+Skill Item Modifiers Confirmed
Posted 7 March 2012 by FluxA couple of weeks ago, right after Beta Patch 13 went live our DiabloNut Diablo 3 Database datamined a huge list of new item modifiers, which seemed to show +skill type bonuses to every skill in the game. It wasn’t clear if those were an old feature just added to the beta build or a new feature being tested out, and there was no telling if they’d actually be active in the game at any point. Queries to Bashiok and the other US CMs went in vain, but now, thanks to the Italian B.net forums, we know that these items are in the game, and should be a huge feature on higher difficulty levels.
Thanks to Lomion for sending the news and the translations of the forum replies by GM Xarishflar. Quotes:
…Yeah, they are somewhat replacing the old runes. Developers wanted to give players an additional chance to customize character skills, as an alternative to the recently removed rune quality levels.
…Yes, they are probably going to be equitable items. At the moment we can’t share more precise information with you; the game is still in beta, some things could be revised and modified before release.
This is awesome news, for those of us concerned by the repeated removals of character individualization/customization over the course of Diablo III’s development. It also seems like a great news for the whole “creating an identity for each character” issue; 
freespecs are easily done, but if you’ve got some gear that boosts skills X and Y, you’re more likely to find ways to use those powered up skills in all situations, rather than switching to different skills for every new encounter.
I do wonder how the item bonuses actually work, though. After all… there aren’t any skill points anymore, so it’s not like an axe can just have +2 to Frenzy. It’s not clear from the syntax of the item mods as seen via the datamining. Lots of skills don’t do damage, after all, so how can the same modifiers add to damage, or duration, or the amount of buff or debuffs, etc?
Did the developers leave something akin skill levels in the game code, invisible to the player, but there to be modified by +skill gear or by say, skill shrines, should those return to the game at some point? As several people have suggested in comments, likely these item bonuses will add to the level of your rune effect, hence we might get the visual and the effect of higher level rune bonuses; even the much-lamented “more than 3 shots” with Poison Dart or Magic Missile.
I hope these only real means of character differentiation are available in the RMAH!
Why, dont follow, please explain.
It’s other players posting items in the RMAH, so cant see how they could “only” be available there without some player “owning/finding” w/e is put up for sale first. Unless you are thinking of blizzard selling exclusive cosmetic items on the RMAH. So yeah, dont follow
I’m just upset that certain features have been deliberately stripped away to maximize RMAH revenue, not to make the game better or more fun. And now, the only real means of customizing/differentiating our character will come in the form of gear, and Blizzard is banking that we will hit the RMAH to get that gear.
Yes, someone has to find that gear first, but that average player will find WAY more gear that their character can’t use than can. “What to do with all that useless gear? Hmmmm….I know! The RMAH!”
Ah fair enough
Well I’m not sure what to think of the whole RMAH issue, but I do like it better than subscription or a cash shop. I know blizzard will make money from this, but I’m not forced to use the RMAH to play the game. To my luck I’m a hardcore player, so wont be seeing much of the RMAH anyway, at least at release.
But tbh. I think its better that blizzard makes money from item sales instead of ebay.
I mostly agree. I do see some problems. Imagine the RMAH like the stock market, values are in flux. A player has invested in specific +skill gear that is a good value at the time. Blizzard introduces a better version, radically increases availability, or nerfs that specific skill, rendering the items obsolete or common. The investment is devalued… this will incite even more rage than usual now that money is directly involved. In the case of an explicit nerf affecting their purchase (that they believe they own), young players will probably think “This is not what I paid for, I want my money back” or “Who is accountable for this?” Many people understand they are taking a risk under such circumstances, but… If this gets out of hand I could see it tarnishing the reputation Blizzard has built up.
What are Blizzard’s responsibilities when personally sanctioning this system (regardless of any TOS that no one reads)? Selling a virtual commodity infers some responsibility from the seller to the buyer, but are players really going to look to the players they bought from or Blizzard? If you’re the developer, the target of ensuing rage, what do you do when assuming even greater responsibility for that rage? Will this make every post release change/update more excruciating? Will updates get delayed for endless iteration to make a greater (than normal) attempt to mitigate player rage while at the same time delaying new content? This would affect all players regardless of their RMAH use (and just imagine the negativity throughout the community players would be dealing with as well, with people feeling nerfed AND ripped-off). How Blizzard handles all of this, assuming it doesn’t drastically impact the quality of the service, will be exciting to watch.
I believe SteveG is trying to indicate that anyone can just buy their way into L33tness by buying +skill items with real money.
Given that, it’s just RMAH trolling. That’s all you need to understand.
No, I actually don’t have a big problem with someone buying their way to “L33tness.” I do have a HUGE problem with Blizzard steering us in that direction.
yeah it’s a complicated issue. i mean for instance i see the argument that with the old runestone item system blizzard was still steering us towards using the RMAH to get the highest level spells. this is really an indistinguishable variation of that mechanic. i mean they’ve been designing the game around maximizing profit from those who are willing to pay real money for l33t++ crap since that announcement last year (and probably a long time before then too) but the more i think about it, it’s overall a good thing. we can still get our crazy +80000 magic missile multishot if we want it, instead of runes being one flat level. so at least their masturbatory-pragmatic-bravado-chauvinism corporate design decisions aren’t taking away from the cool-factor of the game (in this particular case)
3 words SteveG – Gold Auction House.
Many items will be going for gold as well….
Blizzard is supporting a good trade economy, and that always has been the most interesting part of Diablo IMHO. D2 lasted a long time for me, simply from the trade game.
The D3 team wanted to make this game based on items, and not static points you put into your character, that would be copy and paste cookie cutter specs, like Diablo 2. Either way, Runestones would’ve been up on the RMAH as well in the previous system. So take your tin-foil hat off…. Maybe Blizzard is “steering us” to have an extremely fun end game?
“I hope you’re right, I really do.” Name that movie!
Anyways. Tin foil hat still on. Overall, I fear the ramifications of this new “D3 as a significant revenue source” mentality. What does it mean for the crafting system or merchants? I fear for their survival. Is Blizzard going to make crafting so compelling that we will want to break down the items we find to crafting material, instead of putting them on the RMAH? The conspiracy theorist in me says no. So, whats left is the complete removal of crafting (even less depth) or the deliberate gimping of the system as to not compete with the RMAH (again, less depth). Also, I don’t think Blizzard will remove merchants, but I do believe they will make them useless, a la WoW.
In my perfect vision of D3 gear, I saw characters wearing 1/3 gear from drops, 1/3 from crafting, 1/6 from merchants and 1/6 from RMAH. A system that maximized overall game depth. Now, I fear that the D3 devs are trying skew this to HEAVILY favor the RMAH.
THANK GOD! Alright, my itemization related fears are largely abated.
Sounds like the latest lastest minute decision ever made. Another one of them, that is.
Stop whining, these are awsome news.Noone push you guys to buy items with real money! FFS Sell something that you dont need and buy something you need.Its simple! GREAT NEWS BLIZZARD!
Noone push you to spend your money to customize your hero.
Yeah, this is where we came at last.. + skill modifier in items means much more customization than the other customization bits if there are any
….i hope the r more afixes for missiles for wizard then just 3….
…with that i be satisfied
I was really hoping for these +skill items when the old rune system was trashed. Good news indeed!
quite interesting … a bit relieved since the rune change; still would like a respec fee but who knows …
actually it sounds quite neat; I hope the items will be just as good if not better then items without those skill runes … so they will be quite valuable.
and ya the AH will be cool because even if you find one you know you dont like; well who knows maybe you can get one that you do.
I was just sitting and thinking about how I missed the whole thing about adding points/levels to my skills that we had in D2. This is great news, because frankly, it would not be enough with just +int, +dex and +str from gear to improve DPS.
However, even with this change, i still think it’s a bummer that they won’t give us rune levels in some form. Afterall, having rune items drop wouldnt be such an inventory nightmare if they just disappeared after being used, just like in it was in D1.
Now perhaps people can chillax a bit, even though theres a game developer hidden in quite alot of people on the different diablo forums, I think blizzard knows what they are doing
After 6 years of development time, I’m pretty sure they do too!
I think people whine and whine and whine, because the wait has been agonizing.
I know there was a few times where I QQ’d non-stop too, lol.
We just want the damn game, NAO!!
awesome! The question is if we get to see the exact benefit from the propriety or we get “improves <skill>” and if it can effect skill in multiple ways (no only + damage but duration, AOE CD etc )
Whatever they way its great info and add plenty of customization!
Very Pleased!
Pretty much sums it up ;-)
I thought this would be the case (and mentioned this a few weeks back) – now that I am done talking about how psychic/awesome/douchebagish I am I would like to move on to my next point: Art assets from skill levels 5, 6, and 7 should exist from the previous rune level system. As mentioned by Bashiok, base levels are between rune lvl 4 or 5. If you get a +1 to skill (or equivalent since skill levels are out), it can queue up the rune lvl 6 animation and art, if you get a +2 to skill, it can queue up the rune lvl 7 animation and art.
Just a theory that hints toward +Skill animations still being as awesome as a maxed-out rune in the old system. Could be wrong.
That’s what I was thinking, too.
Seems a waste to toss out all that coding and possible art assets, so I would also think that these rune ranks were put onto affixes.
I was thinking the same thing. Maybe selecting the skill rune now will just use the old rune level 1 animations, but if you get a +2 to a skill, that the runes for that skill will now be powered up to the old level 3 runes of that skill. That would be nice too since you wouldn’t have to worry about getting the level 7 crimson rune for a particular skill, you could just acquire enough +skill gear for your particular skill then all of the runes for that skill will be the level 7 version.
I actually like that idea WAY better than the old “find a rune” system.
The next question would be do the +skill items stack, are you limited to a certain +skill based on level or difficulty or anything like that, since the runes were presumed to drop at certain levels in certain difficulties only.
This would be nice but whatt if ou get 4 or more items with the same +skill affix.
50 zombie bears.
Actually, you have a good point. Complete theoretical – any “+buff” to a specific skill (in this case, let’s say an affix that gives +50% to zombie bear damage [bringing the total to 286% from base]) could kick the called art asset up to the next “level” with a max of the lvl 7 art asset being called. A few more pieces of gear adding 25% here or there could do a slow-walk up the art asset chain from lvl 4 to 7. I’m just spit-balling here. Thoughts?
Well it seems likely that there will be some kind of hard cap in place (Maybe??). I have no idea how they will implement it, though. Are they going to animate magic missle shooting 12 missles for the guy who collects +magic missle split rune gear? I hope so, haha.
I think that once you have reached the level cap, they could just IGNORE any further items’ benefits.
i.e. if (x>7) then make x=7, something as simple as that.
Also +1 rune level would be a pretty rare affix and +2 rune levels would not be there at all. My point is, people should really have to farm if they want +7 to a particular skill.
What I’m most pumped about is that this will create build commitment as you progress, while allowing you to experiment freely in the lower levels. Which is a very cool way of going about it without a gold cost for respec.
Well this is somewhat reassuring. I’m still a bit concerned since we don’t have more finalized details and the only thing we’ve seen from the datamined mods are boring damage (%) increases. I hope we’ll see them change the skills in meaningful ways such as adding additional magic missile splits or otherwise increasing the perks of the selected rune.