Blue on the Potential Runestone Revision
Posted 3 August 2011 by FluxAs we’ve talked about in news and during the last podcast, 
Runestones are not going to be included in the Diablo 3 Beta build. They wouldn’t have been found there anyway, since Runes don’t start dropping until around Act Two, but even if they didn’t, they wouldn’t. Because they’re being reworked, with a un’id’ed/random mod sort of feature being tested out.
In the podcast conversation we didn’t have the full info, and assumed Runestones would just get a bonus property. Not so, since as Jay Wilson explained during the media event, Runestones are now “unattuned” when found, which means you don’t even know what kind of runestone it is until you socket it! (When the magical mod shows up as well.) Before then you only know the level of the stone; not the type.
That feature, I don’t like. It just seems annoying and sure to confuse noobs. (Which, as we know, is the single unpardonable sin in Diablo III development.) Bashiok seems to agree on those points, as he elaborated on in a few forum replies. (And no, I’m not changing my opinion just because he shares it. Bliz PR employee or not!)
Bashiok: Personally, I love it, and hope it finds a way in.
I’m not so sure about rolling to see which rune effect you get (it could still work), but I *love* the idea of random affixes. That you could have a end-rank rune for the skill you want, with the effect you want, but you still don’t have ideal stats on it. That just makes the min/max item hunt that much cooler, and makes runes more important than… “Oh, I found another Crimson rune. Great. /salvage”
Yeah, but it makes it harder for me to see everything that could potentially be on my rune. I won’t know what “perfect” is without digging into the game and even then, what are the chances of me getting the rune I want.
I don’t like the random aspect of this part, I feel like randomizing my skills isn’t a great way to go :(.
Bashiok:Pretty unlikely you won’t know what’s available with an auction house at your finger tips.
And if we’re just talking about affixes, we’re talking about min/maxing. You’re going to know what affixes you want because you’re already pretty deep into your build.
I don’t expect a new character to pick up a rune, roll affixes, and then throw it away because “ew it has attack instead of defense”. Probably not going to care much early on.
Ya, I suppose that’s definitely true. But you also have to take into account that it’ll be randomizing the type of rune as well, correct? So I only have a 20% chance of getting the rune I want, regardless of whatever affix is added.
Maybe if each rune type dropped instead of “unattuned” runes, then I’d at least be able to get the rune I want and hope I get a good affix on it.
Bashiok: Well, like I said I don’t know if that part of it will work out… I just want the randomized affixes. 
Makes runes so much more compelling as an item.
I’m confused as to why this was put into place… I have the idea, but it seemed like the ‘faced’ rune system was better, since we got to know what it was.
New player: “oh hey a rank 1 rune”
*socket*
New Player: “neat. does this now”
*kills stuff, finds another rune*
New Player: “oh rank 2? I’ll upgrade it then”
*sockets rank 2 rune into previously socketed skill*
New Player: “Hey, how come it’s not doing the same thing? now it’s doing something totally different? Is it the rank? What is this “multi-shot” thing? It gave me bonuses? Now this rank 2 rune gives a different bonus, and does a different effect?”
*goes into general global channel*
New Player: “HOW DO RUNES WORK!?!?! Someone help! I’ve found all these runes but it keeps changing my skill around!”
Bashiok: That sounds about right. Well, like he [Jay Wilson] said, it’s still just hallway discussions at this point.
What do you guys think? Does anyone like the idea of unattuned runes where you don’t even know what type of rune it is? Does anyone NOT like the idea of random magical mods on runes? How about some of the stuff we talked about on the last podcast. Legendary runes? Rune set bonuses?
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I hate it because it reminds me of the stupid charms in D2. Out of 100 dropped charms, I’d only want to use 2-3 because everything else was pure trash. Unless they make the rune drops as common as charms. If the runes remain in the rare drop category (and I mean RARE), then you’ll never find what you truly want. Oh great, they might as well rename them to Zod.
Blizzard, I’ve been really trying my best to keep an open mind with all the changes you’ve shoved our faces into this past week……now you’re really starting to piss me off.
PS: the dropdown menu of each site subsection (Diablo 3 —> Basics/Items/Lore) etc appears too far away from the source link (Diablo 3) in IE and we can’t click any of them, as it disappears too quickly. It works fine in Firefox.
Yes, God forbid we can’t get absolutely ideal items in every single available slot.
And without knowing how many different affixes you’ll be able to get on runes, and how widely they vary for a given rank rune, it’s hard to say how hard getting ideal will be.
I also find it hard to believe there’ll be powerful enough mods that not getting what you want would turn a rank 7 rune of the right type to trash. It’ll just be “Not ideal, it’ll do for now but hopefully another comes up soon” or “My current rune has better stats, oh well, salvage/AH it”. Just like equipment items.
The thing is, it’s not just a matter of looking for the right mods on the rune, it’s also looking for the right rune. Maybe you really like the “indigo” effect on one of your skills, and after attuning a bunch of runes you finally get one to attune as indigo… but then it has a ****ty attribute. That doesn’t make the rune “trash”, but it sure is disappointing.
Lol not trash, just scrap metal.
that’s only if they really decide to keep the rune type undisclosed until you attune it (which is an idea even bashiok doesn’t like). but either way, you will still pick up every highlevel rune you’ll find, and you will roll affixes. so it has no affect on your playing. the only difference is that you get more excited if you find a rune which could potentially turn out to be the one you need, so I see you think it’s frustrating finding a level 7 rune with best affixes but of wrong type. but you must keep in mind that in that case, it will be five times more simple “runes” dropping than predetermined “indigo runes” in the other case, so after some time you will get used to finding much more runes than you need, and to salvaging / selling /throwing away most of them because it’s just not what you want.
in my opinion, the new system is absolutely fantastic.
God forbid, they use some way to limit respec in late game. Seriously? Complaining about free respec then complain about you have to put dedication to one build.
because they want to make them un’id’ed and with random properties, are runes less rare now?
I love both aspects of new system.. unattuned state and random mods… I really hope this system will make it to the game.
There are three components to the proposed new rune system but all three seem independent.
I love the idea of affixes on runes, I’m surprised it’s taken this long to come up with.
I also love that the runes become permanently attuned (possible wiping by the Mystic not withstanding) to the specific skill they are socketed into. It creates an investment into your skillset that complements the new skill system perfectly.
But I don’t like the random rune type idea. Not only is it confusing to noobs, but that there’s a 4/5 chance you’ll not get the rune effect you want for the given skill and can’t then put into another skill is terrible. Wasting 4/5 of the rank 1 runes that drop like candy may be okay, but wasting 4/5 of the rare rank 7 runes is not. Affixes alone provide enough randomness and good vs. suboptimal runes.
Of course, wasting runes isn’t a problem if unattuning a rune is cheap and easy – but that defeats the whole point of attuning them to skills in the first place – investing rare runes into specific skills.
But this is one of the main goal of new system.. Make rune as rare as possible… with current system..runes are .. well.. just not rare at all.. maybe top level runes.. but market will be flooded with runes very fast and will be very very cheap …so everyone can have all runes he/she wants.
This system is making big changes to rarity while keeping rune flavor in the game. Love it
This is a good assessment. Personally, I don’t care about whether it will confuse some people. I don’t like the idea of always designing to the lowest common denominator. There will ALWAYS be people who are confused by even the simplest system. Why not instead go the other route and give people a little credit for being able to figure it out?
I am optimistic about this idea, ESPECIALLY in combination with the changes around skill points. I think having skill-bound runes restores *some* of the idea of having a character build due to the likely lack of optimal runes if you sub skills mid-combat. To that end I’ll GLADLY concede that some people will be confused at first.
Some people are saying they don’t like that you may have a hard time finding the right kind of rune under this method. I don’t think it’s that big of a deal, though. I think the rarity is a good thing – like checking then discarding an ill-suited piece of gear in any other slot. At worst they can implement the system suggested by a few by having Unattuned (Obsidian, Crimson, etc.) Runes that then bind to skill. But I think it can work fine as-is.
It’s clear that the devs are struggling to find some rune sinks, since othewise everyone would have had all the Level 7 runes they could ever use six months after launch. There has to be a way to use them up other than dying wiht them HC, or salvaging them. Hence these new systems that make most runes sub-optimal with bad affixes, or that attune them to particular skills, wasting most of them.
(Though I doubt it would be 4/5 of high level runes, since there would probably be 2 or 3 of the 5 rune types that you’d accept the effect from, in a lot of cases. Maybe only 1/5 is ideal, but you’d be able to tolerate a couple of others, assuming high level runes were quite scarce, and you got a good affix on it also.)
I could be completely wrong but I got a different impression. I thought the runes still had types. So for instance a rune would be an ‘unattuned Indigo’ rune. Once you apply that rune to a skill (like Magic Missile), it becomes a Magic Missile Indigo rune with +10 Attack. The affix (+10 attack would be random). Once a rune was applied to that skill, it could only ever be applied to that skill. So if I pulled my Magic Missile Indigo rune out, I couldn’t make it an Arcane Orb Indigo rune. It would always be a Magic Missile Indigo rune now. This would create a market for unattuned runes. It also means instead of just looking for a +10 attack indigo rune, I would now need to look for a +10 attack indigo rune for my specific skill, or an unattuned indigo rune and hope I got lucky.
This means you would cycle through level 1 runes as you got them and get a feel for what the different rune types do for each skill, but you wouldn’t know exactly what a rune did because of the random affix. I reread the interviews with Jay Wilson with this idea in mind and it made a lot more sense to me.
Edit: I should point out if it wasn’t clear that I meant that an Indigo rune would always have the same effect for a skill. You just wouldn’t know what the random affix would be. And once it was attuned to a skill, it could only ever be applied to that skill.
that was my impression too from the video interview of Jay.
It’s a little confusing, but I think what they’re thinking of is you don’t know what type of rune you have til it’s socketed. So Rank 3 Unattuned Rune drops, when socketed into Magic Missile it becomes Rank 3 Magic Missile Indigo Rune (+ 10 Attack).
What you are describing is exactly what I’d like to happen.
I really hope this is what they meant, or at elast what they will implement.
The problem they saw was that one rune did so many different things to different skills and it was clumsy design to give a player a rune without explaining what it does in a different skill. By making it random they jump the need to explain anyting. Its a poor solution.
There was also the issue of inventory space (for runes to swap with, or just use in a skill you get later, etc) … and I dont see how more items per rune, so to speak, solves that .. rather the oposite.
This was my impression as well. Jay didnt seem very good at explaining it I think. If this interpretation is true however then Bashiok is confused as well, so who really knows.
Another possibility would be to simply select which type you wanted, upon slotting it into the skill, though I doubt that is what he was saying.
I got the same impression, unattuned indigo runes which you would then attune to a certain skill.
Reason why I think Jay meant it like that is because he was going on about level 1 runes where you can experiment with what is going to happen. With the system you guys are proposing (totally random runes), that statement is not true.
The unattuned “type” runes would make a lot of sense.
1) They wouldn’t have to list everything the rune could do, because people would have seen what a rank 1 indigo does.
2) They limit the availability of runes a bit. Any rune that is used, is skill attuned, so not possible to respec on the fly (or cheaply, depending on the mystic wipes) .
3) The random affixes would make the runes variable and would increase the price of the higher ones. Could be a rune with a great affixe, but you still need it in your skill.
One other thing: From the interview I got the feeling that the drop rate of higher level runes becomes quite low. So I expect something more akin to rune drops than to gem drops in D2 terms. I’m totally behind the “unattuned type rune drops but becomes attuned to a skill”. Seems to have a good balance between clear, replayability and able to please casual and hardcore.
I dont like this system.
For ppl like me who are completionists this requires me to get 5 runes for every different skill instead of just 5 total for fun and a few more for the skills i actually use.
EDit: just calculated how much i would need with skills that are in the beta: 555!
(just 1 rank, if you want all ranks multiply:P)
I really like the random affix’s part, adds quite some depth, as for the Unid part… mmm, I’m very so-so about it.
Imo the level of the rune should be not unique, but the type should. Simply out of economy reasons, so you can sell/buy unid level 7 runes, while knowing that they WILL have a high level, but not know the type. I can even imagine unique runes or rare runes, with additional stats.
It’s like mixing the D2 jewels, with the previous D3 runes, which is pretty neat
Based upon the lack of information regarding how the Mystic can alter runes (such as combining 3 or more to make a better rune) or how rare they will be to find in the game, I believe that they should potentially just have all dropped runes be unidentified and simply utilize a Scroll of Identify to obtain the goal of random properties/stat modifiers. Having the runes bind to a specific skill seems a bit redundant, especially if the Mystic can just wipe the rune clean.
there is hoping (if this new system will make it to the game) it won’t be that easy. Actually wiping rune should be expansive as hell..both gold and crafting material (at least high ranked runes)
Also, I think they already said there will be no way to upgrade rune…high rank rune will have to drop. We will see if this is still true.
A would prefer downgrading runes (with new system).. so for example you know you want indigo rune..so you can combine for example 3 any rank 7 runes to get any rune type you want but 1 rank lower..so in this case ..rank 6 indigo rune. Would be simple fix for people who don’t like current system and still keep specific rank 7 runes very very rare
I don’t really understand the point of unattuned runes.
If you want randomness, they were already random at the point of drop. If I kill a Fallen, I don’t know if it will drop an Alabaster rune, a Crimson rune, etc. Then I look on the ground, and, “Hey! Indigo rune!” How is it better or more random if I have to go talk to some NPC or open a dialogue box first? Similarly, I’m going to find out what it does eventually. It’s not a secret. Why is it better if I don’t find out until I put it in a skill instead of finding out when I pick it up?
It just seems like adding an extra step to the process for no particularly good reason.
it’s simple…. it’s for rarity .. if you keep current system.. market will be full of runes with specific type. So..after few months.. when new rune will drop, it’s not really big deal..actually it will be just annoying because runes in AH will be so cheap..that anyone can have anything he want..
New system will make runes very rare and there will be huge demand for runes. ..while with current system..few months after release..runes will have no value at all.
I want to know what type of rune it is before socketing as there is a definite strategic aspect to what type of affect you give your skills. Or so I assume… The random mods sounds great however. More loot to search for, sure, why not?
I love the idea of randomness on the runes as far as affixes. Even adding Suffixes would be nice, even if they aren’t as “good”" as item suffixes (+X to stat instead of +Y to stat on an item, where X < Y). I completely agree with Flux/Bashiok in that it’ll make the item-game revolving around runes that much more interesting.
And I also agree with Flux/Bashiok in that I don’t really want the rune effects themselves to be unknown at the time of dropping. It seems that I will waste A TON of runes trying to find, say, an Alabaster for a skill.
A little randomness is great, and encouraged to keep the game fun and interesting for a longer period of time, but total randomness? That is just annoying. NOTE: Not being a kiss-ass, the points that Flux/Bashiok/others have made in favor of the same things I mentioned here are extremely compelling and arguably the best thing I’ve heard in a while =)
I think, Blizzard is preparing to remove skill runes too as they did with the skill points. They will remove everything, they removed talisman, skill points and now… They try to remove skill runes, in my opinion, they will remove skills temselves completely after removing skill runes. There will be only weapons and nothing else. Maybe they will remove the gear also, we are gonna fight with punches and kicks, How is that idea Blizzard? No customization, no variation, nothing, Blizzard messed up so bad, Diablo 3 will be a huuuge epic fail, you will see. I gave up, I won’t buy Diablo 3, I will not give even a penny to D3. waiting for Grim Dawn and Torchlight 2.
You get that what they are talking about adds in some of the customisation lost by the new skill system, right? Attuning rare high rank runes to skills is a commitment to your skillset/build.
themo is funny, but still gets the red triangle from me.
Unindentified runes would make it easier to trade runes in the AH. With the current system less popular runes would sell for less. However if the rune’s type will only be determined when you socket them you could sell them in their unindentified state and then they would have a fixed price. If their drop chances would be increased by a factor of five their rarity wouldn’t change compared to the current system, but they could present interesting choices for buyers.
For example, if I really want an indigo rune, but I don’t have the money for it or I find it too expensive, then I could probably buy and unidentified rune for less and maybe get lucky.
I hadn’t thought this through very much, but in my mind it sounds good, so I thought that I share it with everyone.
EDIT: Damn you xManiaCCCx for typing faster than me.
Emotional instant reaction:
Not knowing what rune it will be, before it sockets? Crap!
Random prefix/affix. Great!
That’s how I saw it too.