this is DIABLO 3 !!!! no more sc2 please...

I hope Blizzard implement the time card for Diablo 3 too.

I like that idea, playing for certain amount of time (ie. finished the story) then move on.

Huge Attribute Changes in Diablo III
Today in the B.net forum Bashiok posted a lengthy explanation of “huge stat changes” for Diablo III. He’s not wrong with that description; strength, dexterity, vitality, and willpower are now gone, and more generic and straightforward “+damage” type attributes have replaced them. Other properties have been rolled into these new stats as well, and numerous “confusing” modifiers have been removed from the game entirely.

Bashiok’s post lists the changes, and even includes a short FAQ. Click through to read more, and read slowly to try and wrap your head around these radical alterations to the basic game mode and character values we’ve all come to know from Diablo and virtually every other RPG in recent memory. Here’s a quick quote.



Not too long ago we decided to make some changes to how our core player character attributes work. We wanted to share with all of you what problems we ran into, how we want to fix them, and what our new attributes are.

This is a fairly info-heavy write up and takes into account that you’re well versed in core attributes of Diablo II, as well as what has been previously shown in Diablo III. If you’re not, you’ll still get some good information, just keep in mind that this isn’t intended as a comprehensive guide, but a design-heavy explanation for those already following the game very closely. (And if you’re one of those people you just got real excited.)

Attribute Problems
Damage increase confusion:
Willpower increased damage for casters (wizard, witch doctor), and Strength increased damage for weapon users (monk, barb, demon hunter). This is inherently confusing, because many monk abilities, and some barb abilities, look like spells, and the demon hunter seems like she should be affected by Dexterity instead of Strength - - at least logically.

Build diversity:
It’s always been our goal that the core attributes were valuable for all classes in an effort to encourage a broad set of builds. The method we used for this, and the attributes we chose, accomplished this goal under the hood (more or less), but perception was that certain attributes were much more desirable depending on your class. Ultimately the split of damage between willpower and strength meant that despite those abilities having secondary functions that were useful, most ignored the stat that did not apply to their class for damage purposes. This meant each class really only had three attributes they cared about, at best, which was a bit narrow.

Resource (Fury/Mana/Spirit/etc.) tuning and progression:
Diablo is a progression focused game, all about getting more powerful. This makes us want to design systems like resources to scale over time. However, we had no resource attribute. So as a player if you are frustrated by the amount of resource available to you, there wasn’t an obvious enough and analog enough method for making your situation better. Regardless of Diablo II balance issues (i.e. energy not being effective relative to other stats, mostly due to mana steal), if you wanted more mana you knew that energy was the place to fix this. Without something like this resources are difficult to tune, especially given that our goal is to tune them so that it’s a nice progression from start to end.

So, to solve these issues we’re changing our core attributes from Strength, Dexterity, Vitality, and Willpower to:

Attack: Increases damage
- This stat will be a universal damage increasing stat for all classes to prevent confusion about what you should increase to do more damage.
- We realize that ‘Attack’ is less flavorful than ‘Strength’ and ‘Willpower’, but we feel the pros of understanding clearly how to build your character outweigh that con.
- This stat has no secondary effects.

Precision: Increases critical chance
- This will be tuned to be comparable in power to Attack increases for the most part.
- So why have Precision? Mainly so we can play into it with affixes, runes, and traits. Linking effects to crits gives us another hook for designing skills and gives the player options to create ‘crit builds’ that play different than normal attack builds. Examples of the kind of crit effects we ‘could’ do (not saying we are, these are examples):
- - Cleave crits cause monsters to explode and do damage to those around them.
- - Lifesteal could be an ‘on crit only’ affix.
- This is a more finesse stat, and we’re fine with that. Most people will want Attack by default, but they won’t mind getting precision.
- This stat has no secondary effect.

Vitality: Increases health
- And it’s staying that way!
- This stat has no secondary effect (seeing the pattern here?).

Defense: Decreases all damage taken
- This stat is separate from armor and resistances, each of which effects different damage types. This stat effects ‘all’ damage.
- This stat will allow players to control incoming damage rather than increasing health capacity, which is useful to reduce the need for health globes and pots, and allows players to double down on defense for survival focused builds.
- This stat is also useful for PVP, and likely will be valued in the arenas, but isn’t tuned to be a ‘PVP’ only stat.
- This stat has no secondary effects.

Willpower: Affects resource in class-specific ways
- The effects of this stat will change from class to class. It will be our goal to make it roughly equivalently valuable across classes and versus other attributes.
- Basically this stat will give you more access to whatever restricts your resource by default: capacity, regen rate, degeneration rate, generation rate, etc.

This will change and affect several item affixes, but specifically we’ll be making the following changes to address issues with casters under-valuing gear (more below in Q&A), and to clear out attributes that are going away:
- Removing +spell damage affixes
- Adding Bonus % damage for wizard skills (wizard only)
- Adding Bonus % damage for witch doctor skills (witch doctor only)
- Removing Strength
- Removing Dexterity

I like that.

Nice, instead of having Dex for critical & dmg for archer, they have separate it properly.
Does this mean the eq (armor) to wear does not have requirement already? except lvl n class.
I like precision the most.

Great, simplified character customization! So we don't have to change armor while fighting different foe. Good 1 Blizzard. It is awesome!!!
But I think I have an better idea. Why not simplify it even more by combining all these 5 new stat into 1: Awesome stat?

Eg:
Awesome stat:
- Increases health
- Increase all kind of damage
- Increase all kind of defense, be it physical or magic
- Increase precision
- Increase..well, increase everything.

So each time you level up, you will be given 5 stat point and you can add them into your favourite (the only one) stat! It will be damn awesome! You don't have to think which stat you wan to add, calculate what each stat does for you, what type of build you want, etc. It is all in 1 AWESOME stat!! And you no longer need to post a question in some forum asking how to build this job that job anymore! Think of simplicity and convenience. All you need is buy the DVD, install it, and play without thinking.

And maybe Blizzard can provide an auto-level up option, and each time you level up, all the new stat point will automatically added into the AWESOME stat. FUuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!!! You don't even have to be bother about seeing your Character window anymore!

Awesome, my idea is.

And before all Blizzard buttlicker fanboy start to throw stone at me, I would like to clarify that I, in no way, flaming or bashing Blizzard or Diablo III. I am just giving my very humble opinion/suggestion/whatever.

Long live Almighty Blizzard. May all your games be as simple as 1+1=2. Amen.

This post has been edited by TiF: Dec 22 2010, 01:31 PM

I waited for it to be release till my hair turn white already!

If Blizzard is to control the armor and weapon type that can be used by a class based on class and level, does this means no more sword and board sorceress in heavy armor?

Not to mention Diablo 2 sword and board shuriken assassin.

This will become bored for me and every1 is using d same stats wats d fun of it
in ur idea, u juz wan it to b auto-increase stats for u and juz grind for level instead of finding the suitable combination of stats to ur preference.
Good for some n bad for some. I still prefer trying out the best combination for myself instead of Godlike

This post has been edited by sai86: Dec 22 2010, 03:07 PM

What's wrong with people nowadays

People don't know the meaning of "sarcasm" anymore?

lol...he needs some tuition.

i like the simplified attributes.

The dumb down this time round is actually good for the game..

I think thats a good trade off of traditional RPG stats to a simplified, but runes system powered system.

yeah...diablo series is a hack and slash action RPG. shouldnt have too much RPG element as compared to those hardcore RPG games.

IMHO, i like it. I think of it as streamlining. We are too "pre-programmed" with the traditional rules of attributes for so many years.

Seriously, with the old ways, say you wanted non-cookie built, you'd go like get enough str to wear armor and pump so and so stats for what ever built you fancy. Worst is that some stats are exclusive to certain class while to others its useless.

But with the new system, you can ignore that and come out with much more refined build. You want all out glass cannon, pump att. You want mage tanker, pump def. You want high crit-tanker mage, pump percision/def. And that's just a simple example. Every stats can be used by everyone and the only difference is tweaking it to your playstyle.

Aren't we all tired of the same mechanism used by EVERY ARPG/RPG etc,etc out there? This will in fact stand out as a refreshing way. I can see how Bliz is trying to ditch the traditional stats gameplay, it started with WoW as well.

This post has been edited by ashx: Dec 23 2010, 10:54 PM

Yea i am tired of the same ol-RPG style of gaming.I seriously hope that Blizzard will do it well in Diablo 3 since Diablo 2 was a big hit last time.

OK, lets make some assumption.

Lets assume that what type of armor you wear is determined by Defense.

The type of melee weapon you use is determined by Attack.

Type of ranged weapon used is determined by Precision value.

And type of orb, staff used is determined by willpower.

So what's there to stop people from simply put the minimal points required and then dump everything into Attack or Life?It will be just like Diablo 2 all over again.

If they decide to limit armor type to be class specific, then even if you got all the stats, you will still be 1 sorceress in robe with orb in hand instead of in plate armor with sword and shield, no customization and fine tuning there.

If they decide to do away with all the limitations on armors and weapons, it will be Diablo 1 all over again with people wearing anything that have the most defense and weapon with the most damage they can get their hands on.

And from the stat change, we can see that 1 single stat increase both magic and physical damage as well as Defense which increase both magic and physical defense, there is no fine tuning and no sacrifice has to made here. Imagine the damage a class with both magic and physical damage will be able to do as the class don't need to make sacrifice between physical and magic damage. Also a single stats that increase both magic and physical defense and damage just don't fit too well into an RPG game.

Runes as I read will only modify the effect of our skills, mean extra damage, extra hit, additional effect etc, not our stats unless something changed when I'm not paying attention.

guys i've seen somewhere on the internet tat Diablo 3 is releasing on Q4 next year, is tat true?

do not assume anything unless blizzard said so.

Wait for official announcement from Blizzard.