In his most recent responses on the official Diablo III forums, community manager “Bashiok” addresses questions about the newly announced Demon Hunter profession, death penalties, forcing players to create Battle.net characters, and more.
On the announcement of the Demon Hunter:
Immediately following the opening ceremonies and the announcement of Diablo III’s demon hunter, the game’s fifth and final playable class, the team took the stage to discuss the making of the new class, as well as an overall update on hero design, skills, and customization. In attendance was Game Director Jay Wilson, Art Director Christian Lichtner, Lead Character Artist Paul Warzecha, Lead World Designer Leonard Boyarsky, Technical Game Designer Wyatt Cheng, Lead Content Designer Kevin Martens, Lead Technical Artist Julian Love, and last but certainly not least, about 20,000 of their closest friends.
As many had guessed, the demon hunter fills out a gap in the hero archetypes by adding a ranged-weapon class to the Diablo III roster. In fact, a ranged class had always been the plan, but originally the demon hunter was called the ranger and took a woodland-hunter vibe. But as the other heroes were designed, created, and announced, the ranger began to lose its luster. It just wasn’t stacking up to be as cool as the other classes, and so it went back to the drawing board.
When designing the class, some core ideas kept coming back and ended up driving much of the design. The class needed to be dark, mysterious, medieval/gothic, and most importantly feel like a ranged class. The name and idea of a demon hunter were born. Some early ideas included having an actual demon be a playable class, but it was quickly reinforced that heroes in Diablo need to be human. That idea evolved into the demon hunter having a demonic presence overtaking one of its arms, but this proved to feel too melee-oriented, since you’d constantly want to punch demons with your demonic arm. So with some of the more outlandish ideas out of the way, a slender, dark, sexy, gothic character began to take form in the demon hunter as it exists today.
The demon hunter has a unique vibe in that while it is a ranged class, it takes on some additional flavor from the use of gadgets, acrobatics, and shadow magic. The basic premise of the demon hunter sells the concept that it is a class of people who wait, stalk, and prey upon demons. Their sole purpose is to rid Sanctuary of the demonic threat, and they’ve spent time not only honing their minds and bodies to kill demons with dual crossbows, but also by laboring in a workshop creating gadgets to help get the job done. In addition, their thirst for the destruction of all demons is so great that they’ve invested themselves in the dark art of shadow magic to assist in their quest. The team showed videos of several of the demon hunter’s signature skills, which can be viewed over on the class page.
Demon Hunter class page – http://us.blizzard.com/diablo3/characters/demonhunter.xml
Taking a step back from the demon hunter, there have been numerous changes to classes in general, and the current state of class design and character customization was laid out in detail. Skills are at the core of what defines a character. Fast and flashy, slow and defensive, powerful but limited, and plenty of other permutations besides. These basic concepts that can help define a character all rely on the skill system. The Diablo III skill system has gone through a few iterations during the development process, and the latest and greatest was shown off at this BlizzCon. With seven skill slots to choose from, players will be able to mix and match skills from an ever-growing pool of abilities as they level. With the inclusion of skill runes, the number of combinations is almost beyond comprehension. Almost, because we took some time, did some math, and found out that the number of skill and rune combinations available in the game reaches an astronomical number of just under 97 billion. That’s purely skill and rune combinations and doesn’t factor in any of the other character customization systems.
Speaking of character customization, a few new systems have now been revealed. To cut down on the number of skills and focus on just active abilities, passives have been moved out of the main skill tree. There is now a secondary tree that contains nothing but passives, which are now called traits. Traits are individual passive abilities that you can spend points in to alter core attributes and mechanics. Trait points are gained every other level, which allows even these passive abilities a way to provide an exciting and noticeable increase in power or effect. Some examples of traits were given, and both their lore and mechanics described. An example for the barbarian, Inner Rage: “While most orders teach the merits of calming the seas of the soul, the guardians of Arreat have embraced the raging inner storm.” This trait can have up to five ranks. It reduces the rate of Fury lost and increases Fury gained for hitting the same target.
Some of the specifics of the trait system aren’t quite complete, with a laundry list of tasks and problems left to solve. The UI for the system isn’t final; a more awesome version is in the works. The idea of gaining points every other level also isn’t necessarily set, and while it’s the current best solution, the search continues for a better one. Right now each class also has too many traits with too many ranks, causing the same overcrowding problem that splitting traits away from active skills was attempting to alleviate. Those are issues that will be worked on, iterated, and polished as the development process continues.
Another new feature was revealed, or rather shown, for the first time: the talisman. Charms in Diablo II were items that sat in your inventory, forcing players to choose between precious storage space and character power. Most people ended up filling their inventory with charms, and only leaving enough space to pick up one or two items. That’s not an ideal system in a game with such a focus on acquiring loot, so the talisman system provides an elegant replacement, setting aside a dedicated space on the character sheet to place charms and gain their effect. Rather than choosing between inventory space and useful charm effects, you’ll be making decisions about which selection of charms to put on your talisman.
The skill rune system made a welcome return, as the team unveiled the latest iteration on the concept. Runes provide a powerful avenue of character customization, as they can be applied to skills to substantially alter both their mechanical effects and the visuals associated with them one example the team showed was the witch doctor’s Plague Toads skill, which with the application of different runes morphs into a rain of toads from above or a single giant toad able to swallow demons whole. Skill runes come in five loosely themed types: crimson, indigo, obsidian, golden, and alabaster, each of which is available in seven power levels. A level-one rune applied to the wizard’s Magic Missile skill fires two missiles, while the max-level rune turns it into a screen-filling barrage.
As also announced during the opening ceremony, the player-vs.-player (PvP) portion of Diablo III has now been revealed, and is known as the battle arena. These are small gladiatorial arenas specifically designed for fast and furious PvP combat. They focus on team-based combat (balancing for 3v3), using each player’s character from the single player/co-op game, with a ‘best out of’ format. With almost 97 billion potential skill and rune builds, and then factoring in items, the talisman system, and traits, character balance isn’t likely to lend itself to an eSport, and in fact the PvP for Diablo III has always been designed a side game intended purely for fun. We know you like killing each other, so that’s what it’s there to provide. Even though it’s not a hardcore ranked system designed to determine the best in the world, there will be matchmaking to try to get players together of similar skill, and there will be a personal progression system that will reward your character for participating in PvP.
We’ll be back tomorrow with a recap of the Crafting Sanctuary panel, where the designers, artists, programmers, and writers will provide insight into what it takes to create the world of Diablo III. See you then!
On the game’s paper doll:
I really like it.
I like how simple and functional it is. I like that it has an old school vibe to it. I like that it’s a very classic 2D paperdoll. And I like that it puts the emphasis on the icons (all of which directly reflect how the items actually look on your character) and not a spinny 3D character window.
I like it, a lot. And not necessarily how it looks specifically, although I do love the aesthetic, but the concept that it represents. That this is an old school action RPG, and it’s going to kick you in the face.
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Quest items are now stored directly within the quest itself. They don’t take up any space at all.
On item linking in chat:
We really want item linking through chat, I think it’s one of those things that is universally agreed upon. I’d be shocked if it wasn’t in for ship. And I’d make a face like :O
There needs to be a way to show people in the game an item you just got without opening trade or dropping it.
On the Demon Hunter’s weapon selection:
The demon hunter isn’t restricted to ranged weapons but is of course the core archetype of the class. It’s a bit early for determining usable weapons still, but I know at the least one-handers/shields are planned to be usable. And it’s likely there will at least be some traits that improve melee weapon use.
On the “Crafting Sanctuary” panel at BlizzCon:
It’s early on day two here at BlizzCon, and last night’s festivities and battlefield skirmishes have taken their toll on panelists and attendees. But this is not the time for behaving like a mewling kitten. This is the time to prepare for the coming conflict, brave the stench of brimstone, and stare into the maw of the Burning Hells!
In the Diablo III Crafting Sanctuary panel, Game Director Jay Wilson, Lead Content Designer Kevin Martens, Concept Artist Josh Tallman, Sr. Environment Artist Peet Cooper, Sr. Systems Designer Jason Bender, Sr. Technical Artist Jill Harrington, Lead Gameplay Programmer Steve Shimizu, Art Director Christian Lichtner, and Sr. User Interface Artist Michael Nicholson all took the stage to discuss the myriad design disciplines that come together to create a game.
Play, Don’t Tell
In constructing Diablo III, a few core storytelling philosophies have become guiding principles for how the game is designed. One of these is the concept of Play, Don’t Tell. To illustrate the point, a piece of well-known dialogue was played from the start of Diablo II: the intro conversation with Warriv. The conversation scrolls by, and it takes over a minute to hear him out. Over that time the number of monsters killed and treasure gained equals zero, and the ratio of story told to story played is completely one-sided.
To remedy this, Diablo III takes a more action-oriented approach, which the designed illustrated with a scene from the game. Instead of yet another static conversation with a quest giver, the NPC follows the player shortly after initiating dialogue. The player can kill, pick up loot, and continue with the adventure while the story unfolds. Arriving at the objective, short bits of dialogue impart information about the situation and the monster to be slain, and it’s all delivered during the action. Only upon killing the target and completing the quest are players expected to stop and listen to a short, congratulatory audio line and revel for a moment in their victory. In Diablo III, storytelling is interspersed throughout the action to make it more engaging.
Let’s take a look at another core storytelling philosophy: the concept of opt-in storytelling. While sometimes there are times when the only thing the game can really do is throw a bunch of text at you, we look for ways make those moments opt-in. If a player is interested in certain elements of the story, you can opt in for more; if not, you can easily pass it by. And whenever possible, we take let players opt in without taking them out of the play experience. Take lore books for example. Lore books can drop from any number of interactive objects or monsters, and when used, a voice will read the book’s contents aloud to the player. You can continue playing, killing, and looting while listening to the story.
Dungeons and Details
Moving on from story, a great deal of time is spent concepting dungeons, characters, and items. Even the etermining its look and feel — is a lengthy and complex process. The outside of a keep wall may use large white stones and dark iron to relay an imposing feeling of strength and rigidity, while the interior may use softer glows from braziers and wooden beams and doorways to create a more inviting feel. The idea of creating a specific feeling through the use of diverse materials and lighting is something that’s fully concepted well before any time goes into actually creating a dungeon or location.
Within these locations, the details make the difference. Hundreds or even thousands of individual treasure locations are placed in any given area for the game to randomly spawn only a few interactive treasures. These could come in the form of a rock, a tree stump, or more obviously, a chest. These spawn locations are all hand-placed, and while only a few may appear per game, those details help bring an area to life and add to replayability.
Speaking of replayability, it’s important to ensure players experience a wide range of locations and visual variety throughout the game. Diablo III’s mini-dungeons were designed with this in mind. These are small dungeons intended to change the scenery, break up the environment, introduce new monsters, and provide the player with bite-sized goals, such as “kill the mini-boss of this mini-dungeon.” They also all offer story elements of their own — there’s a reason you’re there, and there’s a reason you want to kill everything you see.
Events also play a large part in helping to break up the game and to make it feel more organic. Events are hand-crafted scenarios that can appear randomly in selected locations. The example shown in the panel involved a large group of zombies emerging from a swamp to give the player some grief. They provide a random element, create small surmountable challenges, and introduce subtle story elements that relay the vibe of the location without having to place a sign that says, “This Place is Scary.” Breakable objects can also play into that, to some degree, by drawing the player into the environment and making it feel more believable. By ensuring just about all objects you’d think would be affected by your skills actually blow up, or shatter, or explode in blood, you’re drawn in and can more easily believe that your character is in this world.
The discussion then moved on to the behavior and death of each monster and the rationale behind their design. We discovered early on that monsters are not alive for very long, and so it’s necessary to communicate a lot of flavor to the very player quickly while the monsters are still alive and attacking — and even as they’re dying — and a lot of thought and effort goes into defining how the monster physically moves and attacks. One might think that having each enemy try to kill the player as efficiently as possible makes sense, but in fact it can lead to bad and usually frustrating gameplay. Instead, rules are put in place to keep monsters from following too closely, being too precise or exact, or making a bee-line to the player, which can prevent the use of a variety of tactics.
UI and Dyes
While many feel that Diablo is about killing monsters, we all know you’re actually there for the loot. A lot of thought and care is being put into the UI elements to make the itemization more exciting, including unique icons for each piece of gear, for all classes. It’s a ‘˜What You See is What You Get’ approach. The item icons will accurately represent what that piece will look like on your character — a nice touch when scanning through a stash full of loot.
Gear is also going to be exciting throughout the gameplay experience, all the way through to the endgame. In Diablo II, item appearances reset with each individual difficulty (Normal, Nightmare, and Hell) — in Diablo III, items will continue to look more impressive as you progress through all of the difficulties. If you were to finish the game on Normal, you’d only be seeing a fraction of the armor designs.
The customization doesn’t stop with armor looks as the dye system adds a way to set yourself apart from your friends and enemies. Dyes can come from many places in varying rarities. While your friend may wear gear in a common shade of red, you can prance around in the rare and fetching bright crimson red, setting you apart from the pack.
The Artisans’ Role
Switching gears, the panel went over the details of the recently revealed artisans, referred to internally as Vendors 2.0. While Diablo II did have some forms of crafting, artisans are far more robust and purposeful system. As item drops in Diablo III are random, players may not get the specific item for the specific slots they need, and that’s where the crafters and vendors come in. They can help fill in the gaps and ensure that the random-item game doesn’t become too frustrating — it’s no fun to wait forever hoping to upgrade those dingy old boots you’ve had for the past 10 levels. With artisans you can craft up something that keeps you more or less on-par in item quality for all your gear all slots.
The three artisans are the mystic, jeweler, and blacksmith. The mystic crafts wands, staves, and other magic items. She can also enchant items and identify any you haven’t already identified yourself. The blacksmith can craft armor and weaponry, add gem sockets to gear, and repair items. The jeweler crafts rings and amulets, combines gems, and can de-socket gems from items. Combining gems and de-socketing them is important, as it encourages players to use their gems instead of hoarding them.Diablo III has 14 quality levels of gems, and only the first five of which actually drop from monsters. Combining to the highest quality gem will be a significant achievement.
The panel wrapped up, as they tend to do — and that does it for our Diablo III panel coverage this year. Thanks for reading.
On character customizations not being permanent, ever:
We don’t have any character customization you can’t change. It may take you some time to do so, and potentially leveling a new character could indeed be faster (and cost effective), but given the time to amass the gold and items, you can change any of your build components. Skills, gems, runes, traits, enchants, dyes, etc.
On why offline play will be discouraged:
A lot of us, myself included, and probably a lot of you and your friends had the exact same Diablo II experience. You get the game, start playing, your friend says let’s try co-op, and when you log in your characters aren’t there. After a slight freakout moment and potentially some use of Webcrawler to search the World Wide Web with Netscape 6, you realized or figured out that you had to start over. That’s actually an experience that can cause someone to stop playing the game. Maybe you or I let out a huge sigh, and maybe a brief mourning period after realizing the last 60 hours were completely wasted, but we pressed on. That’s not the case for everyone. Maybe most people. I actually refused to start over for a while and continued on in single-player before finally jumping on Battle.net. Who knows what a lesser man would have done… 😉
So, if we can get people online and creating character on Battle.net from the get-go, there’s less chance of that catastrophe. But there’s still a play offline option, if you should need it.
On the barbarian having a summoning ability:
It’s a top tier skill, so you can’t buy it until somewhere around the end of Normal or maybe beginning of Nightmare. They’re fairly short lived, at least at their base skill. I will admit it’s pretty nutty, especially when it’s planned that each of them (probably through runes) will use various barbarian skills themselves. But, I do think the flavor and vibe works. The barbarian calling upon the spiritual protector’s of his homeland and people which now lay, along with the majority of barbarian society, in the afterlife, if not simply ash at the bottom of a fiery chasm. It makes good sense that they would be easily summoned to assist in redemption, honor, what have you, of the barbarian people.
On unique item categorization:
Unique items in Diablo II were only “unique” in that only one of them would drop per-game. Using the term “unique” to describe them implies many things, none of which are likely to be true.
World of Warcraft uses the word a bit more intelligently in that it is indeed unique in that your character can only ever have one of them.
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World of Warcraft uses unique and unique equipped for character balance, so that the designers know what items a character can have equipped at any one time. Balance is important to us, but probably not to the same degree that we would want to restrict use of dual-wielding two of some awesome legendary sword. For instance.
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I guess I would probably follow that up with the usual, ‘but nothing is set in stone’. I guess if we were to hit a point where dual wielding the most awesome sword in the game completely broke everything, we’d have to do something like unique-equipped.
But even then, you could still find them, pick them up, and trade them off… so I’m not even sure how unique-equipped kills hoarding.
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But maybe we like the sword being as awesome as it is. Maybe nerfing it means we have to make some awesome proc completely stupid and not fun. Or we can go *poof* unique-equipped and it’ll still cause enemies to explode, which have a chance to cause the enemies they exploded on explode themselves, in a chain reaction, and the number of explosions increases movement speed by 5%!? HUH!? Bet you didn’t think about the awesome explosion-run speed proc this sword has, did you?
On act lengths:
We looked at act length in Diablo II and came to some of the same conclusions, “They ran out of time”. But when considering it further the intent of the act structure actually got shorter as you went, intentionally rocketing you toward the end of the game. It’s one of those things that makes game design hard to relate. It’s… it’s sort of like a movie score. If done right emotional music can make a scene feel ‘better’ or raise whatever emotion is being portrayed, but if you start scrutinizing the individual components, or just lose the immersion, it can come off as cheesy.
In any case I think we’re estimating a longer game than Diablo II right now, regardless of actual comparable act size.
And on death penalties:
You lost gold when you died in Diablo II and it was still worthless. Losing gold on death isn’t a necessary sink to make it worth something. Balancing gains and expenditures properly will make it worth something.
That said, I don’t think we’ve made any final determinations on death penalties. Though I wouldn’t expect it to take anything away from the player. Gold, experience, etc.
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I don’t think death penalties need to edge into the ‘punishment’ definition (although I realize that’s a confusion of terms) to be worthwhile.
Making sure someone can’t endlessly throw themselves against monsters/die/repeat and eventually win is something we’d want to stop. To make the player take pause and realize they’re not going to get past them unless they straighten up and pay attention and play better, or take some extra measures to buff up, or simply come up with a different strategy, those are the types of death penalties that work. Those are the ones we like and that I’m talking about.
Taking gold away from people, or taking a full level of experience away, yeah, that’s a wake up call. It’s also the quickest way to get someone to uninstall the game. A very select few people will put up with something like that. It’s fine in Diablo II because gold has almost no use, but imagine if it did. You’d be encouraged through the mechanic to grind in easier areas where you’re sure you couldn’t die just so you could earn gold safely. That sounds terrible. Without a gold penalty you can play the content you want to play and meanwhile you’re finding items and amounts of gold that are relevant. That sounds like fun.
