Blizzard Tidbits and More Socketing and Item Concerns

A few quick hits from Bashiok and Jay Wilson on various game issues, from their Twitters and B.net forums.

Hey Mr.Wilson,just askin,why didn’t you guys give the bosses more/new attacks in the harder difficulties? Would’ve been cool. –@Mortanis1
we’ve found you can only add a set number of abilities to a boss. Too many and not all get used. Feels broken and poorly tuned. –Jay Wilson

Where are the hardcore banner customizations that have been shown for years?
Are you referring to the bases? –Bashiok
They were cut. We didn’t like the look of them in main menus and couldn’t see them well in the game. –Jay Wilson

Strength 628, Vitality 294, using Frenzy, Cleave, Fevenge, Seismic, Battlerage, Earthquake. Passives: Superstion, Nerves, Tough as nails –CodySarauer
Your Vit is too low. Split with strength. You’re not getting benefits of NoS as well as too low health. you also have three AoE skills and no control or defense skills. Ground stomp, ignore pain, warcry, etc. –Jay Wilson

One issue that’s come up in forums and even in reader emails is that Diablo 3 sometimes defaults you to a different region than you wish. If you load up D3 and suddenly you’ve got no characters, check the server setting to be sure you’re on Asia/US/Europe as you meant to be. It’s ironic that “people accidentally making single player characters” was one of their excuses for removing SP/LAN from D3, and yet there’s no check box or verification of any kind before you join a different realm.

In addition to the “why are the only useful high-level item mods +damage or +attributes?” question Azzure got into this morning, I’ve also seen a lot of fan complaints about the way socketing is handled. Since the Jeweler lost his ability to add a socket shortly before release, the sockets you find on items are all you’re going to get, and this has created two fields of complaint, which sometimes overlap:

1) Any item that spawns without a socket (or 2 or 3) feels useless, compared to items that do have such bonuses. (Note that sockets in an item are granted by an affix, so there *should* be fewer other useful bonuses, but with the variable number of affixes on rares, that’s not necessarily going to be evident.)

2) The bonuses from high level gems are way too low compared to the massive +attribute bonuses you can get from affixes.

Bashiok touched on both of those issues in a longish thread on the forums. Click through to read it and some more item quality/variety debate.

Thread can be seen here:

Thanks for making gems near useless. You made sockets take up 1 affix and no way to add sockets with artisans. Then you cleverly added affixes on items that add 100+ of a single stat while gems at their best add half that. Go ahead and call me wrong fanbois. But in 2 months you’ll see that I spoke the truth. Keep reducing the “complexity” of the game, cause that’s OBVIOUSLY what made diablo 2 such a success.
Bashiok: As items can’t roll two of the same stat (although hybrid affixes can overlap) a socket allows you to stack more of a specific stat. So even if you reach the upper limit of a specific stat on an item, with a socket you can overcome that limitation. Want to really stack VIT? Even if you’re hitting an upper limit of just straight affixes rolling on an item, you can add more VIT if the item has sockets.

Oh… and regardless of how many sockets you have, it only counts as a single affix. If an item rolls up 2 or 3 sockets, that still only accounts for a single affix spot on the item. An item rolling up sockets can absolutely be better than affixes.

Forgive me for the question (I’m not familiar very much with the Diablo Series), but how does that work with putting different gems in the sockets, such as 2 Dex and 1 Vit? How does it treat all three sockets as one affix if there are two different gems in it?
Bashiok: You are! So items will have an affix limit. Like “a rare of this level can only roll up 4 affixes max”. Gem sockets, regardless of how many, only account for one of those 4 affixes. (in this hypothetical situation in which this particular rare is limited to 4) So this item rolls up +MF, and they’re boots so +movement speed, and +Int and then also rolls two gem sockets. So that’s the 4 affix limit.

I’ve found rings and amulets with no stats, the only “stat” that rolled on it was socketed, so… it’s just a blank socketed ring/ammy. Previously, this would not have been the case, it would have had some stat, and I could have chosen to socket it as well, .
Bashiok: Yup. Not every item will be great. Some will be downright awful. Better kill more demons.

If gets werent in the game, it wouldnt even matter, all they do is add +stats which is directly related to gear, and gear can have like +200 of that stat
Bashiok: I guess I’ll just repeat myself. Gems allow you stack that stat potentially 100-150 higher than would otherwise be possible.

This thought did cross my mind. After a while…long while…everyone will have the max level gems they need. They’ll be able to just recycle and swap them with the gear they have. Are there any plans to make “gem sinks” or is the cost to remove Radiant gems greater than I realize?
Bashiok: The cost is great, but … it’s still possible it’ll happen a long enough time from now. We’re not too concerned with coming up with a solution just yet. We want the system out there, see how quickly people are acquiring gems, and then see what (if anything) we need to do to provide some fun solutions.

If it comes to that I guess Blizzard can just add “gem dust” (salvaged from Gems, obviously) to crafting recipes, thus providing a Gem sink.
Bashiok: We actually had that at one point, but higher end gems are so difficult to create it felt pretty punishing to make that decision. “You worked for months making that gem, now destroy it!” But maybe it’ll make more sense later when gems are a bit more common.

How are sockets useful … if you can roll in a single stat affix, more stat than all 3 gems combined ? Great … 3 SOCKETS …. er wait … I could have had +180 to Int instead … crap.
Bashiok:I’m not sure if it is, I’d have to find out the max stats, but again, that’s discounting the point of customizing your stats as well as stacking.

Say you got the +180 Int, if you have sockets you can raise that to 300+ which is not otherwise possible with just affixes.

How are you guys liking Diablo 3′s item system so far? I haven’t had enough play time, especially with just one character, to get into the End Game, but but the early and mid-level progression seems pretty good. There’s almost always a slightly better weapon or armor option coming up, and it’s fun to keep upgrading my char and feeling like I’m being rewarded for picking up blues and checking the Smith’s recipes as I level up.

Like other people, I’m disappointed in D3′s uniques and sets, though. I miss finding those in the early game (my highest level char is 33, others are in the 20s, and I’ve yet to find a single green or orange item). Your character found them regularly in D1 and D2 — maybe half a dozen per act in D2C/D2X even without any Magic Find — and even though most of the low and mid-level sets and uniques weren’t any good, they were at least different and special, often with specialization to some type, and/or with mods that you could not get on a rare or magical item.

I think the excessive scarcity of such items in D3 is part of what has so many fans complaining about the blah stats on legendaries, since when you finally get one, you expect it to be damn special. And most of the time they’re not.

The lack of interesting variety in item stats (and gem socket bonuses) is going to be a growing problem as well, I’m afraid. Kind of what Azzure talked about in his big post this morning, but when the only mods you’re looking for past about level 30+ are +damage and +attributes, that’s boring.

Obviously we don’t know the items that well yet, and obviously the devs left a lot of item complexity out of D3C to make it “accessible” and to give them room to grow in the expansion(s), and obviously D2′s item system wasn’t perfect (and we’re all thinking of D2X after many patches, while D2C was much more simple)… but remember all the Diablo 2 Special Modifiers that added things like absorbs damage, life/mana leech, critical hit, crushing blow, open wounds, etc? There was great variety in their mods, and their scarcity (none could be found on magical or rare items) made them really fun.

Has Diablo 3 failed to include such interesting possibilities? Is that a problem? Most fans seem to think so, with numerous threads like this one popping up.