Diablo III Open Beta this weekend

[Stormseeker]

Played for a bit, to linear on level up and everything seemed ...i guess what i am looking for is "simple". Would be one to put on xbox gamefly list, or wait till it hit 9.99 at the bargin bin.

[I-KP]

I was put off after reading about the game having been 'simplified' (that word always worries me) and the addition of a 'real money' auction house. If I was well enough this w/e I'd have tried the free beta to find out for myself. Oh well.

[kid]

Tried, tested and Mehed.

[Swift]

Alright, as someone that has been following this game since watching a stream of its announcement at the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational in France in 2008, the three biggest things that people seem to not like is the fact that skill trees do not exist, that you cannot customize your own stats and that the game is too easy. To answer this, here are three short with Jay Wilson, Diablo 3s Game Director, discussing all three topics. I highly recommend you listen to him discuss why they made the changes. Its insightful.

Why skillpoints were removed
Why we cant pick attribute points
Diablo 3 Difficulty discussion (from Blizzcon 2011)

As a long time WoW (that has used talent trees for seven years and is essentially getting rid of them completely in the next expansion) and Diablo 2 player (customizable stats) and having played with the new systems in the open beta for D3, I can say I am glad for the changes to the skill system and stats. Additionally, with the removal of customizable stats, the game can be balanced better because Blizzard will know that each class at each level will have roughly x health, rather than having to balance based either on people that pumped nothing but Vitality and thus making the game harder for those that didn't, or vice versa.

As for difficulty, if you don't watch the third video, there is a slide during the presentation that directly states "Act 1 is the tutorial". Monsters start off very simple, fairly passive and with very few abilities. As you progress through the acts of normal and on through nightmare and hell, you get more aggressive and faster monsters, along with increased abilities. If you recall, the first areas of Diablo 2 Act 1 consisted of mobs that would hardly even attack you until you attacked first. It is very much Blizzards way of making the game accessable to a wide range of players, while Nightmare, Hell and especially Inferno difficulty cater more and more to the harder core players. Jay Wilson himself says that good/hardcore players will breeze through normal and will really start to get into the game in Nightmare when the difficulty starts to really ramp up.

The customization in Diablo 3 comes from the skills and the items. Each class has 20-25 active skills, of which you can only ever use six at a time. In addition, each class has around 15 passive skills, of which you will only ever be able to use 3 at a time. Ontop of that, every single active skill has 5 runes that modify the skill in some way. For example, lets take the very first defensive skill for the Barbarian:

Ground Stomp

Generate: 15 Fury
Cooldown: 12 seconds
Smash the ground, stunning all enemies within 12 yards for 4 seconds.

That is the default skill as you get it at level 4. It has 5 runes that are unlocked as you level which can modify the skill in some way. You can only have 1 rune active at a time. The runes do the following:

Deafening Crash: Enemies in the area have their movement speed slowed by 60% for 3 seconds after they recover from being stunned.
Wrenching Smash: Increase the area of effect to 24 yards. Enemies are pulled closer before the strike lands.
Trembling Stomp: Enemies in the area also take 76% weapon damage.
Foot of the Mountain: Increase Fury gained to 30.
Avalanche: Enemies are knocked back 12 yards and inflict 55% weapon damage to enemies in the landing area.

So the skill starts out as a short range, short duration AoE stun. However, once all the runes are unlocked it can turn into a long range/short duration AoE stun, a short range/short duration stun AND snare, a short range/short duration AoE stunning attack, a short range/short duration stun and resource builder or a short range/short duration AoE clearing skill.

Every single skill is like this. I really recommend checking out the character classes from this page to see just how much customization of skills there is for this game. I honestly look forward to testing out every skill and run my chosen class gets, rather than just the two or three which are mathed out to be the absolute best.

When it comes to items, you have gems and sockets you can put in items in any configuration you wish.

Bring it on.

Edit: As for the Real Money Auction House, I cannot understand why it will be an issue for people. Real Money trading for Diablo 2 items has been going on since virtually the day the game was released via third party websites. All the RMAH is doing is bringing that into a secure environment. The only items that will be on there are items found by players. Ontop of that, if it is something you don't like, you simply do not use it.

[Stormseeker]

All that is fine and dandy but for me personally i like to be able to customize my "toon" from skills to weapons. At level 5 i had lmb rmb and the number 1 key. i like to be able to use all my skills not constantly going into options and changing them depending on what enemies and weapons i have at the time.
There is a trend in games recently that have edged toward the "less is more" attitude. And this is a fine example of that trend. If you like games like this, then by all means enjoy it...but if your like me and like games that require you to think about all your choices..this one is not for you.

[Swift]

How many skills would you traditionally be used in Diablo 2? With my Amazon, I regularly used three: Multishot; Guided Arrow and Valkyrie. Most other character builds for classes were the same. There is alot of rose colored glasses being worn in the community when looking back at Diablo 2.

What I also do not understand is...there was no thinking about your choices in Diablo 2. There simply wasn't. If you wanted a character build that could survive particularly Hell difficulty, you had to mass dump into Vitality and mass focus your build on two or three skills in the skill tree. That was simply it, there was no other choice because you simply could not survive without doing so. Sure, you could play wacky builds like melee sorcs, bow wielding barbarians etc, but they were not viable later in the game. The Diablo 3 devs are more interested in greatly increasing the number of viable builds.

I have played WoW on and off for six years that uses a talent tree system and, again, there simply is no choice if you want a good character. You find the build that is best, vary it very slightly based on how you play and thats it. Most Healing priests have the same build, all tanking warriors have the same build etc. The chances of you running into another character in Diablo 3 that uses the exact same build as you is very remote. Even if they have the same six skills, they probably won't be runed the same.

Additionally, there is absolutely nothing stopping you from trying out a skill for a few minutes and going "Dont like it" and never using it again. They predict that once players get into Nightmare, they will have settled on the skills that they personally find fitting to their style of play and will not change it very much (All skills are unlocked by the time you finish normal around level 30, from 30-60, it is only skill runes that continue to unlock). They have also added in a buff called Nephalam Valor which gives you increased magic find each time you kill a boss/champion/rare mob, but this buff is reset every time you change a skill, so it is in your best interests to not fool around too much.

I simply do not like seeing people dismiss a game (any game) based on a lack of understanding. There is more freedom for customization in Diablo 3 than Diablo 2, but many people simply cannot see how it can play out that way just because skill trees and customizable stats are not there. That said, I am hardly going to convince any one of this, but you are going to miss out on a great game if you decide yes or no on the first fragment of the tutorial we were allowed to access in the beta.

[fluffmonster]

Played the beta, enjoyed it, but will be waiting for Torchlight 2.

[Swift]

I am keen on Torchlight 2 as well, though still a little wary. The difficulties in Torchlight were...lacking, to say the least. Normal was easy, hard was normal etc and while being quite fun, it just didn't quite get the hooks into me. I did like the never ending dungeon idea though. Something I have wanted in D2 and now D3 for a long, long time.

[Swift]

Less than 4 days.

Evil nears.

I have a couple weeks off work, I will be up for some play once I have finished normal (which should be sometime Wednesday US time )

[Vendrin]

Error 37 looks so awesome.


Explain to me again why they couldn't allow singleplayer.....

[Swift]

Security and user friendliness.

I dont particularly agree with the reasons, though I can understand why they chose them.

[ElCadaver]

*Gilligans Island theme song*

"A Four hour tour, a four hour tour"!

Lol

Several korean groups have completed the game in 4 hours on normal difficulty. Plus the game was completed just over 12 hours after it launched.



http://n4g.com/news/997770/diablo-iii-n ... -4-5-hours

I'd cry as a programmer/designer if this happened to me, after months of slog.

[Swift]

It was fully expected. Experienced Diablo 2 players were always going to plow through the easiest difficulty. These guys basically just ran from boss to boss.

It hardly matters for other players unless they are the kind to find a game ruined by how others decide to play it. Alot of them on the official forums

[fluffmonster]

So how long is the SP campaign for average Joe Gamer?

[Burt]

So how long is the SP campaign for average Joe Gamer?

Playing co-op with mord (and zic, when he appears) - it's taking us about 3-4 hours per act so far. We're not exploring everything and we're mostly powering through mobs with ease. I imagine it varies from 15-20 hours for a casual paced initial run through.