Diablo III Options

[Crushinator]

I was suprised we don't have a thread for this yet, but I guess since blizzard is so stingy with the news its not unexpected.

Anyways, straight outta GamesCom we have details on the crafting system!



Looks fast, slick, and unobtrusive. I love how you can break down the "big loot" into crafting shit so you don't have to TP to town constantly to sell big things like armor.

Update with some details on the caravan:

Diablo III Caravan FAQ
Q: What is the caravan?
A: The caravan is a persistent group that follows the heroes across Sanctuary, providing a centralized hub for players to find quest givers, crafters, and other important NPCs. As your character moves through the world so too will your loyal band, setting up in specific locations to remain close by should you need them.

Q: Who are the artisans?
A: In order to access the professions in Diablo III, you’ll need to gain the loyalty of various artisans through your travels in Sanctuary. The blacksmith, mystic, and jeweler will each provide unique services over the course of the game.

Q: What do the artisans offer?
A: Skilling up your artisans will unlock unique recipes, granting your character access to benefits that may not be found anywhere else in the world. The blacksmith crafts weapons and armor, and can add sockets to some items. The mystic creates scrolls, potions, magical weapons, spell runes, and charms, and can also enchant items. The jeweler crafts gems , amulets, and rings. The jeweler can also remove gems from socketed items and can combine gems to improve their quality.

Q: How do I find the artisans?
A: Finding the artisans will be part of the main quest. Each artisan has been fleshed out to include their own story and quest line.

Q: How do I use the artisans?
A: You’ll collect loot as a reward for slaughtering the forces of the Burning Hells. Unwanted items can be salvaged in your inventory, converting these goods into raw crafting materials—higher-level items are salvaged into higher-level materials. You’ll then take those raw materials and hand them over to the artisans, putting them to work crafting or enchanting for you. Upon returning to the caravan after a lengthy foray, you may also find that the artisans have been hard at work plying their trade for your benefit.

Q: How do I salvage my items?
A: Players will find an item while progressing through the main quest that will allow them to convert unwanted gear into crafting materials from the inventory. This item will not take up any inventory space. This should be a more satisfying option for offloading unwanted loot than the alternative—dropping things on the ground or making frequent trips to a vendor.

Q: Why are you including crafting professions in an action game?
A: Professions add depth to the item collection gameplay that drives the action of Diablo III. We want to provide players with an alternative way to acquire gear, potions, and other randomly found items. We also want to provide additional forms of customization for players—adding jewels, enchants, or sockets to existing gear allows players to further tailor their characters. Many rare crafting recipes and materials are only found as world drops, enhancing the item acquisition process by increasing the diversity of items dropped by monsters.

[Scan_Man]

Your "vibes" are incorrect. I am not talking about how this impacts my enjoyment of the game. I purposely avoided that. I go on these long post when I see there is a misunderstanding and to address points. For example, you said "running past shit just to beat the game is pointless." That is factually wrong. Which is why I described what the point is. Whether you, I, or anyone skips stuff or not does not change that skipping monsters in Inferno factually has a purpose. I get where you are coming from on the "just enjoy the game" but that is not the point of view I was taking. Your point is valid.

Of you course you don't see how it impacts my game because I never stated such nor intended to. My initial disappointment does have to do with the fact Jay Wilson said they had their very best hardcore players spawned with perfect gear as an Inferno focused strike team (as oppose to testers that progress normally, 1-60). He said they could not defeat any boss in Inferno. Add to the fact the difficulty was tuned upward 2x for release compared to testing. From my point of view it is disappointing because the mechanics of the bosses are not hard even when you add more HP and damage. I am allowed to be disappointed with a part of a game based on expectations. Most everyone has something not live up to expectations at one point in their lives (mostly universal human truth here). I'll live lol. That is all there is to it for me. It stops with me just being disappointed with that part of the game. Nothing further.

You are assuming (or unsure?) I think I need to play the game a certain way just because I described those playstyles and methods of other people? I don't get how you receive these so called vibes when I did not state how I plan to play Inferno. Honestly, I have not decided what I will do with Inferno because I am not there yet. But I am likely leaning toward a full "as intended" clear and farming both solo and group. But this is also dependent on if I choose to participate in the Real Money Auction House or not. Or how much participation? Which is up in the air for me right for a couple reasons, one being I don't think Auction House performance is up to par (I've had it eat 20k gold, I am not the only one that has lost gold or items). Two, going through the auction house takes time away from playing the game. Lastly, there are a ton of class changes coming that will have some impact, where entire runes are getting removed from the game until Blizzard comes up with a new one (making a class incomplete or broken temporarily). So decisions, for later.


On the point of me liking a challenge. I am not competing with anyone. I say it should be tougher to escape monsters because Blizzard has stated players will not be able to outrun monsters in Inferno; you know as a feature, like PVP *cough* (I can pull up the quotes if I have to). The way the mechanics work, making it so one does not have the option to run does make the game harder for those that do not plan to run, ie monsters are more aggressive and faster. Again not stating how this impacts my enjoyment here.

An aside: I've found the scaling from single player to multiplayer to be quite balanced. As in fighting stuff feels the same in terms of difficulty and length; as I think it should be. However, the rezzing and banner teleporting while someone is dead kind of throws that balance off. It does diminish the challenge of multiplayer just a bit when the monster scaling for multiple players is otherwise great. Saying just go play solo is missing/ignoring the point.



I am just matching up what Blizzard has said about Inferno as a game feature, and what it actually is right now. It's for the sake of discussing the game.


Here's some recent quotes from Blizzard:

"People kiting the Skeleton King around for an hour with their level 3 characters is fun to see. It's not fun when it's level 60's at end game and item drops matter. To make these kills and thus a character's progression matter we need to try to fight cheesy tactics that allow people to just flop through the game."

- This is why I said stuff needs to be fixed. Because they have acknowledge many times in the past year they want all players playing Inferno a certain way (clearing everything to farm for the next ACT). This is looking at Blizzard's design goals objectively and saying this is not meeting that goal. Here it is Blizzard saying cheesy tactics affect the importance of character progression. They are saying boss kills should matter as part of character progression. However, factually they don't matter right now because of cheesy tactics and difficulty I might add. What I have been saying makes sense from a game design standpoint and from Blizzard's stated design goals of Inferno. I am not speaking on a personal enjoyment of the game level here nor was I ever. I don't think I can be any clearer here.


"The point of the game is efficiency... Killing monsters as quickly as possible to maximize your time to find the drops you want. That is the game. I think you should do whatever you think is fun, absolutely, but if you want to go at a slower pace, not really worry much about maximizing efficiency, and just kind of take it at your own speed you're going to have a pretty rough time in Nightmare let alone Inferno."

"With the Nephalem Valor buff the best loot is off champions, rares, and (assuming the buff is up) bosses. As I said the point is ensuring "legitimate" progression."

- Basically saying slower pace over efficiency is doing it wrong in Diablo III! LOL! But, no. Put the three quotes, along with other info, together it basically says they want the game to be about clearing the ACTS as part of character progression. That is what constitutes legitimate progression; clearing the champions, rares, and bosses for loot so you have the gear to do the next ACT. Do so quickly is in order to maximize your drops. Cheesy tactics are not legitimate progression. This is in line with what Blizzard has been saying about Inferno since the change to a progressive difficulty. They want to ensure legitimate progression. Do you see the problem now? Skipping monsters to clear all the ACT bosses is flopping through the game. Completely skipping ACT I and II farming is mathematically and factually unnecessary; more flopping through the game. It's not "working as intended" as Blizzard likes to say. There is more to it though, like how it affects the Real Money Auction House . I'll put the analysis hat away for now. This is objectively based on what Blizzard wants for the game. The logical conclusion is if it is not what Blizzard intended it should be fixed.


There nothing else to it. The bosses being easy as a dissappointment and not liking how the rez and banner teleporting is implemented as a game mechanic is the only personal thoughts I have mentioned on the game before now. The latter does indeed lessens the difficulty a bit in multiplayer which otherwise scales excellently compared to single player. Saying just go play solo misses/ignores the point. But, I explicitly mentioned these things on purpose and explicitly did not mention how it impacts my enjoyment. See? I have yet to say if this and that has made the game less fun or ruined it. In fact I said the game is "fun as hell." I then said the "whole thing seems diminished" (less important) because it's true from a progression design standpoint (assuming things progressively get harder); as I already explained based on what Blizzard has said it would be. That's Blizzard saying progression should matter, and I agree with them (based on personal taste when it comes to challenge as I a said). Still, I did not say diminished progression impacts my enjoyment. Nor did I state I will be trivializing the intended progression.

I am spelling stuff out here because you interpret me based on vibes that are in your head. That is not my problem and lies totally within you. But just to let you know I do state things explicitly on purpose, so there is no implicit meaning to look for and receive vibes off of. My posts become long for this very reason, so to avoid room for implicit interpretation or vibes.



Anyway, this is me looking at the the game and meta-game and picking it apart and editorializing for the sake of stimulating discussion on the inner workings of the game. Not raging. Also, my original post and parts of the second "Now with with these rushers" (slightly edited to address your point that stuff does not need fixing) were blog entries of mine that I copied and pasted here because I wanted to see what you guys thought on the situation. It's reporting. It was intentionally worded to grab attention in order to start discussion and debate on the matter and not entirely to express my true thoughts about the game; just yet. Also, to get people to start talking about the game, since many of us have been spending a ton of time on playing it.






A little about me, so going forward we can minimize this sort of thing. I don't think you guys really know me. I've kind of been the outsider here, and you guys seem to be more close knit. That is my impression any way based on doing the podcast and such. When it comes to video games, my interest are game design, testing process, development, marketing, and business when it comes to the gaming industry. Why? I follow the game industry with deep interest and all aspects. So if something catches my interest outside my actual play experiences, I will bring it up. It's always been the case with me here and elsewhere. Cool?

It's like when I was testing Final Fantasy XIV and came here and told you guys why the game was bad. And you guys argued with me. And then when you guys actually played it, y'all saw first hand that it was garbage. My intentions are not to persuade people to not buy games or to convince others something is bad based on my taste. Just offer my perspective. And my perspective is someone who tries to play all the major releases, as well as indy releases, and follows all aspects of the gaming industry very closely. This includes the development process. It's a hobby but it is also how I game. I am not claiming to be an authority, just offer a perspective.

I only try to discuss or mention what I find interesting here though. I've played just about every major release in the last two years. Did I make topics about each one? Nope, because I did not find anything interesting to talk about; has nothing to do with how I personally think about those games.