*IT* IS COMING. (Diablo 3 beta)

[Jezal_k23]

I will comment on the difficulty once I get into the FUCKING beta. FUCK. I want in.

 

[Padre]

http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/diablo-3-beta-lottery-only-sc2-and-wow-players

If what above is true then I can kiss beta goodbye. Only have WC3 SC1 and D2 on my account.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

I have SC2 active in my account.


Why?



Problem?

 

[Gregz]

http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/diablo-3-beta-lottery-only-sc2-and-wow-players

If what above is true then I can kiss beta goodbye. Only have WC3 SC1 and D2 on my account.

Well, at least the version you end up playing will be less buggy.

 

[Zed]

I have both SC2 and active WoW on my blatte.net account

 

[Padre]

I have SC2 active in my account.


Why?


Problem?

Find it kind sad that you can't even apply for a beta when you have a D2 because it's called Legacy game now. They don't care that you spent 100 euro on their games already and require a recent game or that grind for zombies active sub.

Well, at least the version you end up playing will be less buggy

Prolly not because if I don't get into the beta I will be checking that darkblizz project frequently.

I'm really starved for a good hack and slash. TQ, T1 and the like can't really do it for me because they are either too simplistic and/or too slow.

 

[J1M]

Stop being spazzy retards. If you were able to do the beta opt in, you can be drawn for the beta. If you don't have a purchased game (such as Diablo 2) attached to your battle.net account you can't opt in. That low paid customer service employee in a foreign country has no special information and just assumed that SC2 and WoW were the only Blizzard products because those are the only ones he supports.

 

[RolePlayer]

This guy makes a lot of good points about the cookie cutter design decisions in D3 compared to D2: http://www.diablofans.com/topic/28361-s ... ntry653984

 

[Sordid Jester]

Auction house simulator, should be in strategy forum.

 

[Castanova]

This guy makes a lot of good points about the cookie cutter design decisions in D3 compared to D2: http://www.diablofans.com/topic/28361-s ... ntry653984

Meh. His post only holds water if level 7 skill runes are easy to obtain and/or do not confer large bonuses. If it takes, say, an entire run-through of Inferno difficulty to get, say, just one level 7 skill rune then it'll actually be very important to pick a particular build and stick with it. Once you spend that skill rune, you'd better damn well use that skill.

Basically the skill runes are quite similar to spending 20 skill points on a particular skill as you level up. Except better, really, because you have a choice in how the skill is "specialized."

What remains to be seen is their rarity and how they are obtained (random drops? quest reward? boss drop?).

 

[Damned Registrations]

He made a good point about balance too. They're going to have no incentive to balance this shit after It's put out. If anyone bitches that Spell X only does 10% of the damage of Spell Y in the same area with a longer cast time: "LOL, just change skills NOOB" is likely the response they'll get. Assuming they don't do that themselves and never complain about the shitty useless skills in the first place. They're pretending the problem of dead end skill builds is a problem on our end they're going to fix for us by removing the choice to make it, so they don't have to deal with the problem of overpowered/underpowered shit they didn't think of on their end.

I mean, it's been how many fucking years since D2 was released, and enemies still have a bug making them do 256x the amount of mana they're supposed to burn in melee, making energy shield pretty much completely fucking worthless.
But it's ok because in Diablo 3, it won't be their fault when a bug like this occurs, you can just not use the skill!

Oh, and assuming you're right and skill runes take an entire playthrough to farm, in what way is it a better system than one with skillpoints that take an entire playthrough to farm? You can do the farming at the high end on Bhaal over and over again instead of playing through the whole game?

 

[pocahaunted]

I mean, it's been how many fucking years since D2 was released, and enemies still have a bug making them do 256x the amount of mana they're supposed to burn in melee, making energy shield pretty much completely fucking worthless.
But it's ok because in Diablo 3, it won't be their fault when a bug like this occurs, you can just not use the skill!

This doesn't make any fucking sense and could be used as a justification - by utter retards - in any kind of balance discussion.

 

[Castanova]

He made a good point about balance too. They're going to have no incentive to balance this shit after It's put out.

Blizzard is actually pretty well known for putting lots of effort into balance, even years after release. I think your D2 bug example is an exception. Furthermore, Blizzard is very well incentivized to balance skills in D3 because of the Arena component. Given that Arena diehards will probably be the same people dropping $$$ to buy things on the auction house, it'd be stupid to alienate them.

Oh, and assuming you're right and skill runes take an entire playthrough to farm, in what way is it a better system than one with skillpoints that take an entire playthrough to farm? You can do the farming at the high end on Bhaal over and over again instead of playing through the whole game?

I don't know how the game will be designed. If you can EASILY farm level 7 runes in a Baal-run-esque way then I would call that a failure in design. That being said, Inferno difficulty is supposed to remain difficult perpetually. If Blizzard delivers on this promise, then we won't see anything like D2 Baal-runs because you can't just blow through the content in 15 minutes.

That being said, if people want to spend all their time farming level 7 runes, then what do I care anyway? Runes are STILL better than farming Baal for experience because you can specialize each skill 5 ways rather than just pumping it up to 20 points.

Furthermore, the passive skills, if you check them out, are pretty diverse and clearly support different playstyles and builds. You can't swap these out. So you can't just level up one character and use him for everything. At the very least, you'll need one version of X class for PvE and one version for PvP.

 

[Sordid Jester]

Blizzard is actually pretty well known for putting lots of effort into balance, even years after release. I think your D2 bug example is an exception. Furthermore, Blizzard is very well incentivized to balance skills in D3 because of the Arena component. Given that Arena diehards will probably be the same people dropping $$$ to buy things on the auction house, it'd be stupid to alienate them.

That part seems contradictory to me ever so slightly. Do they have an Arena mode where you can block out munchin money-burning players? If so then fair comment, if not then LOL there's no fucking way Blizzard care about 'balance'.

Game should probably be pretty easy to balance anyway. Fuck-all and unimportant skills determined more by the factor of the loot you find/buy, at the very least it'll take a long time for players to find imbalance and most cries of it could be, like, "GET BETTER LOOT FAGGOT OMFG LOL"

 

[sgc_meltdown]

They should make this fine mmo product F2P with subscribers being allowed access to auctions

 

[xemous]

what were they thinking not having an offline single player option!!

 

[Grimlorn]

Blizzard is actually pretty well known for putting lots of effort into balance, even years after release. I think your D2 bug example is an exception. Furthermore, Blizzard is very well incentivized to balance skills in D3 because of the Arena component. Given that Arena diehards will probably be the same people dropping $$$ to buy things on the auction house, it'd be stupid to alienate them.

That part seems contradictory to me ever so slightly. Do they have an Arena mode where you can block out munchin money-burning players? If so then fair comment, if not then LOL there's no fucking way Blizzard care about 'balance'.

They've already stated they have no intention of balancing the game for pvp, or at least that's what I've read. Too hard to balance for pve and pvp I bet.

 

[spectre]

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/
All skills plus rune effects are up. Values seem borked though.

 

[Padre]

Looks a lot like wow.

No biggie though, will roll a necroma- I mean the voodoo guy for sure. Those pets looks kinda nice.

After checking all the skills and passive traits I can see wizard looks a little boring, monk actually looks like could be fun. Same for barbarian whos main con in D2 was lack of AOE. Well, not this time.

 

[Castanova]

Nice new website. Kind of tough to put a build together without trying the skills out first, though.

 

[Needles]

Spht: char creation(all chars)/world entry working/stable; no npc's/items yet xD

 

[Zed]

yeah values on the skill calculator seems broken. if not, then "rocket demon hunters" are gonna rock some socks.
EDIT: or maybe not. I thought any explosive stuff might count toward the rocket passive but I guess that could be wrong.

here's a wizard build I made! http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/w ... YWf!baaaaY
Teleport into mobs ->
>Frost Nova to root them and gain massive crit bonus (rune) ->
>Teleport out (rune) ->
>Meteor with bonus dot damage thanks to crits (rune) ->
>Electrocute with extra damage from crits (rune) ->
>Disintegrate (chance to explode mobs on death thanks to rune)/Electrocute to finish off mobs.

 

[Castanova]

Fun build, Zed, but gonna be heavily dependent on finding white rune drops.

The inevitable melee Wizard:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/w ... UeV!acZZYa

 

[Zed]

what are the abilities you gain as an archon?

 

[Overweight Manatee]

This guy makes a lot of good points about the cookie cutter design decisions in D3 compared to D2: http://www.diablofans.com/topic/28361-s ... ntry653984

Meh. His post only holds water if level 7 skill runes are easy to obtain and/or do not confer large bonuses. If it takes, say, an entire run-through of Inferno difficulty to get, say, just one level 7 skill rune then it'll actually be very important to pick a particular build and stick with it. Once you spend that skill rune, you'd better damn well use that skill.

Basically the skill runes are quite similar to spending 20 skill points on a particular skill as you level up. Except better, really, because you have a choice in how the skill is "specialized."

What remains to be seen is their rarity and how they are obtained (random drops? quest reward? boss drop?).

It should be obvious that their primary method of obtainment is going to be the Auction House. Skill runes are nothing more than another form of equipment Blizzard is going to try and sell.