It’s time to bring you another round-up from the official Diablo III forums, and this time community manager “Bashiok” has been busy addressing questions about the upcoming beta testing period, changes to the magic find stat, skill tree layouts, a potential release date, and more.
On balancing PvP and PvE separately:
We do have the ability to keep separate functionality, but we want to try to avoid big differences that make it feel like two different games when you play PvE and PvP. One area where things work differently, and we think it’s ok, is in the case of CC, like stuns, snares, slows, etc. The duration of these skills is fairly significantly reduced when used against players, however, that same reduction in effectiveness is also see in the PvE game when it comes to unique/champion/boss monsters. So, it’s not only a jarring difference, it’s also actually experienced in PvE.
Bottom line is we’ll have to wait and see but, as I said, it’s something we have the ability to do if needed but would prefer to largely avoid. I just didn’t want anyone to think that we’re actively balancing them completely independently as that’s not accurate.
On the Golden Axe-inspired Treasure Seeker:
Yeah, it’s inspired by the little bastards in Golden Axe you’d wake up to stealing your stuff and have to kick the crap out of them.
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Think of it like he has 20 loot drops in him total, not that there’s some cooldown period. There’s no cooldown, he tries to run away and portal out, so you gotta get all those 20 drops out of him before he does. It’s not really tuned yet, people that saw him in the BlizzCon demo can probably attest to how easy he way to finish off with a caster.
On getting access to the beta:
Unless you’re actively seeking a beta invite through various promotions, contests, etc. or have attended BlizzCon, then your only chance is going to be getting an invite through the Battle.net beta opt-in.
If selected through the beta opt-in there’s no key involved, and beta access is automagically added to your Battle.net account. You’ll receive an email informing you of that.
The SC2 beta FAQ has quite a bit of info that’s still helpful for the beta signup process: http://us.starcraft2.com/beta-faq.xml
It’s also important to be aware of beta related scams. If there’s any email that claims you’ve been selected by the opt-in, don’t click on any of the links, simply go to www.battle.net, log in, and you can see if you have been selected. Otherwise any promotions shouldn’t require more than an email reply, and would include a beta key directly in the email (and again you can go directly to www.battle.net to claim it).
On combat and rune mechanics:
There is no stat to modify an enemies chance to hit you, but, there is a Dodge stat. It’s only given in small amounts through traits, and potentially some specific items. With Dodge, an enemy could still “hit” you, but you dodge the hit negating the damage entirely. It’s a stat we’re controlling fairly strictly, and as you said is probably going to be more appropriate for some classes (ie monk), while others may instead have more in the way of damage mitigation. We don’t intend for Dodge to overcome the need for damage mitigation through Defense and related damage reduction stats, even for the classes that have more of it available to them.
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We don’t currently have a design in place for what restrictions might be necessary, so I don’t have any specifics to share. I’ve said previously that we will probably limit when and where you can swap runes, and that’s probably the likely course, but things could change. It’s something that’s still just being talked about though and hasn’t hit an implementation stage yet. We’ll have to see how it works out.
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We’re spending plenty of thought cycles to ensure weapon choices are indeed choices, and not determined by a clear cut strength to go for one over another. Traits and skills obviously play a part in weapon choice as there are traits that offer bonuses while using a specific weapon type, and some skills favor certain types of weapons. As far as the base benefit of simply carrying around these weapons, yeah the bonuses associated between two weapons over one weapon are being kept in mind. Staves and 2-handers can have bigger and more powerful affixes than are allowed to generate on 1-handed weapons, for example. Equal amounts of sockets. That kind of thing.
On where the game stands in development:
The development process is such that there’s a constant iteration on all parts, so while skills are largely complete there’s still work being done that could mean some are removed or replaced, new ones added, visuals changed, mechanic changes, etc. and that will likely continue until the game releases. By the same token you could say an Act is playable from start to finish, but by no stretch would we consider it complete until we ship the game. Constant changes will occur until then to make sure it’s as close to perfect as possible. The majority of the guys and gals, I’d say, are progressing on filling out the content for the game. Which is also the exact stuff we want to be kept under wraps, and thus will never be seen until the game is released and you play the game yourself for the very first time. Which makes talking about what’s currently being developed kind of difficult. We have a few things left in store to share, though.
On changes to the magic find stat:
It’s very likely that magic find (MF) will be restricted to very specific uses. It would work on a per player basis, so if I have some MF it would affect what drops I see and not yours. For the sake of co-op we don’t ask that you damage an enemy to receive experience or drops, only that you’re within a close proximity. Asking every player to damage an enemy in order to receive experience or loot encourages really disruptive behavior that undermines the intent of co-op. So the situation being described could be a problem, but…
As I said it’s probably going to be fairly heavily restricted to specific sources and amounts. As an example, completely hypothetical, let’s say that the only magic find available is from placing a diamond gem in a head slot. It’s useful because of the amount it provides, but maybe other gems in a head slot provide things like bonus XP, bonus gold, etc. Then it’s not a choice of power vs. MF and building characters around the system, but a choice between interesting bonuses that will probably change through the career of a character. Anyway, that’s just a thought on how it could work. It’s still under consideration. We like the idea of having some way to improve your chances to find magic items, but not as a driving statistic for characters.
It’s also worth pointing out in this case that enemies in Diablo III are more sophisticated. You’ll find them targeting characters in your group they perceive as weaker, keeping distance, and cooperating to try to kill you and your group. So having one person run ahead to face pull everything, let alone be able to solo everything in a multiplayer game, probably isn’t going to work out too well.
On skill tree layouts:
So yeah, skills are tiered out for progression. Not only as a reward as you level up, but also to ensure we’re not dumping the entire game on a new player. Early tier skills tend to be cheap or free to cast, and have fairly straight forward mechanics and uses (do damage to enemies). As the tiers progress we introduce more complex systems, avoidance, mobility, maybe skills that cost a little more, or require a bit more finesse to pull off well. Then we get to the end of the tiers and these are usually the biggest, most expensive, and visually impressive. The tiers do start out simply and progress toward the bigger and ‘cooler’ spells. As they should. We can also design and tune the beginning of the game with the skills available in mind, which really helps to ensure those first few hours aren’t frustrating.
Anyway, as I said, the end tier skills also tend to be the most expensive. While I’m sure there will be builds that take all the end tier skills, people will still need to pick skills throughout the tree to create a solid character, and we’re designing the skills to ensure they can continue to be as viable as possible regardless of character level. Some first and second tier skills will scale really well and I don’t doubt will be bread and butter for a number of builds.
And just an FYI repeat of info – The leveling progression is designed that you’d have all your skill tiers unlocked before you finish Normal.
On whether balancing PvP is holding up the game:
We intend to get PvP as balanced as we can, because we want it to be fun and have some meaning to it. But, PvP balance is not an integral goal to releasing the game. We want PvP to be fun, not necessarily balanced to a razors edge. With the huge number of combinations per character compounded by team comps, balance is not going to be something we’d hold the game for. If we did it might never come out. It will be balanced as much as we realistically can expect before releasing the game, and we’ll certainly continue to make changes to try to keep it fun and interesting.
On why Diablo III is still a macro game:
As I said in another recent post the way health works in Diablo III we can’t really have big spikey damage coming through a ton because you’re not going to have any reliable way to deal with it. You’ll have health globes, which are not guaranteed (but can be guaranteed more often or to heal more with class traits), and then potions on cooldowns. So the game has to shift away from having to compensate for those huge spikes to a more moderate managing of defenses and attacks. Which isn’t to say you’re going to be out their in big bulky armor with tons of defense hitting guys with a stick. You’re still the god king demon killer from the infiniteverse of badassery. It’s just a shift of general balance and how damage comes in to player characters. It should be far more measured and manageable with stats and character building as the reliance on potspam just isn’t there.
And on the topic specifically, the game is very much about macro. We spend a ton of time pining over textures and poly counts to ensure we can throw hundreds of creatures at you without blinking. And we think for the minimal performance impact we design them for, they look real damn good.
That’s with the exception of uniques and bosses, though. Uniques especially change up the recipe in the middle of macro fights. Which is good. You see one and you’re like “WHAT AFFIXES!? NOOOOOOOO” but the rewards for downing one ideally make the extra effort of hacking at them for a bit worthwhile.
On if we’ll see the game in 2011 or 2012:
Blizzard has not announced a release date for its next global release. IF we don’t release a major title in 2011, then for planning purposes we would expect to launch 2 titles in 2012.
This has been misreported/misinterpreted as an announced release schedule for 2011 and 2012, which it is not. While we’re pleased with the progress of Diablo III, we have not announced a release date for it or for any other upcoming Blizzard game. We’re currently contacting a number of outlets to request that they make the appropriate corrections in order to avoid any further confusion.
And on hit and miss mechanics:
Essentially all attacks have a flat 5% chance to miss, with the exception of most ranged spells, AOE, and abilities with larger resource investments. There’s no blanket rule that’s easy for me to lay down to show which can’t miss and which can, it’s sort of handled on a case by case basis. Most melee attacks have a 5% chance to miss, but then some melee attacks can’t miss because the resource cost is substantial. It’s sort of common sense in a way, that a range attack has to be aimed and connect with a moving target so a chance to miss in in the player’s skill, so no need to have it on the ability (some exceptions exist). AOE just doesn’t make good sense to miss because if the enemy is in the area of effect that’s their bad. Skills with big resource costs have that investment in them, so giving them a chance to miss feels lame. Skills that can miss are usually the low/no cost melee attacks, spammable attacks, etc. And no, there is no stat or way to augment/reduce chance to miss.
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…we’ve already shown that multiple systems will allow you to manage base character stats in far more interesting and complex ways than clicking the + buttons. I feel we’ve shown that the combat can be deep and engaging to a point that outplaying someone will be outplaying them, making up a crazy build that works, and not because you know Excel functions better.
