I think a good way for auto stats is build them up depending on what you do with your character.
for example if you spend alot of time on low health, vitality goes up or stamina increase from running alot.

If they go by the 5 stats per level. Its just gonna be a 1,1,2,1 thing were w/e stat is most useful on that char gets 2 or it could be more complex and give each stat 2 in a rotation.

The D3 skill system is just too complex for this type of thing to function well.

The only reason it worked in Dungeon Siege was because there were only four main attack classes (melee, ranged, nature magic and combat magic), and three attributes (str, dex and int). You choose what type of skill you are using (which falls into one of the four categories) and you gradually grow your stats according to that class' ratios. Nice and simple.

This is not like the D3 skill / stat system at all (which doesn't have partial / gradual stat point growth, nor skill classifications).

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Q u o t e:
I think a good way for auto stats is build them up depending on what you do with your character.
for example if you spend alot of time on low health, vitality goes up or stamina increase from running alot.

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or, OR, make stat points quest rewards. therefore, if you do this quest or that quest, you get x in this, x in that and x for good behavior :D. applying this to randomly generated quests is debatable, but this would be quite a good way to reward you bringing down captain fat ass and his crew of dps %@%s. by that i mean real bosses. y'know, cuz getting !##! all items after such an epic fight with diablo makes me want to rip my balls off in frustration. not to mention, this keeps stats relatively predictable for the sillies at blizzard, yet allows classes to differ when doing class specific quests. now that i think about it, this system would be kick ass lol. xp and stat points for doing a great feat, rather than being suddenly stronger out of nowhere.

...

... discuss.

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Q u o t e:
I think keeping some systems nebulous and somewhat unexplained to the player is fine

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Well...I hope you do this with things that are not vital to the way you play your character.

I had a rough time to find out how exactly crushing blow, death strike etc. works with the items and with which spells when I wanted to make my kicksin in D2. It's all listed on Arreat Summit, but many players don't even know it.
If I want to know the drop rate of UM rune from Ismael Vilehand, ok that's not so important, I can find it on some fansite, but core stuff like these damage amplifiers I mention, as well as cube recipies, should really be made clear in-game imho.

i really like that there is an hidden aspect for ppl who really wants go deep in to the game core like there where in diablo 2 classic but not so much lod.

This way it will payoff to be smarter than the guy next to you, i think thats really good news if i dident missunderstand it.

If what you're saying is that I can essentially level a character and vary their playstyle based on whatever gear I have then I like it. I hate playing a game and beating it only to realize that I really wish I had gone a different skill tree or whatever. If finding some awesome armor or something doesn't mean a re-roll, but instead means that I can put that armor to use and just play differently well then I am VERY interested to see that at work.

I guess it could hurt replay some, but I think it would be at the cost of actually improving overall game play. I like it.

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Q u o t e:
If what you're saying is that I can essentially level a character and vary their playstyle based on whatever gear I have then I like it. I hate playing a game and beating it only to realize that I really wish I had gone a different skill tree or whatever. If finding some awesome armor or something doesn't mean a re-roll, but instead means that I can put that armor to use and just play differently well then I am VERY interested to see that at work.

I guess it could hurt replay some, but I think it would be at the cost of actually improving overall game play. I like it.

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I think he's essentially saying they're going WoW-style where end game characters are all the same naked and you can have different gear for different things. Now in WoW they made it so you'd have your "fire resist" gear for a certain instance and your "cold resist" gear for another - I don't like this at all for D3. However, if they just support being able to switch from a "tank wizard" to a "glass cannon wizard" then I'm in support of it. I really don't like how you need some types of gear for certain situations in WoW and I hope that doesn't happen in D3.

BTW I'm an ex-WoWer from 2 years ago so please avoid flames (I don't know if you guys still attack any WoW mention)

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Q u o t e:

(...)

It can also keep you from changing up the way you play easily. We want to allow some amount of freedom in changing up how you play a single character. If I've played my Wizard as a long-range glass cannon the entire game, and then get an amazing end-all item drop that makes me want to switch it up and go as more vitality-heavy battle style Wizard, I'd probably have to reroll. Whereas with our current systems it's just a matter of building up an item base that supports it.

(...)

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That's pretty simple too. I hope my character won't be just a standard guy that only plays the way he plays because of the items he's equipped with. Like an action figure or a barbie doll that children can only modify with the clothes they put on it. Plus, I thought items were going to have some sort of synergy with skills. So when I find that item that makes me want to switch up, I should be able to make changes to the skills too.

I agree that removing manual stats is no be-all or end-all of anything, and I know that items, runes and other ways of customization will make D3 even more customizable than D2. I can't understand why people are so short sighted that they still argue about that.


A valid argument would be that if the stats were resettable, like skills, and some people like to manually assign points, why prevent that?


I haven't really seen an argument against that from blue, besides "it's too complicated", and it's really not very complicated...

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Q u o t e:
I think a good way for auto stats is build them up depending on what you do with your character.
for example if you spend alot of time on low health, vitality goes up or stamina increase from running alot.

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i think this is a good, practical idea, but as the second poster mentioned, people will find ways to exploit it and make it just another tool for bots and hacks. it is possible to do this, but it would become complicated. i have been thinking about how to implement this and having bots and stuff not be able to abuse it, and i think the best way might be to do this:

once you kill a monster in a new game or after starting the game, a counter starts, a counter for mana, life and stamina. this counter stores the values of those 3 pools until your next kill, and finds the difference, and finds how many "resources" you use to kill that specific monster by comparing your mana, life and stamina before and after you engaged the monster, or a group of monsters. potions and regeneration do not affect the counter, so that if you lost, say, 30 hitpoints, 10 mana, and 1 stamina, but drank a potion for 150 healing, the counter would still count 30 "life" spent, 10 mana spent, and 1 stamina spent.

in this way the computer can calculate a "ratio" of the "resources" (ie. life, mana and stamina) you use to kill stuff, and compares it to the "ideal" ratio for that class, like say for dexterity:

you use 50 life, 10 mana and 2 stamina for every kill, and you are a wizard (so 25:5:2), and an "ideal" wizard should use 10 life, 20 mana and 4 stamind (5:10:2). this way the autostats system can be like "OH, this guy has a defense that is too low, so i will increase his dexterity by a little bit more when he levels up!)

and for strength

the same could work for the durability of items too, like if you use more durability in weapons to kill things, then you are not doing enough damage, so your strength is increased

for vitality and mana, the computer can count how often your life falls below a certain percent (like say how often your life gets below 33%), and thats how it decides how to add points to your vitality,

for mana i think something like seeing how many times your mana moves above 50% (this shows how many times your were "forced" to use a potion because your mana was too low).


in the end, depending on how severe the "needs" of your character were, (like, the deviation from the ideal wizard your defense was, or how severe your need for life was, calculated by how many times it dipped below like 33%), the system would choose how to allocate points at every level. of course this is just an addition to the whole "items for stats" thing, and its more an extension of the system already in place, so instead of increasing stats by a set amount at every level based on your character class, it increases it depending on what you need.


or we could just bring back the D2 system, this is just a compromise between their new system and the old one (from d2, which just for the record, WORKED VERY WELL).

i forgot to mention, the reason this will make bots not be able to abuse it, is because the auto stats system only gets activated when you are fighting stuff. now that i look back at it, i see that i could have just offered the "they only get activated during battle" solution for the anti-bot thing, and didnt actually need to explain so much in the last post nooo D:

Suggestion ===> Why don't just make two character modes for this issue?

Available at character creation:

Standard mode: Stat Autoassigning for newcommers, easy mode.

Elite mode: Manual stat assigning for those who want to deepen into what D3 character development offers, advanced mode.

Elite mode doesn't have to be available from the beginning, it could be needed to complete a certain task to open this option to the gamer, be it complete 'X' difficulty of the game storyline, complete a hidden brainteaser dynamic* quest, or achieve a certain level or mastery with the character class you want to deepen into to unlock the manual stat allocation for that class. The thing is, if you want to go further into your Diablo 3 experience and go Elite mode, you have to prove your worth, completing a somewhat complex task, these were just a few fast-thought examples.

*If I were to choose the quest option, I would find it of most importance this quest to be dynamic (a different quest everytime you activate it), as elite mode is a precious reward not to be given easy way. The idea is not to 'google' it to unlock the elite mode.

As some forumers have stated before I want to recall that one of the greatest and most enjoyable aspects of the DIablo series (specially D2 and D2-LoD), is the amazing variety of character builds you were able to create, and there, stat point allocation was a key fact. If you were to build your uberpwnzor pvp bowazon for example, every single stat had to be allocated carefully, aswell as equipment cautiously selected since both were closely tied up. You made your decisions, you had your piece of paper with the perfect scheme to build your character. Of course this was not something to aim at day 1 of game launch, but it definitely was the end game.

There are some other Diablo clones out there, where content isn't too good, but character development truly shines, making it well worth the time and money to play them. Diablo 3 ensures impressive content, having a deep character development option will definitely make it a killer game and make it form part of the history books and our greatest memories. Also let's not forget about Diablo being an Action RPG, where you are usually in full control of your chosen character, automatic stat allocation sounds more like of these nowadays MMO clones spread everywhere.