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Magic, Skills, & Special Abilities... Part 1

This sounds really interesting! I like the ideas behind Focus and Burst rather than the standard 2 and 3. It makes more sense, too. I could see a mage empowering themselves with additional power, improving their spells but consuming more of their magic.

Kate sounds like fun, too. As far as Feline fury goes, can she just use that whenever she wants to? I like the ideas behind Feline fury, Fury attack, and Berserking.

The Princess looks interesting, but could maybe use some more abilities. Perhaps a Chakra style skill (restores HP and/or MP and/or some/all status ailments.)
Also with the princess, what would determine how often she can use her abilities? MP? Or just unlimited?

Diablo 3 "vs" Torchlight 2

Hey I was reading some more Diablo III news and I ran into this article:

http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/latency-no-longer-a-factor-in-d3-combat

Apparently they are using a new method of gameplay that causes all combat calculations to be client-side which causes there to be 0 latency while fighting. Even Australian players with 200+ms latency are reporting that they have absolutely zero lag while fighting.

Looting and trading will still be handled server-side.

So good news!!

Diablo 3 "vs" Torchlight 2

author=kentona
Also, in regards to dumbing down the game, they're not really dumbing it down, they're just making it so you don't need to research how the game works before you play it. Like we were talking about above in Diablo II, your stat points were super important they way you distributed them. If you didn't do it correctly, you could literally break your character. That's no fun :(
but...that's part of the challenge, isn't it? Building a successful character? If I can't fail, then where's the fun that I derived from character building? Preparation for a battle in an RPG is half the fun for me. :(


Well I suppose, but I mean, sometimes you just look at a skill and think "Wow, that skill looks awesome!" So you build around it and suddenly your brother comes in and says "Haha, I can't believe you picked that skill, good luck in Nightmare and Hell!" Then after doing research, you realize it's just not a viable skill pick. But how were you supposed to know?

The first time that happened to me I quit Diablo II for months because I was so angry. I made a Teeth Necromancer back when there were no synergies. So I can't really side with the idea of lucking out with building a successful character the very first time you play a game. You shouldn't have to do research before you play to be successful without failing first.

You still have to prepare properly in Diablo III. You need to pick 6 skills that have good synergy. Then, you need to pick 6 runes that complement each other, some that return life or resource (like mana.) If you pick 6 damaging attacks and no defensive maneuvers, you will probably die in a heartbeat.

So you could pick 6 attack skills, but make three of them return life with runestones. Or you could pick 4 attack skills and 2 defense skills. I'm sure it will be very easy to die in D3 if you don't build your character right, but you're not forced to start the game over if you don't pick correctly. (I know there are respec's now, though in Diablo II.)

Did you want to make an RPG/Game? Be honest!

I personally have been thinking about game design since I was a little kid. Every time I'd play a game, I'd get some sort of idea from it and go from there. I would draw on legal pads (my dad had a ton of them in his office so I'd nab one and fill it up.) I still have one legal pad that has my game Flame Boy (haha) the living fireball, and it was a sidescroller (very much inspired by Sonic the hedgehog.) But it had a little uniqueness, as you could learn new techniques like pressing Forward, Forward, Jump would dash in a fireball attack or Down, Down, Up, Jump would do a forward loop flame attack.

My second game idea I still have some artwork from was an incredibly unique game concept called Secret of Hanna. It was an action-RPG with three heroes (a boy, a girl, and a very young boy who was a brilliant inventor) and the girl was named Hanna. So unique! You could find various weapons in the world (8 in total) and as you fought with them, you could learn to charge them up and release powerful special attacks!

Then, in 5th grade, I discovered QuickBASIC and began to design text adventure games, but they never went very far because computer class wasn't very long and I had to actually do work, too.

A few years later I stumbled across RPG maker 2000 (which was the latest release at the time) and I was hooked. The very first thing I wanted to do was create a game like Chrono Trigger (possibly my favorite game of all time). As soon as I realized I was stuck with the Dragon Quest style battles, I was disheartened.

It was then that I realized what a CBS and a CMS were. I started feverishly researching how to create these "things." I finally was able to create an incredibly rudimentary custom battle system and it was awful! So, I started going back to the drawing board over and over until I made Devil Star.

I liked Devil Star pretty well, but soon my ideas ran away with me and I became transfixed on the idea of making a real-time battle system inspired by Valkyrie Profile, where each character is controlled via a single button, but each character would have several abilities at their disposal rather than just one. This is my current goal.

Anyway, that's how I got into RPG making. I'd still love to be a professional video game programmer and I'm currently going to college as a Computer Engineer major. I have been designing games since I was a kid and I literally have hundreds of Word documents on my computer that are iterations of ideas ranging from MMO's and regular RPGs to action-RPGs and Metroidvania-style games.

Oh, I just wanted to add that the passion of my game creation is in the mechanics of the game. I'm not a great story writer, character developer, or mapper, sadly. So all of my energy goes into the battle system and other mechanics like crafting or equipment/stats systems in general.

Diablo 3 "vs" Torchlight 2

It seems like most people just take a look at Diablo III and go: Oh my gosh! No skill trees or skill points?! WHAT?! No stat points either??? What happened to the customization!?!?

I COMPLETELY see where you're coming from but I've been following D3 since it was announced and was originally off-put by all these changes. But the customization has actually been broadened significantly! Picking 6 skills you want from the 20+, THEN slotting EACH skill with one of 5 runes is just an insane amount of customization! Plus 3 passive skills from 12 choices!

And you'd mentioned that people might figure out a build that works really well and then everyone will end up the same like all the Meteorb Sorcs (or whatever) in D2, but looking at the skills, it really just looks like its pure choice. I don't think one or two builds are going to dominate the game because almost every skill is viable, unlike D2.

In D2, if you said OK! I want to be a Telekinesis/Teleport/Warmth/Firebolt Sorceress!!! ....you'd fall flat on your face. You just CAN'T play that way! Skills like Telekinesis aren't designed to have 20 points put in them. But in D3, you can pretty much pick any 6 skills you want and you'll be powerful and have a great time!

There are probably going to be some weaker builds in D3, but nothing like the gimplings you could create in D2. If you get multiple Armor spells, for instance, they DON'T stack so that would be a weak build. Or getting Magic Weapon (which increases your weapon damage) but then never meleeing, that would be another weak build.

Also, in regards to dumbing down the game, they're not really dumbing it down, they're just making it so you don't need to research how the game works before you play it. Like we were talking about above in Diablo II, your stat points were super important they way you distributed them. If you didn't do it correctly, you could literally break your character. That's no fun :(

Diablo 3 "vs" Torchlight 2

As far as the stat points going way goes, I also agree with why they did that. Again this is just optimizing, but you would put enough points into Strength to equip your gear, enough points in Dex for the amount of block you wanted, ZERO points in Energy, and the rest in Vitality.

That's not really very interesting, it's just annoying because for people who don't play a lot, if they don't realize this, their Strength could fall way behind and they'd be stuck with crap armor.

Like when I first started playing, I was a Necromancer. I was like "yay! I'm a mage!" so I put all my points into Energy every level. At about level 6 I started to realize that you just can't play the game that way. :(

I really think the new system is going to be much more inviting and fun.

SmileWithStyle, it does stink about the 10 character slots, but I really don't think you'll need more than that. Like Fallen-Griever said, it's not at all like D2 in regards to respeccing.

And shared gold, that was a HUGELY requested feature in D2. It was constantly begged for by fans for years: shared stash/gold. So they are just trying to do what the masses want.

Also, Kentona, I do agree with what you're saying, it's unfortunate that you're forced to go online, but I can see what their reasoning is, too. And I did the exact same thing with trainers, create a charm with +skills and sometimes +XP to speed things up a little. But hopefully the new system will let you start having fun right away!

Diablo 3 "vs" Torchlight 2

There is no difference in that situation. It's just that there is the potential to have so many variants of Wizards in D3 with 25 skills that each have 5 rune combinations, that is way more options than you had in D2.

I just really doubt that you and I would want the same exact 6 skills with the same 6 runes in each skill. But it's very likely that we would both want Meteorb Sorc's in D2.

But I want to know what you think of the Diablo III system in general. It sounds like you don't really like it... what don't you like about it?

Diablo 3 "vs" Torchlight 2

Well I don't know how you played D2, but that was the most efficient way to play that lead to the strongest characters. You want to maximize a single skill (maybe two) by pumping 20 points into it and all its synergies. If you and I were the same Sorc , let's say a Meteorb Sorc, we used the exact same skills in the exact same fashion and the only differentiating factor is our gear. If you didn't play D2 this way then that's fine but it's the same way Torchlight works and it's just not interesting to me.

Diablo III is going to give you lots of customization. We could be the exact same Wizard with Magic Missile, Arcane Orb, and Hydra. But we could have entirely different fighting styles because of the way runes work. That's what excites me the most. And of course gear would be different as well.

The Screenshot Topic Returns

Miracle: That looks fantastic!

Diablo 3 "vs" Torchlight 2

Haha, what are you talking about specifically?

And it's not like I'm trying to make it sound bad, I'm just describing why I'm not excited for Torchlight.