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Q u o t e:
I
LOATHE
the tier system suggested in the original post. This would NOT motivate players to distribute their stats healthily. It might work if it were the other way around, with the lower tiers being more powerful than the higher ones, but the way it's suggested now is plain horrible.

I just want distributed stats. Plus a bit of automatic stat growth to reinforce "class identity".

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Q u o t e:
First off, what is your idea of distributing healthily? Even across the board? Sorry if I jump to conclusions but I'm confused as to what you mean by healthily.

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Q u o t e:
Personally I think having separate builds be equally viable is pretty healthy myself. But yea, I'd love to see how you can expand on that. One of the first people to outright hate the idea of the system, or so it seems. Please give more feedback! =)

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Q u o t e:
And as far as automatic stat growth, how does it reinforce class identity? If its only partly automatically assigned, then the diff. between a barb and a wizard might only be 30 strength, and if any of it is manually allocated, you can override that and it just becomes a PITA to have certain stats auto-assigned.

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Q u o t e:

In my opinion, a healthy distribution is one in which all stats receive some attention, but the stats that makes the most sense for your character (Strength/Vitality for a Barbarian, Magic for a Wizard) are a bit higher.

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Q u o t e:
Extreme builds will always be viable. They will always have something they're extremely good at, and if you're a good enough player, you can change your play style to exploit your single great talent. However, extreme builds should be the exception, rather than the norm, otherwise it gets boring. With the tiered stat system, extreme builds would me MORE viable than normal builds.

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Q u o t e:
Not entirely. If a Wizard gets +2 magic and 3 freely distributable, and a Barb gets +2 strength and 3 freely distributable, both can choose to pump their stats to 3/2 or 2/3; but only the Wizard can choose 5/0 and only the Barb can choose 0/5. So with normal gear on, the Wizard would probably have much higher magic and the Barb higher strength. If you wanted a high-strength Wizard, you'd have to really focus on +strength equipment - but it would still be possible. This ensures that extreme builds will really stand out rather than be the norm.

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Q u o t e:


maybe rather than partially automatic stats, we could simply make the values different for each class depending on their "makes sense" specialty. I.E. willpower tiers give more bonus than str tiers for wizards.

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A simpler way would be to just give 20 stat points per level and each stat costs a different number of points to increase the stat by 1, based on your class. For example, for a Wizard Magic/Willpower would cost only 3 points to increase, whereas strength would cost 6 points. The cost could also increase when the stat reaches really high values. In this example, a Wizard simply pumping his cheapest stat would end up with about twice as much Willpower as Strength. Sounds healthy enough to me.

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Q u o t e:
These are some pretty good ideas. However, the stat system in Diablo 3 is basically locked down. Jay Wilson said "This is a permanent change." when asked about the automatic stat allocation. Brainstorming is great, but keep in mind that the stats in Diablo 3 will be automatically allocated, so you all should get used to it =)

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Q u o t e:


true enough. but why sit idly back?

I mean jay's been wrong before. Pardo's shut him down once already. (i think? i remember something to that effect where Rob had to swoop in and contradict him, but i can't remember what it was... anyone help me out with this? it's bugging me now)

plus, if this can give us something to think about instead of being pissed about a lack of info or updates, then so be it!

Who knows, someone might see this thread and go make another RPG that we'll all love and adore for years to come.


basically; don't believe anything is permanent until the game's actually released, and even then, consider patches =)

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Q u o t e:


I'm not sitting idly back. Personally, I think the auto-stat system is fine. However, my point is only that people shouldn't get their hopes up too much about enacting a change to the current stat system. Think about how many other features they would have to balance around that new system. All items, all monsters, all encounters, etc... Being that the lead designer literally said "permanent change", I think people could focus their creative juices elsewhere is all.

Oh, and the thing that was bugging you, I'm pretty sure, is about the payment system for Diablo 3. Jay talked a bit about it, and then Rob replied something about how "Jay is trying to take over the business side, bla bla bla".

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Q u o t e:
Thanks for the thread and I wanted to say I do appreciate the time and effort and ideas being put in to coming up with solutions for topics that are important to you. I want to try to put the idea of auto attribute allocation, the topic of this thread, in a potentially different light though. Potentially.

It seems there are really only a few core problems for those that do take issue with auto attributes when you boil it down. The loss of a customization option and the ability to create builds for characters that are apart from the norm - or even just kind of crazy and experimental. Some other issues could be a loss of a “leveling achievement” and also just the classic RPG design of manually spending points on base stats. Sort of a nostalgia issue, but still valid in its own right.

So I’ll sort of tackle these each on their own and then hopefully give you some things to think about.

First is the loss of customization, and I’ve mentioned before that we don’t think it will be an issue, but let me elaborate a bit more. With the current skill system, runes, and item affixes, as well as other unmentionables, there’s not going to be any issue with not having enough customization. If there is, bottom line, we’ll add more. We’re not going to release a game we’re not happy with, and a lack of character customization options would make us unhappy. But, even right now we have a lot more variety and ability to customize a character than Diablo II had. I’m going to come back to some of this later because we’d like your help.

Somewhat similarly is being able to create “off-spec” builds, or characters that aren’t just cookie cutter ideals of the class you’re playing. This is important to the game, and we will ensure that it doesn't get "tuned out" of the game. Most importantly though being able to manually spend attributes does not make this a possibility. Which is to say that us automatically assigning attributes does not take away the ability to make these types of characters, at all. Manual attributes were not what made them possible in Diablo II. The ability to make these types of characters relies solely on the complexity and diversity of the the options available to steer your character, and not that they come in the form of a "+" button.

The loss of a feeling of a leveling achievement is actually something we recognize and intend to address.

The nostalgia of simply having points, and spending them on base stats is probably the most difficult. Liking something because it’s familiar is difficult to argue with, but it’s also probably the easiest to overcome. Since we can’t force your memories out of you, we just have to make the best game we can and hope you realize that manual attribute assignment isn’t the best, most engaging or entertaining form of character customization possible, and that we’re offering an even deeper and richer game without those buttons. Or you’ll just forget you even cared because you're playing Diablo III and it's totally kick ass... one or the other.

Back to the part where I said we’d like your help. We want a lot of items in the game, and with that we want to have a lot of affixes. The largest pool of character-focusing mojo is coming from your items, so we plan to have a very diverse selection. While we have been and continue to come up with as many affixes as we can we’d like some help from you guys in coming up with more. We have some pretty crazy stuff already but I don’t want to influence your creativity - plus when it’s one we already have and it goes in to the game you can tell all your friends it was your idea. So if you'd like somewhere to focus your creative energy, this is the place.

That aside I know I missed some specific concerns and points, so any follow up questions are welcome. Being Friday I’ll try to get to some today but they may have to wait until next week.

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Q u o t e:
exacly what are these affixes? Havent realy got the hang of it. Well i know what it is, i just can figure out how they work.

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Q u o t e:
so not like "knockback" "crushing blow" and stuff like that? And can a weapon just have one prefix and one suffix?

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