Additional Non-Item Runestones Evidence?
Posted 5 February 2012 by FluxIf you listened to the most recent installment of 
The Diablo Podcast, you heard Azzure expound his theory that the radical changes coming to skill runes will non-item them. His theory is that, at least partially due to the massive inventory spam issue, runestones are being changed to some sort of skill attuning system, where all the effects will still be available, but that the “items you find” sense of runestones will be removed from the game.
The newly-reduced stash size seems one piece of evidence for that, and a new tweet reply from Bashiok seems to hint at the same conclusion:
The skill and rune systems are still in development as you’re aware. We’ll let you know as soon as we’re ready. –Bashiok
Skill runes, in terms of items that you find and stick into skills to give them new effects, have been one of the longest-lasting features in Diablo III; so I’m not sure if this hypothetical change is surprising, or overdue, the way every other major system in the game has changed form multiple times during the past few years. That said, it’s a big damn change.
Part of Azzure’s theory was that items will remain part of the runestone system; perhaps as consumables. These aren’t his words, but the theory is that you’d find something like a Level 4 Training Scroll of Obsidian Runestone, and “use” it to grant your character a higher ability in that runestone effect, on a given skill. That keeps item finding in the system, adds back something of the character building/customization system D3′s no-skill points and auto-attributes removed from the game, and helps to solve the problem of inventories full of runes, as well as the awkward issue of what happens to item-style runestones when you respec skills — do they stay in the skill you’re no longer using? Do they pop out into your inventory? Do you have to carry a bunch of spare runestones to stick into skills when you change them around for a new situation?
I’m sure this won’t be exactly how the system is run, but removing skill runes as items does seem a pretty logical step, to solve a variety of issues. Plus this way it won’t be so confusing when Blizzard puts item-socketable runes and runewords back in for the first or second expansion.
What do you guys think? Can you imagine a whole new style of runestones that aren’t items anymore? Got any improvements over Azzure’s concept? Or do you like them as items and think the inventory issue could be easily solved by just adding another inventory tab that only holds skill runes? (Which isn’t totally crazy, as there were inventory tabs for different types of items in a much earlier version of the game.)
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Posts and theories like this make me realize why games are delayed.
So freaking detailed, so many options.
I think they are making runes play out exactly like glyphs in the WoW Cataclysm expansion:
once you learn them they get stored and you can assign them to abilities.
Wanna know what I think?
I think you will be get a random level 1 runestone automatically added to each skill once you hit a certain level, let say 31 just for giggles. It will be a randomly assigned runestone that will level up as you level up and kill stuff throughout nightmare and hell, then on to inferno.
In order to level the runestones, they need to be used by you, sort of like they have in PoE. Once you reach the max rune level you will have the option of randomly rolling for another runestone level 1. If it’s not the one you want, you will repeat the process over.
That sounds really stupid.
Watch, it’s going to happen.
Maybe without the random part, perhaps you get to select another one when you max level it.
But it does really sound stupid. I’m with Lanthanide here.
why is it stupid ?
I’ve always liked the idea of skills getting stronger the more you use them
I’m not crazy about getting a runestone randomly and automatically assigned to you, but I certainly like the idea of using a skill makes you stronger in that skill
that really leads to char customization and uniqueness
it probably also makes you more attached to your char because you really have to work to develop him
its also a balance to the AH: buying good gear with good stats just isn’t enough, you also have to develop your skills
@jamesL
Most likely it will just lead to the same MIN-MAX shenanigans seen in games like Oblivion and Skyrim where you just keep casting the same spell for hours or using the same ability repeatedly in the easiest manner possible in order to level your skills. Not to mention that if it’s a skill you don’t use often, maybe because it’s very situational, that would be the only way to level it.
I don’t know if you played any game like that, but I personally find it extremely annoying and usually resort to cheats on replays to bypass the leveling experience.
@JamesL: I have alwayes liked dragonball z, but we wont see dragonballs in d3
@ jamesL
The idea that skills get better the more you use them is stupid for two major reasons:
first off, it’s a concept that was “invented” to “imitate” real life, forgetting that it’s not about your character’s skill getting better the more they use the skill, but the player’s skill getting better the more they play the game.
Secondly, it’s JUST a simple trick not to have to balance the game properly. You could have thousands of skills in the game with a system like that. If the game is balanced to only require one of them, your NEVER going to have to balance it against possible characters with skills that are not that, because players simply won’t be able to develop other skills.
It’s a cheap ass trick done by crap game designers and that’s the end of it.
@ MengNa
Totally agree with you. My suggestion is to do it like I do: resort to cheats on your first play through!
@ Hubie
When you mentioned Dragon Ball Z, I thought you were about to make an argument in the lines of “I like Dragon Ball Z, but it’s still not any good”. That would be more appropriate. The problem here is not how fitting it is for a Diablo game to have level-as-you-use-it skills. It’s about it being a stupid mechanic employed only to bypass the design shortcomings of a game.
Blizzard has already tried the leveling up skills thing with the weapon skills in WoW and abandoned it in Cata because it was just an arbitrary barrier that was more of a frustration than a good mechanic. People would just go around killing low level things with their chosen weapon type to level it up anyway. I seriously doubt they would ever go back to something like that for anything.
@Tiago
“first off, it’s a concept that was…”
why can’t it be both ?
why can’t it be both the player’s abiltiy to play the game and the usage of the skill ?
D3 has a way of increasing skills other than the players becoming better at the game
in D3 its not just the player’s ability to play the game, but its also the gear they find, trade for and buy from the AH that improves their skills.
don’t you think improving your skills through use is better than improving them simply by buying better items from the AH ?
“Secondly, it’s JUST a simple trick…”
that really makes no sense at all
in D2 you could pretty much play the entire game with 1 or 2 skills;
was D2 balaned, not really, but it sure was fun and lasted many, many years
“If the game is balanced to only require one of them..”
that’s a pretty big “if”
“It’s a cheap ass trick done by crap game designers and that’s the end of it.”
I would say cheap ass trick is improving your skills by buying better items from the AH
@Lanthanide Thats worse than finding random runes on the ground and socketing them? Actually leveling a skill stat?
Jesus ****ing christ the kids these days want everything handed to them on a platter.
Look at all the thumbs up.
Just let your bad idea go. You are clearly out of sync with modern game design. lol
Skyrim has a system where you have to use an ability in order to level it up. It’s not “modern game design”, since it was that way in TES3:Morrowind (maybe earlier installations of the series, dunno, haven’t played them). And that game did well enough on the market to prove that old ideas can work.
Forcing someone to use a runestone they don’t want until they “level it up” to the maximum is stupid, not to mention game-breaking if you had built your character a particular way based on the standard skill and then you get a runestone that completely changes the behaviour of the skill.
Your idea is also hard to understand for newcomers.
lol, nice post bowzer. You ARE kidding right?
Dead serious brah
@MengNa
Skyrim is better about it as most spells need to be used in appropriate situations to level the skills… (only a few self cast spells and certain combos, like Summon and Banish or healing and fall dmg/equilibrium are exploitable like that…)
But it doesn’t really fee like something to put in a Diablo game… something like runebooks to upgrade the runes would fit in better… or something like how you learn dragon shouts in Skyrim…
I actually found that a lot more annoying, as at least in Morrowind I could just stand there swinging my sword in thin air and still level it. The way this system works makes it extremely hard to level skills that you don’t get to use regularly like pickpocketing, lockpicking and alchemy…
There’s also the fact that it still leads to the same exploits as before. As always players will find the easiest way to do stuff… Like blocking for hours on end while a Mudcrab hits you, or equipping the weakest weapon and attacking semi friendly targets and then pickpocketing them. I actually went all out and used the macro keys on my keyboard so it can level my skills for me while I was watching TV. Eventually I just gave up and used cheats to get all the skills maxed out.
Really, waiting for hours while a mudcrab hits you instead of actually playing… why even bother then… And why would you need to attack someone before pickpocketing them? But yeah, they really need to put more stuff in for you to lockpick outside the Thiefs Guild quests… and the sneaking needs to take a look at Thief and copy what it did back in 98…
I might have phrased the attacking and pickpocketing part a bit incorrectly. I just meant the fact that the easiest way to increase all offensive skills and stuff like pickpocketing is by using those skills on friendly targets, who are sometimes invincible and have a short term memory so they forget you even attacked them.
And waiting for hours for a Mudcrab to hit me didn’t come instead of actually playing the game, I’d just find a single Mudcrab and let it hit me while I went and watched TV or something. Same thing with blocking using a macro key to keep the shield up.
The specifics aren’t really important, I was just giving examples of what I and many others did in order to circumvent the game leveling requirements.
As other people have stated numerous times, it’s just human nature. Give us a shortcut and we’ll take it (I’m generalizing obviously).
Some people enjoy the leveling itself, while some like me enjoy the results and not the process. Probably why I always got rushed in D2, except for my first ever char back in D2C.
Wheew way to go, let’s second guess one of the main features of the game. How about having an idea of wtf you want in the game before you build around the feature. Screw it, no one cares anymore. I’d have to be drunk and bored out of my god damned mind to point out the fact that this is dumb as hell and every D2 fan is ready to say screw the game. Looks like a disappointment we have waited years for.
You, 12 years form now: D4 looks awful, all us D3 fans are ready to say “screw the game”….
I wasn’t a huge fan of the previous rune-effects-as-items implementation. One of the biggest problems was, of course, how many of the same type of Rune you’d have, but for different skills.
For example, think of how many white-coloured alabaster runes would be in your inventory – you wouldn’t know which one was for which skill unless you mouse over each and every single one. It’d be very annoying to swap in the right runestones once you’d accumulated a large amount, especially across different classes.
Looking forward to hearing what Blizzard is currently rolling with.
Never a fan of carrying/storing Runestones, so hope this change happens.
I’d like to see them drop as consumables, similar to dyes. Perhaps levels 1-3 in normal, 4-5 in nightmare, 6 in hell and 7 in inferno. They would be of a particular flavor, and you’d get to choose which skill to change/enhance after consuming it. Other than a storage issue, this also solves the problem of runetones becoming a trash drop.
This makes sense, rune would level-up like Materia or gems in PoE. I like it. And it would give meaning for lvling in the dead 31-60 part and even after 60 you would still be grinding for that lvl 7 rune.
But… even with Azzure’s system, you -will- be looking for level 7 runes for your skills… potentially something like number of skills*5 runetypes… that’s a ****ton, and would certainly make their prices stay high. At Blizz’s advantage. Of course.
Under my system they would be consumable for a permanent rank up to that Rune effect. No storage required.
It seems reasonable
Also, as an added feature, the system would let you “extract” any learned Rune effect from your char and “burn it” into an scroll, so you can sell it into the RMAH
I would prefer that only material for making runestones would drop.Different runestones would need mixed amounts and qualities of “runedusts” to make, just like any other item that you craft. Then all receipts are found for each skill, only level 1 or similar is teach by jeweller.
Addition to this, there will be legendary runestone receipts with special effects. And all runes that are made will be as items and can be salvaged to get some dusts back.
I like that idea.
ideally they fix the problem with build commitment and free specs at the same time as they fix inventory space and the lvl 30-60 lack of customization..
Maybe you’ll get to choose the first rune rank of each skill at a certain lvl, like 15. Then you’ll get rune points to spend to increase ranks of runestones all the way up to lvl 60. If you want to respec your rune points you’ll have to find rare consumables that you can use to wipe the rune points for a specific skill. You can still swap skills freely and pick whatever rank 1 runes you want, but then you will miss out on the points you spent on the swapped out skill.
Maybe this is to confusing but, i think something like this would work pretty well.
Possibly. The focus for D3 seems to be penalty-free specs changes just shy of hotkeyd swapping mid-combat. Then again, glyphs in WoW do require a reagent to clear. Reagents = more trading on the AH = more profit for Blizz.
Sorry that all sounds horrible!
Blizzard should just add a second dedicated Runestone bag with 6×7 squares, runestones stackable of course. Looking just like the picture posted in the news. Done.
http://www.diablowiki.net/images/9/98/IconRunestones.png
dont forget about the different random affixes
the same rune is able to drop in xxx variations
)
(6×7 is definitely a size too small
if there arent any affixes or special effects then you are right
inventory space that looks like the rune picture + “stack -feature” = profit
iam really looking forward to see the new system =)
go go go blizz =)
I like the idea of such a system with \consumables\. It reminds me somewhat of the skill/spell system in D1, which I find great. It makes up for a good hunt, trying to find every last one for each class (while removing the need to carry all of them if they are to be used).
“The skill and rune systems are still in development as you’re aware. We’ll let you know as soon as we’re ready.”
I am starting to wonder what the f*ck were they doing on the game these past few years. They say coming early 2012 and then they announce that almost every aspect of the game is still in develepment. Seriously, what the hell Blizz. This way it looks more like fall 2012, if we are lucky.
yeah, 2 days ago with the mass invites going out and the patches coming out so close together I was really beginning to believe they’d make Q1,
but then a quote like that makes me think, “nah, not gonna happen”
I’m still of the mindset that if they do make Q1 the RMAH will not launch with the game, but will be released some months later
Iterating my boy, iterating.
AKA “A reason to not do anything right the first time” – Elly©
They just mean they are waiting till they got something more concrete to tell us. I bet they already know what the change is going to be, but are making sure that it feels right this time before they announce it.
Anyway from what we know about runestones (old version) once used they become bound, so something like WoW glyphs would work with minimal changes (IE you collect rune use rune it get added to your bound skill rune list and the item vanishes so no inventory space lost), all they need to add is a number counter to keep track of how many of each rune you got.
“They just mean they are waiting till they got something more concrete to tell us. I bet they already know what the change is going to be, but are making sure that it feels right this time before they announce it.”
They are working on this game for quite some time. They should sort this crap out in pre-production or at least earlier in development cycle instead of “polishing” it 2 months (hopefully) before release. Or at least make up their mind. It just seems amateur to me
I am pretty sure the runestone effect will still come of some sort of item, it either being a stone or a scroll. The reason I think so is because they should in some way be tradable. Runestones are set to be one of the most traded items on the RMAH – e.g., they make extra cash for Blizzard
I think that runes should be items that drop, but when you “use” them, they become assigned to that skill and when you click the round button for runes in that skill you get little pop-up menu where you can choose which runestone to use (you can choose from which you have found). It wont take inventory space and it can still be something that will keep economy flowing.
Yep a rune list (Global or per skill would work fine), and you learn the rune from the runes by using the droppable item.
I don’t understand the harsh criticism about the changes. Almost every project that hasn’t been done before is going to run into problems when going from plan to full scale. Those problems will sometimes require radical changes to be solved in the best possible way. If no radical changes are made to the original plan during a project like this, I’d say that’s mostly luck. You can’t predict how everything is going to turn out.
because end of Q1 is less than 8 weeks away and they’re apparently still making huge changes
because it doesn’t look like they really designed and thought out the game before starting; it looks more like they just took everyone’s ideas, threw them all into the game and said, “hey, let’s implement everything and see what works and what we have time to finish”