The Little Things - Gameplay Video Analysis [Archive]

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Ihmhi

02-07-2008, 15:46

I posted this over at the Battle.net Diablo III forums. Apparantly, it was edited removing all the information after "A gem" - you know, the stuff about the Barbarian skills and such.

I guess Blizzard can do whatever they want on their own forums. This isn't their own forums though. They sure as hell can't sue me for it - taking screenshots from a publicly released video and editing them falls under fair use.

= = = =

I have watched the Diablo III trailer a few times, and I thought it would be nice to do a more in-depth analysis of what we have seen in the 19 minute gameplay video.

I will be going over stuff sequentially and noting points in time for certain things so you can download the video and see them for yourself should you have a reason to doubt me.

I have also included helpful images taken directly from the video and cropped a bit. Again, everything I have seen you can see for yourself!

Skill Cooldown

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b249/Ihmhi/diablo3/d3_cooldown.jpg

Between 0:25-0:40, you can see the Barbarian use two skills. One of them triggers a WoW-style cooldown on the icon to the bottom left.

Buff Icon

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b249/Ihmhi/diablo3/d3_buff.jpg

During the same time the cooldown is demonstrated, you can see that a buff icon appears on the bottom left of the screen. I can see they are making the game VERY different from WoW by having it completely on the opposite side of the screen. d:

Cursor & Enemy Text/Health

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b249/Ihmhi/diablo3/d3_cursor_enemy.jpg

During the combat starting at around 0:25, you can see that when the player hovers their cursor over an enemy it shows a health bar and their name (the enemies in the beginning of the video are "Ghouls"). The cursor also changes to a sword instead of the standard arrow.

(Aside: bring back the damn gauntlet!)

Impact Effect

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b249/Ihmhi/diablo3/d3_impact.jpg

At 1:59-2:03, we can see the Barb smash the ground with some sort of an attack. It leaves impacts on the ground, although they fade after a few seconds.

Inventory

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b249/Ihmhi/diablo3/d3_inventory.jpg

At 2:10-2:18, we can see the inventory screen come up. This picture shows the detail of it.

Most of it is pretty obvious... we see equipment and weapon slots. But there are some things that raise questions.

First, the inventory seems to be more like WoW now - every item takes up one slot. I am sure that item collectors will love this.

But if we look closer, there are three major points of interest.

First, the gold circle in-between the weapon slots. Does this serve some sort of purpose (like switching to an alternate weapon set ala LoD), or is it just decorative?

Secondly, note that some of the item slots are filled and some are not. However, the inventory screen has a bunch of "blocked out" slots that make up most of the inventory. Apparantly, you can expand your inventory somehow...

Which brings me to three: the four bag slots at the bottom right of the inventory screen. Slots for bags like World of Warcraft? Looks like.

You can also see a small number on the scrolls: apparantly stackable items will have a small number on them showing how many of each you have. I feel bad for you people running insanely high resolutions. d:

Item Hover & Info

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b249/Ihmhi/diablo3/d3_item_hover1.jpg

During the same time period of 2:10-2:18, we can see the player swap out his axes for some fancier ones. Again, some ideas taken from WoW and similar MMOs. Let's look at the details of the original axes first:

Gaff
[Axe]
51.6 Damage Per Second
*Attacks Per Second: 1.20
*Damage: 39-55
Sell Value: 193 O

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b249/Ihmhi/diablo3/d3_item_hover2.jpg

And now the new items the Barb equips:

Heavy Axe of Storms
[Axe]
27.6 Damage Per Second
*Attacks Per Second: 1.20
Damage: 15-31
*+1-47 Lightning Damage
Sell Value: 249 O

Double Axe of Frost
[Axe]
23.4 Damage Per Second
*Attacks Per Second: 1.20
*Damage: 12-27
*+25-27 Cold Damage
Sell Value: 246 O

We clearly see Magic items here: simple axes with an added elemental damage effect. Note that the elemental damage does not appear to be calculated in the overall weapon damage, which goes against the previous Diablo II mechanic of factoring in all damage into the weapon range.

Also note it shows you the sell value of the item right on it, something you would only see in the merchant window in Diablo II. Apparantly they've taken some tips from WoW's AuctioneerAdvanced addon (and similar addons).

Runes

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b249/Ihmhi/diablo3/d3_rune.jpg

On screen from 2:38-2:39, we see a Minor Power Rune. It seems that they may have ditched the ol' "Ral" "Ist" etc. naming convention and went for more descriptive (but simpler) names. Throughout the video you will see other sorts of runes drop as well.

Elixir?

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b249/Ihmhi/diablo3/d3_elixir_rune.jpg

From 4:23-4:27, we can see both of these items on screen. Minor Energy Rune seems simple enough, but what's an Elixir of Vitality? Why not just call it a potion? It seems to be something more complex. Will we have stat-boosting potions (like WoW's alchemy) in Diablo III?

Items from the Trap Chest

The items in the trap chest from 5:20-5:24 are:

Gauntlets
Plate Leggings
Gothic Helm
Plated Greaves
Gothic Plate
Plated Pauldrons

While the trap is more "insidious" than the simplistic spawn traps of Diablo II, the functionality is very similar: after the trap is tripped, you still get loot. That is unless the chest is empty, after which point it would just suck to do all of that work for nothing.

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b249/Ihmhi/diablo3/d3_items_trapchest.jpg

Loot from Trapped Chest

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b249/Ihmhi/diablo3/d3_inventory2.jpg

At 5:28-5:30, we see the inventory window come up. We see all of the items picked up in their proper places. A point of interest is that the Gothic Helm on the Barbarian (remember that they said items would look different on every class in the narration) seems to look like the classic Bone Helm from Diablo II.

We are also showcased an item:

Annihilator Maul of Immolation
[Two handed mace]
109.6 Damage Per Second
*Attacks Per Second: 0.80
*Damage: 107-167
*+25-27 Fire Damage
Sell Value: 531 O

With this item, we now have confirmed three of the classic Diablo II elements are in the current build of Diablo III: Cold, Lightning, and Fire. Joy!

Ladder

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b249/Ihmhi/diablo3/d3_ladder.jpg

At 5:44-5:47, we see the Barb click on a ladder and slide down it. This is evidence that Diablo III's dungeons may have multiple levels without having to go down stairs. It's a nice touch.

Scripted events changing the level layout

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b249/Ihmhi/diablo3/d3_bridge.jpg

At 5:52-5:56, we hear a monstrous sound (presumably the boss) and we see some rocks fall down and destroy a bridge. Apparantly scripted events can change the level. This tiny addition is welcome in my opinion as it brings a bit of flavor to the game and makes things more interesting.

It also makes me wonder: what if the barbarian had walked into the rocks? Would he have died instantly? Sustained damage?

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b249/Ihmhi/diablo3/d3_jump.jpg

What's more interesting, however, is that the Barbarian leaps across the chasm right after the rocks of dooooom fall. Okay, well, the leap itself isn't what's interesting. Anyone who has played Barbarian in Diablo II knows that he has the Leap skill and it has evidently carried over to Diablo III. The interesting bit is that crossing a chasm like this in Diablo II would only be possible with the Barbarian and any class that has teleport. So this begs the question: will alternate routes show up for certain situations like this, penalizing classes that do not possess such a skill by making them go around? Option B is that all classes have some sort of movement skill that would allow them to cross this chasm.

Ever play Pokemon? In that game, you had to pick up special skills (like Cut) and teach them to your Pokemon to access certain areas. If you did not possess a Pokemon with that skill, you could not pass. Perhaps the same thing will be applied here. They have already stated that each class will have special quests just for them, so it is plausible that they will have their own routes throughout dungeons due to "roadblocks" like this.

A gem

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b249/Ihmhi/diablo3/d3_topaz.jpg

Right after the Barb lands and trashes some Zombies, we see a Chipped Star Topaz drop. Most of us are familiar with the old Diablo II format: [Quality] [Gem], like [Chipped] [Ruby], [Perfect] [Sapphire], etc.. What does the "Star" part mean? Is it just flavor text, like [Chipped] [Star Topaz], or is it some sort of new parameter like [Chipped] [Star] [Topaz]? Since they seem to be going more for direct information instead of flavor text ("Minor Power Rune"), I'm going to go with the "it's just flavor text" side of this debate for now.

Another bit I noticed: in Diablo II you had to hold Alt for item text to show up on screen. Now it seems that the item text is always on screen after the item drops. I guess I can take my thumb off of the Alt key... for now.

Barb SMASH! ...with a wall

Alright, here's one of the coolest parts of the video - something I'm sure we're all excited about. At 6:17-6:22, the barb knocks an entire wall down onto the zombies and makes them smush. Awesome!

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b249/Ihmhi/diablo3/d3_wall.jpg

Also note the "Inferior Leather Gloves" in the bottom left corner. Apparantly, normal items will retain a similar "quality system" that Diablo II had: inferior items with worse stats and superior items with better stats.

Spells, Stamina, Ranks, etc.

I wager this one will spark a LOT of discussion. I am packing everything into one image for you to digest. It troubles me a little bit, to be honest.

From 6:28-6:32 we see the player switch out some skills. Here is a picture showing ALL of the popup windows. For the visually impaired and lazy, I have included text as well.

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b249/Ihmhi/diablo3/d3_skill_hover.jpg

In no particular order:

Battle Cry
Rank 5/10
Shouts out a warning, increasing defence of all nearby party members.

Radius: 15 feet
Stamina: 35
Additional Defense: 200%
Duration: 300 seconds

Furious Charge
Rank 1/1
Charge directly at an enemy, smashing everything in the way.

Current Level: 1
Fury: 20
Primary Damage: 110%
Secondary Damage: 100%
Range: 85 feet

Whirlwind
Rank 1/20
Swirl in a cyclone, delivering attacks to everything in his path.

Current Level: 1
Fury: 1
Hits for 25% of weapon damage

Next Level: 2
Fury: 1
Hits for 30% of weapon damage

Hammer of the Ancients
Rank 4/5
A massive attack that has increased chance to critically hit.
Stamina: 16
Deals 225% weapon damage plus an additional 14 physical damage
+25% chance to critical hit

And lastly, we see a sword icon with the text:

This is your skill at close-range combat.

So, some of the easy answers. That orange sword icon we've seen up until this point? That's the normal attack button.

Another change is that things are measured in finite ranges now. D2 and D1 vets have surely been accustomed to talking about screens - Bone Spirit, for instance, had a range of about 2 screens. Now we have "feet" in the calculation.

A silly little note, defense is spelled "defence" in Battle Cry. Damn Canucks, spell like us red-blooded Americans! YEE-HAW!

We can determine from the names that some of these attacks (Hammer of the Ancients, Furious Charge) were special attacks that we have seen the Barbarian using up until this point in the video.

Everything aside from that is... well, world-changing.

The first thing I noticed personally is the ranks and levels. Note that all of the spells has a rank, like 1/20. However, Whirlwind lists "Current Level" and "Next Level" as well as Rank. So what are the differences between ranks and levels?

Next, all of the special skills list a consumption of Stamina. Since they obviously have not been consuming life throughout the video, we must assume that the Barbarian does not use Mana - he uses Stamina. It is possible that they changeed "Mana" to "Stamina" across the board, but I doubt it. I guess classes will have different kinds of "special ability energy" types, probably requiring different potions. Since we never see the Barb actually USE any potions to restore his Stamina (and it restores very quickly), I assume that they have copied the Warrior's Rage mechanic from World of Warcraft. It is an assumption mind you, an educated guess if you will. The evidence in this alpha build in this respect is far from conclusive, but the clues point towards a certain direction in design - at least with the Barbarian.

Paladins will love this: Furious Charge seems to be very similar to the Paladin's Charge skill. So what does that mean with the Paladin? Is the Charge skill out for the Pally? Is the Pally out altogether? Who knows, but we do know that the Barbarian has a skill that was previously assigned to the Paladin.

Mini-movies

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b249/Ihmhi/diablo3/d3_minimovie.jpg

From 7:27-7:45, we see an in-game mini cinematic of sorts play. This is a nice little touch that lets us see our characters in detail.

Mercs and a notable item

Right around 8:00, we see the mercs jump on board. Their pictures appear at the top left with health bars, just like in Diablo II. A simple mechanic that we all liked and worked pretty well.

Also note in the picture a classic item of a certain class: Short Staff, the starting weapon for the Sorceress. This would be, in my opinion, a clue that there is a mage sort of class in the game. Yes, I am pretty sure it was going to be in the game anyway, but here is another little tidbit nonetheless.

Small Bag

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b249/Ihmhi/diablo3/d3_smallbag.jpg

From 8:48-8:57, we see an item on the ground: Small Bag. So it looks like bags (like WoW) will serve some sort of function in Diablo III.

Numbers popping up

We see orange-colored numbers pop up at times throughout the gameplay video. They do not appear with every attack, nor every killing blow on a monster. My guess is that they are critical hits.

The Menu

With this little post nearing its end, I thought I would go over the menu.

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b249/Ihmhi/diablo3/d3_menu.jpg

So this is the menu. The picture describes things pretty well I think, no? The ? next to the tiny 5 and 6 numbered boxes seems to be exclusively for scrolls, although I can not be sure. Perhaps they can be used for Potions as well? Blizzard obviously has not done away entirely with potions, and I doubt they would do away with a hotkey for them.

Conclusion

This concludes my analysis of the little details of the D3 Gameplay video. If you take the time to download the video and watch it carefully in fullscreen, you will pick up a lot of nice little things and you can learn a lot about what the game is really like now.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you guys enjoyed all of this info!

cycloop

02-07-2008, 15:58

Very nice post. The point about the barb being able to jump across the gap made me wonder as well, but you seem to have fully investigated just about everything haha.

I personally find it a shame they overhauled the inventory system. 1 slot for every item is just lame, as you can now carry a ****load of armors which are presumably worth a lot more than say a potion. In Diablo 2 you had to really pick which drops you were going to take with you, as constant teleporting to town became a bit of a boring alternative.

cJw314

02-07-2008, 16:12

"1 slot for every item is just lame, as you can now carry a ****load of armors which are presumably worth a lot more than say a potion."

Why do you assume there's no weight system built into D3? As a result OF the inventory change, I would certainly think that's the case... in addition to a "wow-like bags" inventory system. :)

ThulRasha

02-07-2008, 16:16

Nice analysis.

And no more inventory tetris it seems. To bad, I always liked that mini game in both diablo games.

chipmc

02-07-2008, 16:26

A point of interest for me was that all of the skills didn't have a max of 20 like it did in D2. This makes me wonder how much they over-hauled the skill trees for the barb or any other D2 class that might make a return. And if skill boosting items, like "+1 to all skills", will be back as well.

ETA: There doesn't seem to be a stamina bar in the UI either. Can we run forever now?

cfeldt

02-07-2008, 16:34

Thanks for a good post. Two points are especially interesting to me:

*You covered everything regarding the Barbarians jump and how these kind of rifts will affect the other classes.
*What about the wall he smashes down, will this open up a path to another area? Will barb. player be able to create shortcuts in this was? By the way, did the barb. need to use a special skill in order to knock the wall down?

regards

Pitboss_2000

02-07-2008, 16:47

ETA: There doesn't seem to be a stamina bar in the UI either. Can we run forever now?

Once your character got past level 30 (or something, I have no clue actually) your stamina never ran out anyway. Plus, it was just very annoying, I would be glad if it's out in D3.

@ the Original post:
- The circle on the inventory screen could be just decoration, or maybe it has something to do with set items? Additional set iem = addtional coloured dot in the circle, or something?
- I'd say the arrows pointing left and right at the bottom of the character model in the inventory can be used to switch between items. Not sure, of course
- Regarding skills; perhaps 'Rank' notes the amount of 'hard' skill points you've put it, and 'Level' also takes any possible + to skill items/skills into account?
- The icon next to the slots numbered 5 and 6 in the interface bar (the one with the orange sword) seems to be the skill on the left mouse button. The numbered slots almost have to be quick items. Tp scroll in one maybe, and optional potions in the other one? Or both slots?

ThulRasha

02-07-2008, 16:50

*What about the wall he smashes down, will this open up a path to another area? Will barb. player be able to create shortcuts in this was? By the way, did the barb. need to use a special skill in order to knock the wall down?

Yes, he used his Seismic Slam ability.

HRP

02-07-2008, 17:14

Awesome post!

I'm glad not every skill can be bumped up to 20, to be honest with you. I think this means that there will be either more skills to put points into, or players will be able to max out a couple different kinds of attacks to deal with immunities and all sorts of different kinds of baddies.

Cellzor

02-07-2008, 17:52

- I'd say the arrows pointing left and right at the bottom of the character model in the inventory can be used to switch between items. Not sure, of course

The arrows might also allow you to turn the barbarian, like in WoW where you could turn your characters around in the inventory/inspect window.

Ihmhi

02-07-2008, 18:17

The arrows might also allow you to turn the barbarian, like in WoW where you could turn your characters around in the inventory/inspect window.

Yeah, I think that is what it is, honestly.

tetracycloide

02-07-2008, 18:25

The prospect of having all skills max out at different amounts of point investment is a welcome one.

Take for example the classic D2 barb. Buffing shouts are his primary party utility and yet completely maxing out all 3 of the party buffs required 60 points out of the total 100+ leaving very few left over for actual combat skills. By limiting the number of points that a the shouts required to 10 each suddenly each point is worth double what it was before and the barb has 30 more points to spend elsewhere. This will help open up more versital and varied builds by giving the player characters harder choices to make when assigning points.

I have some speculation to share about the minor runes of energy and power. It appears that the barb character in the footage does not use 'energy' as the 'fuel' for their skills but instead uses 'fury.' Perhaps 'energy' and 'power' are the 'fuel' for other classes and the minor runes are akin to the tiny red globes that drop from monster to replinish your HP when fighting. They do not get absorbed by the barb in the footage because that character has no use for them.

Skill cooldowns are a good thing in moderation. They open up opportunities for skills to be truely useful without being overpowered. There were several skills in D2 that were pretty useless outside very specific situations because their effects were limited against many mobs (freezing comes readily to mind). By adding a cooldown to an ability that freezes the precludes the possibility of chain freezing the limitations on who/what can be frozen can be reduced or removed without making them imbalancing.

One thing that was not pointed out on the inventory screen are the tiny arrows near the bottom of the character portiat plane. Looks like there's an option to rotate your character within the view screen to get a 3D view. Great for comparing vanity gear.

Moving the target HP bar from the middle top of the screen to directly over the unit being targeted is another welcome change. This makes it much easier to keep an eye on enemy HP while looking at the actual play screen. This also makes it much easier to tell what unit is actually being activly targeted.

KiLLJOi

02-07-2008, 18:38

Is the "golden circle" slot in between each weapon not the place for shields?

DarkVenger

02-07-2008, 18:42

Pitboss_2000

02-07-2008, 18:51

Is the "golden circle" slot in between each weapon not the place for shields?

I'd say that the shield usually goes into one of the weapon-slots for characters who can't dual wield.

@Cellzor: good call, I've never played WoW so I wouldn't know. :)

Temple Guard

02-07-2008, 18:53

What I wonder most of all is how much the video is "staged". The mentioned only that the chest has been rigged, but maybe they rigged regeneration rate or other things as well in the video for easier demonstration.

Pitboss_2000

02-07-2008, 18:57

They kill everything in a few hits apart from the boss(es), I'd say the heroes are too high level for these maps.

cJw314

02-07-2008, 19:00

Ihmhi

02-07-2008, 19:02

Im not sure about that but I think I noticed that the mana orb for the barb and the witch doctor were not the same color the witch doctor looked more blue probably it is mana and the barb probably stamina and has no mana at all?

Someone else on the Battle.net forums put up these images:

Barbarian:
http://img329.imageshack.us/img329/9539/vlcsnap75624gj3.png

Witch Doctor:
http://img329.imageshack.us/img329/240/vlcsnap75686as9.png

Also, for anyone over at the BNET forums: the original thread:

http://www.battle.net/forums/thread.aspx?fn=d3-general&t=41374&p=1

I'd appreciate people echoing their comments over there. It already has several thousand views. :D

ahzarelly

02-07-2008, 19:12

A few things I'd like to add:

http://img355.imageshack.us/img355/3852/d3lf3.jpg
- At around 9:14 you can see the final monster of the trailer passing by in the background, and shortly after one of the bowman says "There's something in here!". I think he is the one which our "well meaning hero" woke up, when the bridge was destroyed. Also, I think that that obstacle was just for demonstration, showing "look, the barb can leap through just like in d2".
- Apparently you pick up gold from the ground simply by moving close to it, no need to turn it into (more of) a click fest to gather all those gold pieces.
- And maybe ranks and levels are the same thing, just different names?

Jaklax

02-07-2008, 19:12

http://http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b249/Ihmhi/diablo3/d3_menu.jpg

unno what was so confusing about the botton right where the scroll is.. obviously it's for scrolls/potions?
ppl also need to stop giving blizzard grief..when have they delivered a bad game?

Davidus

02-07-2008, 19:18

"With this item, we now have confirmed three of the classic Diablo II elements are in the current build of Diablo III: Cold, Lightning, and Fire. Joy!"

+we have poison and arcane damage(info comes from deziens of diablo panel)

moranor

02-07-2008, 19:22

It makes no sense for rank and level to be the same thing
Maybe rank is in like EVE, it's higher with better skills

Also, I was kind of let down at first, but I think this showcases D3 pretty well (even though the comparisons to level 1 characters isn't entirely fair)

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/35767.html

edit: btw, you forgot to mention the "block" text that comes up, and the critical hit damage text (I assume it is)
edit2: in the video I linked, how the hell does he leech on a skeleton when he's chasing blood raven??

Ghosted

02-07-2008, 19:24

Great post, when is Part 2, the witch doctor coming up?

Davidus

02-07-2008, 19:25

"Since we never see the Barb actually USE any potions to restore his Stamina (and it restores very quickly), I assume that they have copied the Warrior's Rage mechanic from World of Warcraft."

you are just paranoid. rage in WoW is completely different

snugglson

02-07-2008, 19:35

I've been worried about 'staged' encounters, since I saw the gameplay video in the first place. I've always been annoyed by 'linear' types of gameplay and the movie made D3 look kind of like that. I didn't see anything that involved a 'choice' as far as which way to go...

D2 was certainly not linear... and we can certainly hope D3 continues in that.

:crosses fingers and waits for further gameplay vids:

it was just a demo, it only makes sense for it to be linear so they know where to go and what to expect so that they can better comment on what is going on. i can almost guarantee you that when we all sit down to play the game for the first time it will NOT be that same exact dungeon.

Apocalypse

02-07-2008, 19:42

with each skill getting different ranks to max the skill i wonder if that means synergies are a thing of the past

moranor

02-07-2008, 19:43

You are wrong about the mouse button skills btw
The tiny one is the one you switch to with tab, then there are two big ones, one for each mouse button

Ihmhi

02-07-2008, 19:44

Great post, when is Part 2, the witch doctor coming up?

I don't know if I'm going to make a Part 2... I mean, all I wanted to do was show off the little things people really don't pay attention to.

Having the Narrator say "LOOKIT WHAT TEH WITCH DOCTAR CAN DO LOLZ" and then showing it to you? Well, everyone sees that.

The narrator says nothing about when the Barb goes down the ladder, something completely new to the Diablo franchise.

The narrator says nothing about the ground impact effects when the barb smashes things around - again, pretty new to the franchise.

All I did was show off the things Blizz either didn't take the time to point out to you or didn't WANT to take the time to point out to you.

vikkz

02-07-2008, 20:00

Nice article, definitely worth reading! On the wiki I created the Inventory page yesterday, before reading your post. My post a bit more detailed, and includes a picture with almost every label.
Here: http://diablo.incgamers.com/wiki/D3_Inventory

Bad Ash

02-07-2008, 20:11

One quick side note: The elixirs of Vitality and stuff were in Diablo 1, so not really a WoW steal there.

But awesome post. Shows a lot of good stuff

royale

02-07-2008, 20:27

I'm thinking about the Stamina/Fury on the skill descriptions. My best guess is that Stamina is HP and Fury is the barbarian's form of mana.

At first it seemed that stamina on the Battle Cry description might be part of the effect. It gives bonus stamina. But that doesn't really make sense when you look at the Hammer of the Ancients skill which is an attack with "Stamina: 16". So in my opinion, some of the skills have a Stamina/HP cost and the other skills will cost Fury/Mana.

This would also kinda explain the "Energy/Power Runes," they could be the other classes forms of mana. Although it is odd that there would be different bubbles for each different class to restore MP.

Great work putting this post together. Very well done.

mcgurk

02-07-2008, 20:37

Great post.

Being a HC player from the start I'm a little worried that there's no real prominant potion slots (possibly 5 & 6 on hotkeys as you say but that still seems less important than the skills etc.). I hope that doesn't mean potions are less important...which could suggest death matters less, a la WOW. I'm sure I'm just being paranoid as I really can't imagine Blizz not featuring a HC mode.

cycloop

02-07-2008, 20:57

One addition I'd like to make.

The weapons do not show a weight variable, thus implying there is no weight factor included in the game.

cycloop

02-07-2008, 20:59

Skullbash

02-07-2008, 21:22

Looks like no skill synergies this time :weep:. The more I see, the more this is looking like World of Diablocraft...although I guess it's too early to tell.

Felix

02-07-2008, 22:02

DBaron

02-07-2008, 22:42

Having the Narrator say "LOOKIT WHAT TEH WITCH DOCTAR CAN DO LOLZ" and then showing it to you? Well, everyone sees that.

The narrator says nothing about when the Barb goes down the ladder, something completely new to the Diablo franchise.

The narrator says nothing about the ground impact effects when the barb smashes things around - again, pretty new to the franchise.

All I did was show off the things Blizz either didn't take the time to point out to you or didn't WANT to take the time to point out to you.

You should do one for the witch doctor.

Maybe everyone already knows this stuff, but:

When the narrotar is showing off the fire bomb skill for the witch doctor he claims something like "It can ahnillate anything near its impact location (or something like that). He then makes it a point to put his mouse over a white bunny rabbit (bunnies in diablo?), and throws it at it, yet the rabbit just hops away. I don't know if he was expecting to go up in flames or something.

There is a fire/demon mongrol that the female witch doctor summons during the fight with the tree things (and again during the final battle).

There are also some funny little things with the minimap, including branching parts of the map they didn't explore, or during the final battle both the dead players locations stayed the same on the minimap even though the female witch doctor's body gets kicked off the screen, and I have no idea what happened to the barbarians body that got ripped in half, but you can see where they died on the minimap. Also you can watch one of the archer npcs simply walk off during a battle and go stand in a corner, only to have a wall fall on him (scripted event I guess).

I also wonder if you can have multiple henchman now, or was that just a one time thing?

Finally, some of the spider webs are 3d skulls. You can see one right at the start of the video, if you don't see it, wait for him to move and you will see it appear.

Majaii

02-07-2008, 22:44

I think it is way too early to tell on some things, but great work on the anaylsis to the OP. In regards to the stamina/fury, the Fury to me looks more like it could be one mastery skill that takes the place of the whole tree from D2. Since it seemed like in the screenshots that fury was a damage modifier from what I could see.

I don't know about stamina, but it seemed like maybe it was more like strength from D2, you have to have a certain amount of available stamina to swing a heavier weapon for example. It would make sense that if your tired then it would be harder to use something heavy. Just my opinion though, but that seems most likely to me.

tetracycloide

02-07-2008, 22:49

Looks like no skill synergies this time :weep:. The more I see, the more this is looking like World of Diablocraft...although I guess it's too early to tell.

This is really a blessing in disguise. No longer will every build that elects to use the same attack skill be pigeon-holed into the same support skills. This will open up more variety in builds and leave the player character with more opportunities to customize the build to deal with threats in a way the suits their own playstyle.

The only reason the synergies in D2 existed is because they were hard coded, true skill synergy (say a skill that deals extra damage vs. stun and a skill that AoE stuns used together) would be a welcome replacement for the often obscure snyergies in D2 (how, exactly, does vigor make my hammer hit harder?).

ExtraStrongFireEnchanted

02-07-2008, 23:30

I would be really surprised that with the game focusing more on story they would just name runes with craptastic generic names. Rune names are simply cool. Now I don't remember any actual runeword from D2, but I think most will agree that
"I just made a minor rune of energy minor rune of power colossus sword" is retarded; while "I made Amn Nef Colossus Sword" sounds mysterious, adding to the game atmosphere.
Furthermore, someone's came up with a good explaination of the minor rune of x purpose.

I hope runes as we know them stay in D3 aswell.

ExtraStrongFireEnchanted

02-07-2008, 23:40

WoW talent trees concept came from Diablo, now it's coming back, enhanced. As was pointed in the thread, it was plainly stupid to have an "option" to spend 2/3 of your talent points just to boost your parties armor/health, likewise it's also just a patching to a flawed system to make teeth synergies with bone spirit, because that's basically the only use of spending points in low level worthless skills.

As this nonsense is out, designers can actually balance each skill individually.

Now if you could provide some actual arguments against WoW talent system, which is actually polished diablo skill trees system rather than attaching "WoW" prefix to it which apparently makes concept bad, I would like to listen to them.

Pitboss_2000

02-07-2008, 23:50

- Right before the barbarian runs into cain and his merry bunch, he fights a group of zombies, using whirlwind. Dutring this fight, he rips a couple of zombies in half, after which their upper part still tries to get the barb. :D

roboth

03-07-2008, 00:27

vikkz

03-07-2008, 01:14

Potions stack by the way, so 5 potions will fit into one same slot.

Raging_Zealot

03-07-2008, 01:16

Perhaps the fury has something to do with unlocking skills. For instance, in Mythos, you can spend skill points to unlock later skills, or on skills themselves, rather than having skills unlock based on character level. Could be they are doing something similar.

Corkee

03-07-2008, 01:29

The mana ball of the witch doc and barb have slightly different colors. Witch doc is deeper blue, while the barb's is turqoise'ish... Maybe fury is, as some have pointed out already, the barbarians equivalent to mana?

Edit: One thing we did not see was 'captains' among the mobs like in D2. Also, the minibosses lacked any random attributes like we all loved and feared in D2 - haste, lightning, teleport etc.

Gamekk

03-07-2008, 01:50

@ Ihmhi

First, thanks a lot for your analysis, I've just have been too lazy to do it myself. I have 2 points to discuss.

#1 Elixir of vitality : Just as in Diablo I, there were elixir of strength, dext, vitality and energy, boosting you a stat by 1 point. Same principle?

#2 Skills, Fury : You didn't talk about the fury in your analysis? There is fury stated for the WW skill (1 fury) and Charge (20 fury). I thought it might be a bit like WoW's rage or your theory of stamina? Mana becomes Fury or Stamina? Stamina might work like in DII to run but also to use skills so it's a mix of both?

Again, pretty interesting post, thank you.

Tyburn

03-07-2008, 02:14

Thank you for all that analysis!

Perhaps by putting bags in those slots you open up more of the inventory boxes. So to have them all open maybe you have to have all 4 slots filled with a Huge Bag.

Apocalypse

03-07-2008, 02:44

i dont think bliz would give us elixirs again that perm boosted stats, would be a big mistake if they did, imo.

RSKueffner

03-07-2008, 03:06

If you look at his skills , then some are related to stamina, while others have a Fury level. Maybe these work together as to be opposites. So that stamina drains the blue bulb, and Fury regenerates it?

I would agree to that. Stamina was already in DII. Stamina is associated with the amount of fatigue and individual can handle. If stamina is the Barbs mana (Please) then it would only make sense to have fury or some other mechanism to regenerate the heroes stamina. I mean, what good is mana steal if you have no mana? This is amplified by the fact that PVE DII, any melee character NEEDED some form of mana regeneration. Fury barbs, for example NEEDED mana steal. However, a fury barb needed significantly less then other melee characters due to their high attack speed.

Why not just eliminate em both in one foul swoop? Fury may even be a form of adrenaline, when the character attacks, he revitalizes himself!?

ndkrempel

03-07-2008, 06:19

For your delectation...

Monsters occurring (should be in rough order of appearance):

Ghoul
Grotesque
Lamprey
Dark Berserker
Dark Summoner
Dark Demon
Wraith
Ghostly Orbs
Zombie
Wretched Dead
Walking Corpse
Crawling Torso
Skeletal Shieldman
Skeleton Archer
Dark Vessel
Activated Vessel
Thousand Pounder {Gold}: Gluttony Incarnate
Beast
Skeleton
Skeletal Summoner
Scavenger
Moon Clan Warrior
Moonclan Shaman
Wood Wraith
Siegebreaker Assault Beast {Gold}: Living Siege Engine of Hell

Items occurring:

(Floating Health Bauble)
Gaff {White}
[Axe]
51.6 Damage Per Second
Attacks Per Second: 1.20
Damage: 35-51
Sell Value: 187*
Spitze {White}
[Axe]
56.4 Damage Per Second
Attacks Per Second: 1.20
Damage: 39-55
Sell Value: 193*
Heavy Axe of Storms {Mauve}
[Axe]
27.6 Damage Per Second
Attacks Per Second: 1.20
Damage: 15-31
+1-42 Lightning Damage {Mauve}
Sell Value: 249*
Double Axe of Frost {Mauve}
[Axe]
23.4 Damage Per Second
Attacks Per Seocnd: 1.20
Damage: 12-27
+25-27 Cold Damage {Mauve}
Sell Value: 246*
Minor Power Rune
* Gold
Throwing Knife
Short Bow
Minor Energy Rune
Elixir of Vitality I
Gothic Plate
Gauntlets
Gothic Helm
Plate Leggings
Plated Pauldrons
Plated Greaves
Annihilator Maul of Immolation {Mauve}
[Two handed mace]
109.6 Damage Per Second
Attacks Per Second: 0.80
Damage: 107-167
+25-27 Fire Damage {Mauve}
Sell Value: 531*
Chipped Star Topaz
Inferior Leather Gloves
Scroll of Identify
Inferior Quilted Pants
Quilted Pants
Ancient Medallion
Short Staff
Small Bag
Minor Health Potion
Chest Armor {Gold}
Two-Handed Axe {Purple}
Sash
Minor Lethality Rune
Leather Gloves
Elixir of Willpower I
Amulet {Gold}
Short Staff {Purple}

Additions or corrections welcome!

Ihmhi

03-07-2008, 06:54

Excellent list indeed!

chipmc

03-07-2008, 10:44

Toward the end of the video when the four players are fighting the boss and the boss picks up and barb and bites him in half. I wonder how much health the barb had when that happened. Was he near death and this was just a flashy finishing move by the boss? Or was the barb around full health and the boss has the ability to to randomly kill a character no matter how much health they have left?

If it's the latter, then Hardcore is going to be slightly more...hardcore.

cfeldt

03-07-2008, 11:13

mouseman

03-07-2008, 11:23

Elixirs can be permanently stat-boosting potions, like in Diablo 1. They were not invented in WoW so they don't have to be like that in Diablo 3. And giving +1 vitality for 30 seconds would be kinda retarded in Diablo universe.

uzurpator

03-07-2008, 12:28

MooCQ

03-07-2008, 13:04

Ya think they'll ever create a system to trade items with ones' self? Those bags...

royale

03-07-2008, 14:10

If you look at his skills , then some are related to stamina, while others have a Fury level. Maybe these work together as to be opposites. So that stamina drains the blue bulb, and Fury regenerates it?

I don't think that would make sense based on the skill descriptions. Whirlwind has "Fury: 1" so by that logic you could WW forever and always be regenerating MP. Same with the Charge skill with "Fury: 20".

It is interesting that the Barb had no mana issues during the entire video. For awhile I thought maybe they had infinite-mana/godmode turned on in order to make the video, but his bubbles did deplete a bit at times. (I watched the casting of Battle Cry at the beginning of the video and couldn't tell if either of the bubbles went down at all.)

It's doubtful that Stamina is anything other than one of the two bubbles. It has to be either HP or MP, imo. Any stat that is referred to so often in skills would have to be displayed on the screen somewhere, so I really really doubt that the D2 version of stamina is making a return. (The whole stamina bar concept was a failure in D2 gameplay anyways. It hardly ever mattered and was pretty superfluous.)

Rhonlyn

03-07-2008, 14:23

With the inventory slots, maybe as you gain strength/level/experience, more slots open up. Makes sense to me that if you are twice as strong you can carry more gear.

And just a thought, the circle might be a slot to put those "minor runes of xxxx" in, to give yourself a boost of what you need at the time. There is nothing to say that runes will be a permanent fixture in whatever you put them in, or will work the same way as D2 at all.

Totalpain

03-07-2008, 17:17

Great post.

Nice compilation of the item drops and such, and it's nice to see that they've added a price next to the items you pick up.

However this also raises the question how will trading items be covered? I think we can assume that gold won't be the trading medium in DIII just like it wasn't in DII, hopefully blizz will offer solutions to this problem that don't include trading hacked runes/items/charms for... well... other hacked/runes/items/charms (This was more prominent in 09 if you guys remember)

Also, if a character just walks near gold and he picks it up, will this not create problems between party members? Or we can probably assume that gold will be shared amongst the party like it was in DII when you picked it up. They seem to have kept a loot table for the whole party, pretty much like Diablo II, although it would be interesting to see a Hellgate:London type drop table that gives everyone in the party their own loot to prevent hoarding or stuff like that.

That's my two cents anyway

NuclearPeanut

03-07-2008, 18:38

Great post.
Also, if a character just walks near gold and he picks it up, will this not create problems between party members? Or we can probably assume that gold will be shared amongst the party like it was in DII when you picked it up. They seem to have kept a loot table for the whole party, pretty much like Diablo II, although it would be interesting to see a Hellgate:London type drop table that gives everyone in the party their own loot to prevent hoarding or stuff like that.

That's my two cents anyway

iirc, everyone does get their own loot, and what you see on screen is whats yours. can someone confirm this?

Thyiad

03-07-2008, 19:33

iirc, everyone does get their own loot, and what you see on screen is whats yours. can someone confirm this?

I heard that mentioned in one of the Panels.

Tazjhe

03-07-2008, 20:12

@Imhmi: Great thread!

@ ndkrempel: Great post!

royale

03-07-2008, 20:12

There is nothing to say that runes will be a permanent fixture in whatever you put them in, or will work the same way as D2 at all.

I watched the WWI video of the D3 conference where the audience got to ask questions of the devs. Interestingly, one of the last questions was "will runes and runewords be returning in D3" and the only response from the guy was kind of a "hmmmmm.... no comment."

Part of me would be surprised if they didn't return because of how popular they were. But then again I could also imagine them saying "we didn't like that people had to look up recipes on the web before using the runes in game. We decided that the runewords were a roadblock to total immersion of Diablo 2, and we didn't want people having to constantly alt-tab of their hack and slash dungeon crawl sessions."

Shayagor

03-07-2008, 22:38

Great post! :thumbup:

I do hope runes are kept a la D2. I loved them even if I never had high ones :p

I can say D3 looks very good and I can't wait to get more info.

stillman

04-07-2008, 01:31

JayTheDruid

04-07-2008, 02:03

Speaking of details: Does anybody notice that some monsters in diablo 3 is extremely bloated like the fat guy that explodes and the boss monster that the cultists summoned.
I also noticed that diablo 3 seems more violent and bloody cause when the barbarian smashed some monsters they get blown into pieces of guts and tissue, when the witch doctor uses locust skill it eats the monsters to blood and bone. And when the barbarian was torn in half and devoured, YUCK !!!!! Would you lose all your stuff if that happened to you, and would things like that happen every time you battle that guy? Some one please confirm this.

Totalpain

04-07-2008, 02:07

The trap chest had far from random loot. It looked like a whole set of armor items. I really hope this organized drop system replaces the total random mess drop from sparkling chests in d2.

In d2 there are those weapon racks showing big polearm weapons, and when you click them you get a throwing knife or a claw (something tiny) every time it seems. That was very bad, imo.

I also noticed how very few chests there were. And no barrels, clay pots, etc. Of course, it could all be just for the video.

Well, not to bash or anything, but the narrator in the gameplay video clearly stated that they rigged the chest to show off gear/ how the chest drops loot...

I think the chests and lootables will have any kind of items drop, just like in D2.

stillman

04-07-2008, 02:09

Well JayTheDruid, I noticed that one of the monsters listed in this thread was called "gluttony incarnate". Maybe they are focusing on sins in this game. As for wether or not you'd lose gear for the chr fatalities, no one can confirm.

Edit: TotalPain, I have no computer speakers. ty for input on chest drops.

Terenas

04-07-2008, 18:13

Thanks to all the people listing the various occurrences etc.
I find the video quite informative, and I especially appreciate the 1 slot only items instead of multi-slot items.

Speculation about the icon between the two weapon slots in the inventory screen: could be a slot for a special item like Titan Quest Artifacts ? Or an indicator of some ingame accomplishment (eg: slayer, champion, patriarch) ?

Rashiminos

04-07-2008, 18:48

D2 calculated distance in yards...

Star topaz is meant as one name I would guess... (Google "star ruby")

We clearly see Magic items here: simple axes with an added elemental damage effect. Note that the elemental damage does not appear to be calculated in the overall weapon damage, which goes against the previous Diablo II mechanic of factoring in all damage into the weapon range.

Actually there is no change here. Elemental damage has not been factored into the damage range for weapons in D2.

- Apparently you pick up gold from the ground simply by moving close to it, no need to turn it into (more of) a click fest to gather all those gold pieces.

Thank HG:L

i dont think bliz would give us elixirs again that perm boosted stats, would be a big mistake if they did, imo.

If duping somehow makes it into D3, perm-boosts will break the game.

It is interesting that the Barb had no mana issues during the entire video. For awhile I thought maybe they had infinite-mana/godmode turned on in order to make the video, but his bubbles did deplete a bit at times. (I watched the casting of Battle Cry at the beginning of the video and couldn't tell if either of the bubbles went down at all.)

They rigged the barb's stats intentionally... like they did in the SC2 gameplay video (a la Mothership)...

I think we can assume that gold won't be the trading medium in DIII just like it wasn't in DII

I believe that's a wrong assumption to make due to various exploits which allowed the standardized item trading in D2, as well as the sell limit at NPCs...

The trap chest had far from random loot. It looked like a whole set of armor items. I really hope this organized drop system replaces the total random mess drop from sparkling chests in d2.

Count on random drops... That's a hallmark of the franchise...

xelnanga

04-07-2008, 21:47

awesome post. Learned a lot now and just noticed some of the things you discussed.

How about one for the Witch Doctor?

Bitethythumb

05-07-2008, 00:58

Did anyone else notice in the Witch Doctor Part when they were fighting the boss, boss picked one of the players up and just bit his head off?

One hit kill skills from bosses maybe?

Govbot

05-07-2008, 02:32

Have you guys that are commenting in this thread even watched the videos and listened to the commentary? The guy in the video SAID that chests wouldn't drop a full set of armor like we saw, but that they set it up that way to show them on the barbarian character.

Also, the barb getting it's head torn off wasn't a one hit kill, the dev panel said that there were various gory death animations when certain monsters delivered a killing blow, as in when you would have died from a hit it gives the special animation instead.

Maedhros

05-07-2008, 03:24

AbrielNei

05-07-2008, 13:30

In the first post you can see the description of Battle Cry is like this:
Battle Cry
Rank 5/10
Shouts out a warning, increasing defence of all nearby party members.

Radius: 15 feet
Stamina: 35
Additional Defense: 200%
Duration: 300 seconds

If you are careful at the start of the video (0:28) you can see when the Barbarian buffs himself with Battle Cry the blue-ish globe gets drained almost a half. So Barbarian does not use mana but uses stamina instead (like original poster indicated). Also he has only around 80 stamina but it regenerates very fast.

Also note that he uses a bit of stamina even for normal attack. When he is full of stamina the used value is so small that it's not even noticable but you can clearly see that stamina doesn't regenerate straight up but falls a bit on each attack (in video from 0:28 to 0:38 for example).

We can also conclude that not every class is using stamina as for example WD doesn't even have any kind of stamina gauge. So it seems stamina is not needed for running (like it was in D2).

Still two questions about skills remain:
1. How does rage mechanic work?
2. What's the difference between level and rank of a skill?

Sokar Rostau

05-07-2008, 15:45

I don't know why everyone seems confused about Rage. I think it's obvious that it is a variation of the way Frenzy works except that it is possibly an innate process rather than an activated skill - every time you hit something your Rage increases which you can then expend by using a Rage oriented Skill, by not fighting your Rage slowly depletes back to zero. This is nothing new, I can remember games using this sort of thing 15 years ago.

Ihmhi

05-07-2008, 21:52

awesome post. Learned a lot now and just noticed some of the things you discussed.

How about one for the Witch Doctor?

I didn't notice them hovering over any skills for the Witch Doctor.

The purpose of this analysis was to bring up things that were on screen for not even a second. As soon as I saw the video the second time, my thoughts were "I need to get screenshots of that stuff so I can read it".

Once I started viewing the screenshots, there was enough interesting stuff for me to decide to make a whole post out of it.

When another gameplay video is released, I will be probably do something similar as soon as is reasonably possible.

Maezel02

06-07-2008, 17:51

Good post, thx for the info.

Sokar Rostau

06-07-2008, 19:22

There's another gameplay video available that shows the WD in the Forgotten Tomb. It shows off a few more of his skills but there's no toolbar to be seen. There's links to it in the WD forum.

Techboss

07-07-2008, 02:24

Excellent analysis, any chance of doing the same for the WD?

Cast_Raider

07-07-2008, 06:04

OMGitsDIIIatLast

07-07-2008, 06:31

I am glad to see that they are taking some of the ideas from HGL and Mythos. The skill ranks idea, the mouse-over'ed weapon info for ease of item comparison and the skill hotbar all nice features thanks to our pals from Blizzard Nor...er I mean FSS.

Mcwhopper

07-07-2008, 15:20

It's not HGL they take from: Its a nifty little game called WoW.

It's way too early to comment on anything like the interface, it will take another 3 years for the game to finish (or perhaps 2 if we are lucky) and we can all trust in Blizzard making a slick interface. They have never(!) made a crappy interface.

tetracycloide

07-07-2008, 16:19

They have never(!) made a crappy interface.

Thousands of UI mods in WoW would beg to differ.

Rashiminos

07-07-2008, 18:19

K-Lined

08-07-2008, 15:33

The UI is definately taking a step in the right direction, one thing I noticed though is that you can only have a maximum of 4 skills/spells keybound at any time, not counting the left/right mousebutton.

It's an improvement from D2 but I really wish Blizzard would allow us to keybind *everything* for faster access..

Mcwhopper

08-07-2008, 17:03

Thousands of UI mods in WoW would beg to differ.

The basic UI was fine: They even added the possibilty for you to make mods to change it into something that suited your tastes even more. Making an improvement on something doesnt mean the original was bad.

DeadorK

10-07-2008, 03:14

http://img237.imageshack.us/img237/4488/barbdiefs8.jpg
New scripted ways to die?

K-Lined

10-07-2008, 05:28

I'm pretty sure that's just a death animation.

Nijura

11-07-2008, 22:24

What about the wall he smashes down, will this open up a path to another area? Will barb. player be able to create shortcuts in this was? By the way, did the barb. need to use a special skill in order to knock the wall down?

If you look at the wall in the gameplay trailer, you will see that the wall is actually already broken, and if you look even closer, you will see that some kind of item is supporting the wall to stay standing. It is not the wall the Barbarian destroys, but only this supporting item - therefore, no I don't think that the Barbarian, or any other classes, will be able to "destroy" walls, to use them as shortcuts, and I don't think that the Barbarian has to use some special ability to knock down the walls. Any skill would do. :-)

-

Also, regarding to the article. Nice article. It contained a lot of useful information I hadn't seen before. But did you say anything about Fury - Fury being a new kind of energy in D3? At the screenshots of the skills we see two skills - Whirlwind and Furious Charge - which require Fury, not Stamina, to use.

Sokar Rostau

11-07-2008, 23:15

Someone didn't read the thread...

Nijura

12-07-2008, 00:43

You're right. I didn't read all the replies before posting.

apefist

12-07-2008, 08:14

my only complaint is that in d2 you could either carry 3 giant spears or like 1,000 tiny gems. makes sense. the one item, one slot system seems cool, but does not retain it's realism and complexity. you can easily keep the extra bag function whilst using tetris style inventory right? exactly. keep it in the family

Hello Jim

12-07-2008, 13:51

After reading the whole thread I've come to the conculsion that many of the people here should do the same. Some questions have been more than 5 times I think.
Anyway, my ideas:

1. I liked the Fury idea- The more you hit, the more they Fury goves up and your DMG/AR/attack speed goes up. I remember I saw that sin another game, don't remember where.

2. Minor runes- Could these be the new charms? Sound reasonable because of their names and because if there are the new Runes, we will all be disappointed I think

3. I totally agree with the statement that Alt+Tabing for checking runewords runis the fun. I don't, however, think that should be the end of RuneWord anyway. If it's not impossible, I think Blizzard should made different Runeword recepies for each player so you'll have to find out yourself (through expiremt or from NPC/quest). Or something like that....

EThug

12-07-2008, 14:01

Barbarian uses Fury instead of Mana, very interesting concept. Also the use of Stamina as a resource for you spells is a great idea, the way it should be, considering most of his attacks are physical.

Peotto

13-07-2008, 23:35

I had an Idea to the rune "conundrum", if you will, recipes. Not fixed recipes like you would find on the web though, randomized recipes. Just like you would find a unique or rare item, what if you found recipes. These could consist of runes/gems/other reagents. That way, the runes would get used, but not the same way every time. So for example, you may find a recipe that adds 20 fire damage and 3 dexterity that requires 2 x runes and 3 y gems. You would compile all of those and then right click the recipe scroll or soemthing like that and it would make it. Better yet, if the Cube makes it into D3, theres a easier way to make them. Just a thought.

Rashiminos

14-07-2008, 00:26

You can solve this alt-tab to read rune words phenomenon with a printer.

Cyrander

17-07-2008, 19:33

pantherus

18-07-2008, 01:35

In regards to the "Rank" and "Level" things seen in the skill descriptions, here's my guess: Certain skills will improve depending on your character's level, as well as by increasing ranks. For the purposes of the demonstration, I'm guessing the Barbarian was level 1, thus why some of his skills say "Level 1." Makes some sense to me as far as keeping skills from becoming obsolete at higher levels, but obviously increasing ranks would still be far better than the boosts they would receive from your character levelling up.

Sorry mate, that Barb wasn't Level 1 - one look at how powerful he was compared to the opposition can show you that :)

It's hard to speculate accurately what the relationship between "Level" "Rank" "Fury" and "Stamina" will be. Personally I think that Level and Rank different things, note that, of all the skills, only Whirlwind displayed data on the "next level", while the others (except furious charge, which was Rank 1/1) had less than their maximum ranks. Do note that You don't necessarily have to have just "Skill Points" a la D2 - there can be multiple boosts for your skills, like each level you get a skill level and a rank modifier, or maybe you can find rank modifiers, or something along those lines.

As far as Fury and Stamina goes - I actually am thinking far less "fantastically" and think they just haven't agreed on what to call the blue orb for the barb (yes, I think it will be called different things for different chars) because, watching the video closely, you see that both Hammer of the Ancients, and Furious Charge (which state they use Stamina and Fury respectively) deplete the blue orb when used - frankly I think it's just incomplete script/text and we'll find the Barb's skill usage to be EITHER Fury or Stamina - not both.

a brick

18-07-2008, 06:15

Just so i get this straight because the people who arent reading everything and speculating are confuzing me.

Stamina is used instead of mana on the barbarian and the WD uses mana. which could mean different classes have different types of energy reserves.

We don't know the difference between skills and ranks yet. i was thinking that maybe the abilities he uses come are different types. I can't explain why but some are skills for whatever reason and thus a different set of points. Others are ranking based for whatever reasons and maybe have different effects, idk... This could make for more variability between builds which was really not present in DII.

Just my thoughts

Ghoulz

18-07-2008, 07:48

Is stamina coming back, or is that just a Barbarian skill thing now?

redtan

19-07-2008, 20:30

It's cool to see the barbarian getting ripped up in two when he dies. I hope that they integrate a separate death animation derived from the way you died. In D2, the death animation was the same whether you got killed by a sword slash, fireball, bite, maul smash etc.

I guess that might be implemented because of the way the guy died by the boss, and how some of the enemies explode or how the enemies get eaten up by the witchdoctors spell thingy.

Reelix

13-08-2008, 08:51

Hi all! First post here :yes:

Something I noticed was the DRASTICALLY increased Mob Size!

Now, I am aware this entire video was Custom-Made (Custom Monsters, Custom Drops, Etc, Etc, Etc), but is this possibly an indication of what is to come? I for one would SERIOUSLY enjoy the horrifically large mob sizes, as this gives the true "Invasion of Hell" perspective, as opposed to Diablo 2 where, if Flavie and all of Kashya's Rogues equipped with some of Charsi's equipment teamed together, could EASILY take out Andariel!

Also, there is an EXTREMELY small amount of posts in this topic regarding what the Ancient Medallions (2 are dropped during the Gameplay Video) actually do - Speculations anyone?

Last but not least for this post - The 2 Hirelings acquired by Cain. That's one thing that QUICKLY stood out for me - TWO hirelings! Do you think these are actual hirelings (They were never closely inspected), or just some general followers? :scratchchin:

All for now!

- Reelix

factotum

13-08-2008, 08:56

Stamina is used instead of mana on the barbarian and the WD uses mana. which could mean different classes have different types of energy reserves.

Given that's exactly how it works in WoW (warriors use Rage, Rogues use Energy, everyone else uses Mana) it wouldn't surprise me in the least. It was always a bit odd that a class which nominally does not use magic (e.g. Barbarian or ESPECIALLY the Assassin) still uses Mana to do their stuff!

jhart

18-08-2008, 07:16

Hey I was wondering If they might possibly put in mana globes as well...we all remember starting off as a sorceress or assassin or anyone and had to chug mana potions until nightmare lol...anyway I was thinking that instead of having them drop randomly have them drop when a spell of somesort is used. Say you had a char like a FOH pally (just an ex) and he was using vengeance and holy bolt spells to kill a zombie...i'd say it would be nice if there was a random chance that a mana globe would drop so that combat can be kept at a fast pace like the narrator was saying. Whirlwind barbs would benefit too but I guess their 'stamina' is a new story. Let me know what you think

visom

18-08-2008, 18:12

also note that the WD's dagger has a purple, smoky glow, possibly poison? Whenever the WD slash a monster (like the goatmen) to death it leaves behind a "purple burn" much like fire.

Wirt

18-08-2008, 22:05

Ihmhi

19-08-2008, 10:49

Wow, I just pop back into these forums to check up on this post. I had no idea it had gotten so far! I'll be sure to read over the replies and whatnot tomorrow morning, after I get some sweet, sweet sleeeeeeep. :thumbup:

Paalt

19-08-2008, 12:19

About the 'level' and 'rank' I am guessing the following, which would be very new to Diablo (hope I did not overlook some post that already had this):

Rank could be the number of points you invested in the skill, just like skillpoints used to do. That is indicated by:
-every skill seems to have a rank
-ranks are shown like 'Rank 5/10'.

Level could show how proficient you are with the skill and this goes up as you use the skill more. Like 100 whirlwinds increase the level from 1 to 2. That is indicated by:
- the skills that show a level, are at level 1. That's because the barb was just created!

How about it guys, could it be like this? And what are your opinions about a proficiency-level?

Wirt

That would be fantastic. Just like the Elder Scrolls skillsystem. If this is true however, I would expect lots of skillabusing behaviour, e.g. in Elder Scrolls, you would always jump when moving to raise acrobatics. Fun nontheless

Im glad that the synergies is finally flushed. I would prefer pre synergy DII anyday. Synergies, means everyone makes a bulild maximizing the synergy bonus. Theres very little room for custom classes. It was fun to make custom builds and discover new combos, but synergies ruined that.

Aside. Somone already guessed it. There will be a spellcaster in D3 since they dropped a short staff in the GP movie. Well nobody pointed out that there will also have to be a ranged class since a Bow dropped. But now you know.