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Blizzard Announces Final Diablo 3 Class, PvP Arena Battles
Blizzard chose Demon Hunter because it filled an archetype for conventional ranged weaponry that wasn't filled by the other classes they’ve already developed. They favored the idea of a character like a bounty hunter – not necessarily somebody with a noble, honorable soul. This led them to bring in various gadgets and traps in addition to ranged weapons, as well as shadow magic. She’s more knowledgeable about demons than anyone else, and she’s got a decidedly unheroic attitude.
Their early concepts for the class involved a woodland ranger design, but they weren’t satisfied with a typical swift and deadly stalker. As they tried to twist the concept to fit the Diablo world, they found it turning into a character like the assassin from Diablo 2, which they didn’t really want. After the Monk was announced last year, they picked some key traits for the ranged class that they wanted to stick with: Dark, Mysterious, Medieval. They toyed with the idea of making the Demon Hunter an actual demon, but decided that didn’t fit with the Diablo story. They also had trouble making demonic art concepts fit the sleek and agile archetype. They settled on a dark-armored human with dual crossbows.
Lead World Designer Leonard Boyarsky said the Demon Hunter is “the most diverse class.” They are recruited from all walks of life, bound together by their hatred for demons and an obsessive, overriding desire to keep fighting and killing demons until they’re all gone. “She’s not afraid to get her hands dirty.” She doesn’t just want to kill them, “she wants them to know the terror of being stalked,” and Demon Hunters know better than any other classes the true stakes of the conflict in Sanctuary.
The first skill they demonstrated for the new class was Bola Shot. The Demon Hunter throws a bola, which wraps itself around the target's neck — and then explodes. Next came Vault, a shadowy leap forward that will take the character through enemies. Spike Trap is a gadget the Demon Hunter throws to the ground, which then explodes in fire and shrapnel when a monster walks over it. Along those same lines, the class can throw grenades, which will bounce and ricochet off walls, giving players some interesting new tactics that weren't possible in Diablo 2.
Diablo 3’s skill system has seen a lot of work over the past year. The skill tree concepts reminiscent of World of Warcraft was felt to be unwieldy. The UI is now list-based, using two separate windows, which makes picking new skills and deciding between upgrades easier. Skills have also been supplemented by a new system called Traits. Traits are passive aspects of your character that improve one aspect of it.
For example, Barbarians get a Trait called Inner Rage, which reduces the amount of fury (their resource for using skills) lost and increases the amount gained from attacks. Wizards have one called Prismatic Cloak, which makes all of her armor spells stronger. Blizzard added Traits to give the classes another level of customization, and to separate the fun choices (skills) from the math choices. You can pick a particular theme for your character and select traits that fit the theme. Each class has about 30 traits, and you’ll be able to spend multiple points to make a trait stronger. “I want to spend points in Whirlwind, I don’t want to spend points in ‘more armor.’” The design for Traits isn’t finished yet – Jay Wilson said we’ll likely see more changes to its UI, the rate of accumulating trait points, and how many you get total.
They showed off some new skills for various classes – Barbarians get a spear attack that grabs an enemy at range and pulls them close. Meteor is coming back for the Wizard. Witch Doctors get a skill called Spirit Walk, which phases him out so he can walk around without detection for a brief time.
Another new feature they announced is Talisman. It’s a dedicated inventory for Charms that grows as you level up. No longer will you sit with half a backpack worth of charms, wondering if some minor bonus is worth not being able to pick up an extra piece of loot while you’re slaying monsters. Charms themselves are also becoming more focused on particular attributes.
Skill Runes didn’t get much play last year, since Blizzard was in the process of overhauling the system. The idea is that you use runes to modify how your skills work, similar to the way gems modify what your armor does. It’s essentially another way to customize your character. This arose out of the tendency for Diablo 2 players to divide class builds into things like “Spearazons” or “Zealadins.” The skill runes, affecting only active skills, now provide 97 billion different permutations. Per class.
There are five types of runes. Crimson, Indigo, Obsidian, Golden, and Alabaster. Each rune type loosely follows a particular theme, and each color has seven ranks. To demonstrate the rank system, they showed the Wizard skill Magic Missile. With a first rank Indigo rune, it shoots two missiles instead of one. With the seventh rank rune, it shoots seven extra missiles. Another example showed how the Barbarian can use the various runes to modify a skill that throws his weapon. Different runes make him throw different weapons, with different effects – more damage, stuns, confuses, etc. The Wizard’s Hydra can swap to different elements, or can shoot fire walls instead of bolts. The Witch Doctor has an ability that summons frogs to attack monsters. A Crimson rune makes them flaming frogs. Another rune turns the spell into a rain of toads, and another will turn the little frogs into one giant toad which eats and digests monsters.
Finally, they went into some details about Battle Arenas. Since dueling and PvP was so popular in Diablo 2, they wanted to support it much more in Diablo 3. It’s focused on team-based play. Since there are so many permutations for individual builds (and some are supposed to be better than others), they’re less worried about 1v1 balance than team balance — a philosophy similar to that for World of Warcraft arenas. Some player skills are designed specifically for PvP. Since the PvE game has a lot of skill focusing on monster control, and they didn't want PvP to be about taking away your ability to do things, they're designing class abilities to counter crowd control.
The arena matches will be played out with multiple rounds – best 3 out of 5 or best 2 out of 3. They’re also working on custom games, and making 1v1 dueling easy to do. There will be a skill-based ranking system, with titles, vanity rewards, achievements, and so forth for people who want to show off their PvP abilities.
FUCK YEAH! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7O1b5VwA-I
The game looks like it's going to be awesome, but considering the DRM and bad behavior by Blizzard, I'm not going to be playing. I hate going without, but when a company can ban accounts for what one does during single player gaming and isn't even required to give a refund, that's not something that I'm willing to be a part of.
That's a great question except that it's complete bullshit.
I'll believe they'll be sticking to the existing model of allowing players to interact with others using a real name if they so desire, but having the option to use real names if they like. As for this "new model" you're describing, it doesn't exist in any existing Blizzard game, and seems highly unlikely it ever will.
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
but what about releasing Diablo and/or Diablo 2 at a reasonable price rather than the full MSRP on Battle.net?
Gah... when will we ever get an edit button? Oh well, the point is made. Real names are optional and frankly not used by most players, who continue to interact significantly as they always have using their character names or nicknames.
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
What the hell is Diablo? I think there's a Mexican gang around here with that name.
I wonder how many people will create Wizard characters named "Galstaff, Sorcerer of Light"?
I am officially gone from
Real ID, in Starcraft 2 at the very least (I'd love to hear a confirmation from a WoW player), does not require you to provide your name when you want to "interact with other players significantly". You can be a friend, or a Real ID friend. If a player surrenders their email, the other player can add them as a real id friend and will be provided with their real name, as well as other small benefits such as the ability to see the friends of their friends, and add those players to their own list.
It's not a required usage feature. No gameplay, to my knowledge, is limited by not providing another player with your name.
Yeah, but I saw a bug with that, when someone gives you access to it`s real id, you see the real id of his friends. Don't know if it was corrected, but i was able to know the name 2-3 person from my work who were playing this game when I made real id friend with a co-worker. It's surprising how some people really don't look like they would be sc2 materials ;)
I don't have an intelligent phone, so I need to be.
Huh, I'd heard some complaints about it being used more heavily, maybe they were confused.
In WoW, it's not "required", but it's the only way to get access to decent friend functionality (say, being able to track a friend across multiple alts).
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
PvP arena damaged World of Warcraft's class balance severely. I shall be concerned that this in Diablo will do the same thing.
Well, I'm not sure that seeing my real friends' real friends (I'm sorry) is a bug, but the fact that you may already have character friends that overlap with people on your real friends' friends list (truly sorry) and can now thereby see their real ID on that interface and not on your own friends list is awkward to be sure.
Ya dig?
Will Diablo 3 be sticking with the new model of requiring people to use real names to interact with other players significantly, or are they introducing some kind of way for people to pick a nickname?
Blizzard actually just barely released changes which makes Real ID optional. I got an email yesterday from Blizzard explaining the change and showing how to make changes to your profile so that Real ID is disabled, or to prevent friends of your Real ID friends from also seeing your full name.
I was happy to see the change, but two things still bother me about it. Why did it take them months after the retail release of the game to implement this? It should have been clear from day one that such a feature has as much potential for bad as good and should obviously be optional. Second, why is it so hard to make these changes? You have to go to the Battle.net webpage, log in to your profile, go to "communication settings" (less than obvious) and make the changes there. Why can't it just be a simple option in the game clients?
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
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Seriously, a mountain of mice will have their buttons sacrificed. Is logitech publicly traded? I'd buy that.
That's not a bug. That's a feature of the real-id system that helps you find other people you know. Due to customer feedback, they are (or already have, I'm not sure...) adding in an opt-out for it.
You don't know? Then fuck off with the Diablo 3 'news' until you do.
Blizzard's design staff recently, famously lamented: "Our worst mistake was PvP"
And yet...
Since there are so many permutations for individual builds (and some are supposed to be better than others), they’re less worried about 1v1 balance than team balance — a philosophy similar to that for World of Warcraft arenas.
...they're ripping their Arena system from WoW?
I would have like to have seen more information about _why_ they think this is a good idea...
As long as you don't explicitly enable Real ID for any of your regular friends no one can see your Real ID.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
To be fair, you were never able to use that "decent friend functionality" until real id came into effect.
Only on slashdot does an honest response to a troll get marked troll.
Blizzard added Traits to give the classes another level of customization, and to separate the fun choices (skills) from the math choices.
Seriously... since when math and fun are two separate ideas?
Is the game going for generic or hardcore classes?
...they put the entire article in the summary, since they sure didn't provide a link to it. Not that I wanted to go find more pictures or videos or anything...
perhaps nethack would be a fun game for you. It's acknowledged by blizzard as inspiration for diablo, and it's a pretty fucking awesome game otherwise.
"People don't want to learn linux" hasn't been a valid excuse since '03.
I played the PSone version of Diablo 1, and it was good. I even tried out the PC version, which was much harder on my wrists, and slightly less fun to play. Every Diablo III article we see has folks drooling over every tiny little bit of info on the game that Blizzard leaks out. But as the Rogue from Diablo 1 says when she defeats Gharbad the Weak: I am NOT impressed. Why not?
Diablo III isn't doing anything that different from the various Snowblind engine games on the PS2...years ago.
http://www.gamespot.com/video/2815532
Snowblind freely acknowledged Diablo's influence, but Blizzard never acknowledges Snowblind's influence in return. Like the rippling water that is familiar to any player of a Snowblind Engine game, to the new Health Orbs, which were in X-Men Legends II and Marvel Ultimate Alliance. I sometimes call Blizzard lazy, because if they were like Snowblind, we'd have already played Diablo IV by now and be waiting for Diablo V. Of course, as everyone knows, Blizzard got their start in console development, and then went PC only for some reason that they've never explained. And now it seems pride and arrogance is preventing them from acknowledging that Diablo III would probably work very well as a console game and going ahead with a port.
I'd like to see them come up with one or more classes that isn't sex linked. In most other games you can play almost all classes as either male or female. Why is Blizzard so obsessed with gender-based classes?
Good, inexpensive web hosting
If Diablo 3's DRM is the same as Starcraft 2's DRM, I dont think I'm going to buy this, I'm probably going to pirate it. Starcraft 2 is mostly a multiplayer game with a singleplayer warm up. Diablo 3 will be equal parts of both I think. I like diablo 1 and 2 singleplayer. Multiplayer is just less fun for me because of lamers, loot stealers, PK's, etc. I dont want to get locked out of singleplayer fun just because battlenet is down like I have been a few times now for starcraft 2.
Honestly, how much complaining do we have to go through. Post after post. It seems to happen so much these days. Must be gen Y overload.
Since about the time Gygax and Arneson published first ed. D&D, in the dawn years before the net. Minimaxing set in pretty quick when you had to have ability scores that could only be rolled 1 in 1020 times to play certain classes to their max levels. A lot of players took the rules apart with a fine tooth comb, and it got to where 'math' meant "I'm going to start an hour long argument with the DM over whether his epic final villain exceeds the predicted frequency of non-skeletalform undead of that level, as predicted by a stochastic analysis of the charts on pages 42 and 87, and if I get overruled, I'm going to invoke the Navier-Stokes equations to prove I'm really right."
Why do you think some of the most major computer game companies try hard to block mathematically analysing their games too much?
Why did Blizzard deliberately build so many unique monsters and items in Diablo 1 and 2 that had properties such as being, say, an animal or a demon class being or a hammer class weapon, but not falling within the normal range of properties associated with that class? In Diablo 1, Diablo himself was particularly vulnerable to several attack forms that worked on undead. The flavor text and the rules booklet both made it clear that Diablo had taken physical form by possessing a mortal, and so was a kind of undead, but he was described more explicitly as a demon and many people never tried any of the anti- undead attack forms. The key to having a good chance of killing Diablo wasn't math, it was actually figuring out the implications of the various books and NPC sayings.
Why did Id games build Cthon and Shub-Nuggarath in Quake 1 to be unkillable by any normal weapons, if not so the players couldn't just figure out some sort of optimal pattern for conserving various power ups and ammo to bring the boss monsters down to size?
And these examples are mostly philosophically simple games, where everything can be shot/hacked, and you seldom/never have to relate to an NPC as anything but an enemy, or a source of E.P. and loot. If anything, the games with more nuance, sophistication, and depth try to do more to break the player of blindly relying too much on math.
Who is John Cabal?
Seriously... since when math and fun are two separate ideas?
Ever since people who cared about winning more than anything else starting playing video games.
Seriously, though, a lesson learned from World of Warcraft is that if you have a class that has multiple different build options, no matter how much you try to balance them, as long as they have differences, one of them is going to be mathematically superior. The people who play the game will figure out which build that is, and then everybody will use only that build. Don't believe me? Go spend some time at Elitist Jerks.
People want to be able to use the "best" build and still make their character different from everybody else's character, and that's why the math choices are being separated from the fun choices.
Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)
Yeah I know, the bogeyman is under the bed. Still the DRM that Blizzard has employed has never interfered with my games from them. I guess I am just too damn boring. I live with Steam DRM and see people bellyache about it as well. You can't win them all. The few games I do have without DRM seem to come from companies with games I find myself not playing long. So I take the bad with the good and go on with life. It is just a game and honestly taking a stand on DRM is about the least of my concerns. I have more important things to worry about. I play games to enjoy myself, so far no DRM system has impacted me. I grew up in the days where floppy discs had bad sectors for copy protection, manual checks, and code wheels. I just take it all in stride because in the end... it is just a game.
I
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
How about they release the game first. THEN they can think about nifty additions.
This is the worst slashvertisement I've seen in ages. We have two huge privacy scandals from two of the tech world's biggest names (Google and the login/passwords, and Facebook with the targeted advertising fiasco), but the announcement of a new class in Diablo 3 gets a full, unabridged advertis- er I mean press release?
Cmon Slashdot, either come out and admit that this is an advertisement or take more than 5 minutes to make it appear like you're not Blizzard's mouthpiece spewing out verbatim press statements.
Yeah and seriously.. I came here to read interesting stuff about the game or even Diablo 2 or other similar stuff, and all I can see is jabbing about DRM, Real ID (that doesn't even exist the way these trolls make it out to be) and other usual bullshit that is on every single story. Really interesting, yeah right...
What about if we just concentrate on the actual game and its gameplay?
What about if we just concentrate on the actual game and its gameplay?
Because the real gameplay is being hindered by an always-online Battle.net system. Let's not forget a complete lack of LAN games, which was a primary path for many gamers of the original two titles.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
So it matters what order runes are added? Every single permutation of skills can't possibly be that different.
"PvP Arena Battles. Players can join solo or in groups to take on other players..." This sounds like the entire design of Funcom's upcoming "Bloodline Champions". I think I know who I'll be betting on to take the trophy.
Some things in life are simple, here the lesson is: Don't be a cheating dickwad.
I'm sure everyone can get behind that. I would like to point out that in any sufficiently large group of cheaters, there are going to be people that were misidentified. What about them? "Sorry, but your game has been bricked because we made a slight error when we banned the last 100k accounts that we thought were cheating. But, please go buy a new copy, we value your business."
This is a bad idea for the same reason the death penalty is a bad idea: in all human endeavors, there will be misteakes. (sic)
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Aye, Torchlight was a very good game at $20, and torchlight 2 will probably be out before Diablo 3. I'll be skipping d3, because TL2 will be a far better game.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
The introduction film of the Demon Hunter was sophomoric at best. The art looked amazing but the cliche lines and terrible mock persona made the environment nearly embarrassing to watch. Please, if there is anyone at Blizzard reading this, hire better writing staff.