Vote: How do you feel about the Skills and Runes system revision?
Posted 21 February 2012 by FluxThe much-anticipated Beta patch 13 has arrived, and the long-promised 
skill and runestone system overhaul has been presented. No longer are runestones items, the skillrune effects come in every 8 or 10 levels over the life of your character, the level 30-60 deadzone is gone, there are no more rune levels, and it’s all accessed through a new UI that almost everyone hates. (Honestly, that’s not true. I played a few more hours tonight and I’m now used to it. It’s not good, but it’s okay, once you know how to operate it and don’t expect too much.)
So, all things considered, what do you think? How does this new system compare to the various versions we heard about previously, back when runestones were items? Pick the vote option that best expresses your opinion, and we’ll do our usual community consensus thing.
BTW, if you aren’t actually playing in the beta, I insist that you inform yourself before you vote. Go watch the short video Elly put together — it provides the best explanation and demonstration of the skill system you’re going to see anywhere.
Do you like the new intergrated skills and runes system?
- 2) Like the new system, but it's got room to improve. (47%, 3,124 Votes)
- 1) Love the new system. Almost perfect. (16%, 1,087 Votes)
- 3) Dislike the new system. Needs MANY fixes. (15%, 994 Votes)
- 5) Don't know/no opinion. (12%, 808 Votes)
- 4) Hate the new system. (10%, 659 Votes)
Total Voters: 6,672
Loading ...Last Vote Results
The last vote asked what you guys thought about D3 missing the “early 2012″ release date and moving to the “Q2 release window” that it may or may not meet.
Obviously not a lot of you guys were happy about it, but the rage was a lot less than we’ve seen in the past over any number of feature changes. I think there were actually more angry threads and comments back in October, when Blizzard announced the 2011 date wasn’t going to happen. Maybe we’ve all seen enough Blizzard delays by now that the surprise has gone?
So, D3 slipped another release date…
- 2) Unhappy. Why did I get my hopes up? (36%, 2,408 Votes)
- 3) Meh. “When it’s done.” is serious business. (30%, 2,031 Votes)
- 1) Outraged. Disgusted. Nuke Irvine. (23%, 1,553 Votes)
- 4) Happy.. I’ll have more time to play come summertime. (6%, 418 Votes)
- 5) No opinion. (5%, 334 Votes)
Total Voters: 6,745
Like the new system (not sure about progression need more data a.k.a. full game==full opinion ), hate the new interface.
Same for me. I like the new system, but really dislike the look of UI for it.
I still feel they should not only use runes for skills but also consider them for runeworded gear and using runes in gear sockets just like d2… but maybe that’s just nostalgia speaking.
I think the old skill UI lends itself to a much more fluid experience (not to mention UI uniformity) and can easily be tailor fit to work with the new system. My mock up is a fast first pass with the old runes still in place (which are far easier to differentiate) but the new fiery runes could easily be implemented as well.
Click through for deviant art image:http://fav.me/d4qpve7
be quiet !!! If they hear about this they will start working on it from the beginning
I think 90% of us agree unanimously with this statement.
whats up with “find community consensus” always?
i really cant see why it should be possible to achvie consense in such matters or why it should be our/your goal to find this consens
The consensus can be to disagree on X or Y. I just use it meaning that these votes give us a good sense of what the Diablo community actually feels about the various issues. Rather than just being influenced by the dozens or hundreds who are motivated enough to complain (or praise) loudly.
you “consensus on a topic = summary of how all the people feel about the topic”
me “consensus on a topic = everyone has the same feeling about the topic”
definition “consensus = http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/consensus”
so i think you use it in a wrong way?
Usually, a consensus fully satisfies nobody so I would not say “everyone has the same feeling about the topic”. Sometimes, a consensus is not found.
… consensus = points that EVERYONE agrees too.. period
You’re confused about the subject of the sentence. The “consensus” formed by these votes is a knowledge of and agreement about what the community feels. That’s the consensus we get from these votes, knowing what a statistically significant % of concerned citizens think.
Right now, anyone can say “most people hate/love the new skill system” and there’s no real way to refute those assertions. Counting up opinions in forums threads is one diagnostic tool, but it’s inherently flawed in that it over represents the views of the vocal minority.
I suppose I could say something like, “the vote results will give us insight into what the diablo community feels about X” but 1) that’s self-evident, and 2) that’s a lot wordier than “consensus.”
at first the short version:
i dont think anyone can be expected to know that “consensus” here referes to “the opposite of the sate where everyone has a different opinion on how the community feels about a topic, because everyone can only orient themselfes on the hate/love-treads by some very motivated fans”
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did i understand what you replyed me?
_
long version:
after (again) reading how you used “consensus” in the previous votes i fully understand how you can use it in this way. but unless, before using “consensus” in this way, you would write about:
“the rage/love threads of some very motivated fans make some people think that the whole community hates a feature and other people that the whole community loves a feature. so there are always debates (=/= consensus) where the one party says “most of the community hates this feature” and the other party says “most people love the feature” or “there are as many haters as lovers and some dont care”. and to replace this debates with consensus we do this vote”
it is very confunsing why you would use the word “consensus” here. i think noone doenst understand it as “i, flux, will analyse the vote and then tell you what single opinion we ~collectively have about this topic”
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and since that doenst make sense, because why would everyone (without knowing it (lol)) agree on a diablo topic, i asked what you mean by that. well… i accused you of using “consensus” wrong.
i would vote for something like “i like it” (not “love”; and without “room to improve”)
Well if you Like something then there is room for improvement to Love it. Seems like a solid vote option to me.
i dont love it + i cant think of a way to improve it
Like the system, obvious the UI needs work as well as the way elective mode works. Hope they add some sort of progression to the runes (maybe some items (scrolls/books?) that can make your runes better? Which you can use at the Mystic?) but i guess that’ll be hard since they start of with the equivalent to the level 4/5 ones
like charms?
There’s some annoying stuffs:
1. Ability gets locked if it is already signed to some button. This prevents you to browse the runes for that skill.
2. When you browse skills through a mouse button, there are some skills that it wont’s show. Guess they draw a line which skills are good/bad for mouse buttons.
3. You can’t see the whole picture, lots of back and forth clicking. This will most likely make players to go outside the game and using calculator.
Hope this is just a middle step. Looks like they just made something up fast for testing. Would like the way it worked in patch 12 + button to expand the runes for the skill.
Yeah, lots of the UI stuff is really bad. I wanted to make this vote a bit more of an overview on the removal of runestones as an item, the spacing out of skillrune effects throughout the whole character progression, etc. But I don’t suppose anyone can really vote on that, when the presentation is so bad.
It’s a pity Bliz didn’t have a better iteration of the UI, as that element of things is really dominating the debate, when I’m more interested in the long term ramifications of the system.
yes a lot of stuff is bad, the original skill description is repeated as you mouse over every rune.
Keeping the old UI, they couldve implemented runes (or skill modifiers) by just having you hold-click a skill and be presented with the different runes that when moused-over for a second, give you the description. That way you keep the whole skills picture intact and people happy. (imagine Mac OS Dock)
It really seems put together very fast. In elective mode, you can’t see some level requirements (when more the 5 skills on one page i think) because both arrows (from elective mode) are ontop of it.
I was disappointed with it, it just shows how far we are from release.
I think the fact that you have both the original and new description splitted is good since you can see the differences in what the runed version brings to the table compared to the original skill. I wouldn’t remove this information so quick comparisons can be done like everything else that is a “should I take it or not” decision in the game.
I’m not in the beta, but I must say I like the new skill & rune system a lot. The UI is the only thing that looks to me needs tightening up but that’s what feedback & polish are for right?!
Flux, I feel your next post really needs to address the social/community aspect of Diablo games and Battle.net.
Here is a rough image thrown together by a fan of what the collective Diablo community wants: http://i1195.photobucket.com/albums/aa394/onetwosc/newd3screen2.jpg
The reason why it’s important is because Diablo is a social game that revolves around loot. People need a place to communicate and display their accomplishments. Isn’t that part of the fun of the Diablo series? Blizzard has really ripped the social aspect right out of Battle.net 2.0 which is something I can’t understand for the life of me. The 2.0 UI looks like it belongs on a console system. Perhaps that was their plan? Battle.net at it’s very core is suppose to be an online community, but the new 2.0 has taken the communication out by dumbing it down to a level that makes it frustrating to meet others. As it stands now it’s basically: Auto join a game, play, leave, repeat. Part of the magic of Blizzard games is the social aspect of Battle.net and in 2.0 it’s just not there.
+1
our e-peens shall be measured
I’ll take functionality over pretty looks.
Sure it’s ugly, but look at all the stuff it does that our version does not.
Online only, forever alone.
Grandma approved!
That would be amazing
Well, since they have noobified wow, I don’t believe Blizzard really thinks social interaction is really important. Since they introduced LFG dungeons (looks a lot like how D3 works), anonymous other players with those battlegroups, the game has gone downhill. Think Blizz had it right, socially, with Wow vanilla and BC, D2 was not a very social game to either. I will probably be playing mostly solo in D3, I don’t feel like flame chats, ppl leaving randomly, or ppl saying nothing at all
It still needs the ability to “socket” things in the skills to give that customization feel (like City of Heroes did). You can use Gems (which are in the game right now), and lead it to Jewels and Runes (of D2X) amongst other ideas to expand it later.
The basic “idea” of the system is okay, that you unlock everything by levelling, it just needs some sort of player driven customization that uses the items driven by Diablo’s item hunt gameplay.
The UI is horrible and needs to be fixed. ’Nuff said on that.
I honestly don’t care. Just get the damn game out already!
What I don’t get (and why I’m nothing more than meh/disappointed) about the new system:
Endless or really protracted item hunt? Yay, awesome, longevity, woo-hoo, rainbows and unicorns.
Endless or really protracted skill-improvement hunt via rune drops? Boo, hiss, worst. idea. ever., etc.
To me, this isn’t about the same tired arguments about customization and so on. I just feel like–if “choice” is fun, then offering greater choice over time by forcing people to make decisions across skills, available runes, and rune ranks is more interesting than having them pick from a static set of things unlocked up to that point. If they want a compromise system (level X through Y rune ranks unlock by level, but rune upgrades are still obtainable), awesome. But I feel like there was this big chunk of “content” involved in upgrading skills multiple times via runes that has just been excised from the game, and I was really looking forward to it.
Also, the UI for elective mode is ghastly beyond belief. If this is what goes into the retail version, I know at least a few people who might refuse to play until it gets more amenable to having fun rather than digging through menus.
I kind of agree with you. And about a week ago I would have done. But then I started playing Diablo 2 again, and while to begin with I loved dropping gems and runes, now I pretty much hate it. Inventory management is fun to an extent but for me it gets old quickly.
I liked the idea of finding things to slot into my skills to make them better. Getting skills automatically but being able to power them up from items you find would be ideal, IMO. It’s just a matter of finding the right implementation of that and Blizzard couldn’t, for one reason or another. I’m happy with the very wide variety of customisation available and happily trade off a mechanic different only in aesthetics; by the time I’m playing it, I probably won’t even notice.
I’ll repost what I added to a previous topic since I think it is a very good idea on a compromise to the new system
http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/forum-watch-80-beta-patch-13-feedback/comment-page-1#comment-36628
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Someone should emphasize to Blizz this idea which seems a nice compromise on customization before we hit lvl 60 with the new system. At least we wouldn’t be wedged in taking all the same skills/runes because of the way they are arbitrarily assigned on the way to level 60.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/4081809943
New UI, let us pick our own runes, and I give it a big thumbs up.
Agreed (on both), until then, my vote is: burn it with fire!
The system itself is great. The UI is the worst thing they have shown us so far.
It’s awful that 50% like it. It means that devs don’t have to improve it and I have to accept this stupid system (omg, it’s even not system anymore…)
Don’t you hate it when people don’t hate the things that you hate just to hate them?
They knew that lack of internal character design didn’t sit well with players, so they somehow managed to make an even more ridiculously stupid system. Players will pick the max runes at max level, or close to it. The strongest, most useful runes will be the ones players rest on. No stat allocation. No charms (there should be a “charm inventory”). Really runes ARE just a flashy way to have “other skills”. That’s all it is. All characters will be statistically idential for a given level and class. Stat heavy gear lacking in flavor.
What the hell is going on? “We’re confident our new system will make Diablo 3 a better game.” Oh, you’re confident eh? These guys are drunk on their own power. It’s so fu-cking amazing they could actually wreck this game harder than they have. I’m sad to say this. I cannot even purchase diablo 3 now. I’m following it to see if they save it… but so close to release… fat chance. You guys (D3 team) are as much in a bubble as Bill Maher paints the republicans. You are blind morons incapable of making a game 1/10th the addiction level Diablo 2 was. I don’t even like games that much, but I loved D2. You, Jay, sure made the water easy to get into… but no one will stay in. I’m looking to the life raft to jump ship with fu-cking tears in my eyes (metaphorically speaking). So you, Jay and your dumb *** team…. how could you do this? AND HOW can you do this all while patting yourself so proudly on your backs?
Thousands of years ago the greeks were speaking a simple word and knew of a simple destructive mistake that had taken down men and even entire empires: “Hubris”. Get ready for the release of a terrible flop all because of it, because of a team that cannot accept criticism. Holding onto stubborn evasions of diablo 2 with white knuckled grasp, all in effort to avoid everything that made diablo 2 great.
Getting rid of runes as items is a good thing, Its a shame they removed the scaling though.
The UI is the most terrible thing I have ever seen. Its an abomination that needs to be put down.
But I guess the runned skills are improving while you level…