support and chat rooms?
A lot of this has already been answered......unfortunately I can't get into diablo.incgamers.com to pull the screenshots I wanted.
Basically there's easy friend grouping for games, public coop matchmaking, pvp matchmaking, the auction house, and chat, all accessible more or less from one screen.
On August 04 2011 04:32 derElbe wrote: i really hope the beta gets started/dated in an hour! is there a restream to the upcoming blizz converence call ?
Wait... so will the beta include all the acts? It's still an RPG, I'm just wondering if players will be playing through the whole single player game or if it will just be Act 1 with a level cap just to make sure all of the game mechanics function properly and to get player feedback.
This is actually pretty exciting, I'm still barely able to process that we have starcraft 2 right now. Diablo 3 being probably less than 1-2 years from release just feels strange.
All indications so far has been that the beta will only be up til Leoric, roughly 1/3rd of act 1 (at least I've heard that it is 1/3rd of act 1). Appears Blizzard will rely on internal testing to cover everything else.
I didn't see anyone else mention this, but the main reason the real money auction house is so discouraging to me is that it takes away the escapism from the game. D3 is being marketed as a PvE focused action RPG, something you relax with for a couple hours with a few buddies and slay monsters. I don't WANT to come across a rare drop and suddenly have to weigh its value to me vs. its monetary value. What I want even less is to weigh that value when browsing the auction house for something to buy. Nothing is more real than money, I don't need or want reality imposing itself on a game.
On August 04 2011 04:44 Drowsy wrote: Wait... so will the open beta include all the acts? It's still an RPG, I'm just wondering if players will be playing through the whole single player game or if it will just be Act 1 with a level cap just to make sure all of the game mechanics function properly and to get player feedback.
No. The beta will be "very" small.
"While beta will obviously be a lot of fun, should you get the chance to get in and help test, it’ll only be a small part of the whole game. Some people want to know everything, but we’re really trying to preserve the surprise and wonderment (that we hope will come with exploring Diablo III) as much as possible."
"Beta contains all five classes and ends with Leoric."
Content
When the beta does finally roll out, players can pick between any of the five classes and play from the beginning of the game, until the death of Leoric. This is roughly one to two hours of content, the introduction of the game. The beta will feature one artisan and the templar follower Kormac. The Rune system will not be available for play, due to runes now dropping starting in Act II. The Auction House will be present, the gold version, not the RMT version. Friends list and other expected battle.net functionality will also be in the beta. There will not, however, be any Arena or pvp in the beta at all.
On August 04 2011 04:44 Drowsy wrote: Wait... so will the beta include all the acts? It's still an RPG, I'm just wondering if players will be playing through the whole single player game or if it will just be Act 1 with a level cap just to make sure all of the game mechanics function properly and to get player feedback.
This is actually pretty exciting, I'm still barely able to process that we have starcraft 2 right now. Diablo 3 being probably less than 1-2 years from release just feels strange.
Just Act 1, to mainly test the server and find bugs. It may be less than 6 months from release, as this should be faster than Blizzards usual betas.
On August 04 2011 04:47 FireBearHero wrote: All indications so far has been that the beta will only be up til Leoric, roughly 1/3rd of act 1 (at least I've heard that it is 1/3rd of act 1). Appears Blizzard will rely on internal testing to cover everything else.
Which makes sense, since they don't want to give the whole story away before it's even released and it wouldn't make sense to risk losing the sales of beta testers who just wanted to play through once or twice and manage to do so with the free beta version and then don't buy the game.
The beta needs to be just long enough test for crashes / performance issues, stress test battle.net, and ensure the battle.net features are fully operational. Things like balance of classes don't matter too much since it's a PvE cooperative game
On August 04 2011 04:47 FireBearHero wrote: All indications so far has been that the beta will only be up til Leoric, roughly 1/3rd of act 1 (at least I've heard that it is 1/3rd of act 1). Appears Blizzard will rely on internal testing to cover everything else.
ok I'm kinda glad to hear that, I don't want to spoil everything just playing through a rough beta. For me anyway, a lot of the appeal of Diablo 3 will be story/art/music/single player campaign.
EPT
