Campaign Creations

Can we just ask Blizzard to get a definitive answer?

Maybe I'm a part of Blizzard.

Wouldn't that just shock you.

IskatuMesk wrote:Maybe I'm a part of Blizzard.

Wouldn't that just shock you.

That would be like... treason..... high treason...

WB just confirmed it. He works for Blizzard. CASE CLOSED

THREAD OVER

mark_009_vn wrote:Can we just ask Blizzard to get a definitive answer?

It's been confirmed over and over it's RCX and Isk by the person who put them in. :3

Dear Blizzard:
Here's what I'd like to see happen on the mechanical side of the game:


Helpful Changes

1. Drop color for gems and other useful items: No one ever uses white equipment (non-magical) beyond Act 1 Normal. So why must we visually sift through all the white-level junk that drops to spot actually useful items like gems, training documents, and potions? Diablo 2 at least colored runes an orange color, though I never understood why gems remained white. Here’s an idea: change all plain equipment to grey, and gems, etc can remain white. Or, give these wanted items a distinguishing color. Or, if you’re feeling particularly generous, let us define our own colors under options, as sometimes gray and blue items look similar on certain monitors, and you also have color-blind people to consider, who could use these custom settings to suit their needs.
2. No, you can’t change these key bindings, so sayeth Blizzard: It’s 2012, we should be able to change what our left and right mouse buttons do. Instead, these bindings are grayed out under options. A game’s controls are the most important aspect, above and before any other concern. When you stack too many functions onto one key, if those functions aren’t mutually exclusive you will cause player frustration when the game does one thing when they wanted/needed to do another. Right now, left-clicking controls movement, interaction, and primary attack, and there is no way to change this scheme. Sometimes, you need to run out of a crowd of monsters, but the screen is covered in mobs and one of them runs under your curser just when you clicked. Guess what happens? You stand there attacking like a moron and die. Basically your ability to move is restricted to the free space unoccupied by monsters. How about when you mean to attack but either miss or the monster moves? You end up running face-first into the horde of monsters and die. Use shift, you might say, but not all attacks have the same range, so this suggestion is moot and does nothing to address the core complaint. To summarize: let us change all key bindings, and include separate binds for primary attack, movement, and interaction.
3. Show me where I died: We may not have a body to gather up anymore, but if we died we were probably fighting something difficult, and difficult things often drop the best loot, so we probably want to finish that fight. Sometimes the fog of war helps narrow down the location, but if you weren’t making a b-line or had to retreat during a fight, the location of your death (and thus your killer) isn’t always obvious. You can add this as an optional feature that players can turn on/off at will, or make a hotkey that draws up a compass arrow for a limited time (like how the "highlight drops" hotkey only shows item names for a number of seconds).
4. Lag and tight timing: Teleport’s Wormhole rune needs more than a 1 second window to use it again. The ability moves your screen to unseen parts of the map after the first use; the human brain needs a few moments to process the new surroundings, and another few moments to move the mouse in the desired direction for the second teleport. 3-5 seconds would be ideal for the rune to feel satisfying, as opposed to frustrating because you didn’t click fast enough or lagged and, through no fault of your own, missed the opportunity.
5. Minion health numbers: You’ve given us the option to display numbers for how much health a monster has. This is great for mentally estimating how many hits it’ll take to down the beast (especially bosses who have massive health pools). You did not provide a similar option for our minions, however, which would be helpful to figure out how many hits they can take.

Bugs and Blunders

1. Once logged in, certain features are disabled: Why do I have to log out of my account in order to re-watch the cinematics?
2. Missing buff icons: Wizard's Magic Weapon and Familiar.
3. Locust Swarm range: If bound as your primary, it casts immediately rather than moving you into the proper range. Also, if used on a barrel, shouldn’t this jump to additional destructible objects like other bouncing spells?

Auction House

1. Missing search terms: Not every attribute found on items can be searched for, such as bonus damage on a ring/amulet, physical damage to attacker on a weapon, or percentage bonus experience on a helm.
2. Legendary lockout: Why do all other search terms become disabled when you use the unique name filter? Legendaries often have random stats, so the ability to further refine my search is important. Instead, I have to search for the legendary I want in a roundabout way by using the search filters to key in on special aspects of the legendary, thus ignoring the name filter altogether.
3. Compare similar items: The most important task to successfully selling items is researching your competition’s prices. Right now, doing so is a clunky affair of swapping between the Search and Sell tabs to view each item you want to sell, write down or memorize their stats, then fiddle around with the numerous dropdown boxes in the Search tab, each of which contains several dozen options to scroll through, and finally search for similar items to see the going rate. What I would love is the ability to automate all of this crap by simply right-clicking on an item in the Sell tab and select “Compare similar items”, which will jump me over to the search tab with all of that data entered in.

The Magic Weapon was patched, they stated they also didn't want a timer for Familiar since it's visually present.

Can't even start to complain about the AH or I could be here for hours..

Honestly, I can let all the bugs, choices for skills, etc slide.. It's their game they create it how they want. It's the story that I think killed it for me. Love playing the game and everything it has to offer. But honestly, I feel like I'm playing an arcade game made for a casual audience. Especially when I can complete the entire game in under two hours.

they stated they also didn't want a timer for Familiar since it's visually present.

Unacceptable. Every buff should have a visual indicator for the sake of PvP, so the fact that Familiar has one is a pointless reason to forego a duration icon. It's knowing how close the buff is to expiring that I want to see, and nothing about the Familiar's graphic tells me that. In the end, I have to recast the spell every few breathers in a fight, so I don't risk having it fizzling out when I need it. This compulsion is neither fun nor rewarding. For the sake of consistency, Blizzard must add a buff timer for Familiar.

It's the story that I think killed it for me.

Yes, the story was disappointing. There were many missed opportunities, poor writing, inconsistent pacing, unresolved plot threads, and an unsatisfying ending.

For the most part, I like Act I. You get a lot of atmosphere and gruesome backstory on Leoric. I like the twist on the meteor being a man, and then that man turning out to be Tyrael. Cain dying I'd have been fine with, but the way it was done could have been much better. The closing cinematic of Imperius vs. Tyrael was great.

Act II was good in the first half, but had some missteps. Kulle's "betrayal" was obnoxiously obvious. First of all, they needed to cut out all that maniacal laughter. They had an opportunity to create a deeper, morally gray character, but instead opted for another two-dimensional cartoon villain. The child emperor was another missed opportunity. They could have taken him in a more surprising direction, or provided a deeper backstory (Leoric, as an example) so we might actually feel something. Belial tricking or framing us for the child emperor’s murder would have been a devious plot twist that'd underscore Belial's title as the Lord of Lies and actually make him seem competent.

Act III, lost potential. Tyrael taking up the mantle of Wisdom at the end would have made a lot more sense if he had actually acted as a clever tactician and strategist while in our presence. Instead of directly heading off every move Azmodan made, it would have been much more interesting if we did something else that ultimately countered Azmodan. Instead, we get Tyrael the Locksmith and Azmodan the Incompetent. If this were chess, Azmodan would be announcing his next three moves, then scoffing at how your countering him was meaningless, again and again until he loses. Boring, annoying, adds nothing, and actually detracts from the character and story.

Act IV, rushed. I really like that we got to go to Heaven. This is the first entirely new location (all others are essentially from D2), but you ultimately don't do much here beyond cut your way to Diablo, kill him, and The End. Angels really should have been portrayed as more badass than the couple of fodder units we got to see. New Tristram had been besieged for weeks, defended by inexperienced militia who were low on rations. Caldeum had its government subverted. Bastion's Keep was manned by an unsuspecting army of young and old men in an ancient, degrading fortress. Heaven? These are immortal warriors who've been fighting hell for an eternity. Showing them being cut down like they were nothing doesn't demonstrate Diablo's power. It just makes the angels look weak. Judging strength is a comparative exercise. I'd have liked to see a contingent of angels using superior battlefield tactics to obliterate a much larger force of demons (ones difficult for our own character to slay), only to be baited into a trap and killed. In one fell swoop we'd get a sense of their strength, but also how they could be losing despite such power.

I presume Blizzard is saving certain things for the expansion, such as the fate of Leah, concluding the backstories of our followers, searching out Shen's haunted gem, and tracking down Adria. All but one of these are excusable. Leah has been in every cinematic, save the last. She is the thread that binds all others. To leave her out in the end, I think, is anticlimactic. And what about the Black Soulstone? I thought it had to be destroyed or something. What did I accomplish in the end? Did I really slay all the lords of hell, or will they simply come back in time? Very little to nothing is answered, so I'm left with an empty ending.

Oh yeah, and TER-ROAR!

It annoyed me that the main writer wanted to "do away with Diablo's story" (the damn game is called Diablo) by killing him off, yet... There they leave the black soulstone, falling.. Just falling. Everything you said is correct, except I disagree with the Leoric part. Honestly, Butcher and Leoric should of been flipped. Butcher is once again in the catacombs (since, duh, that room still has to be there somewhere), and going Leoric's castle reveals you need to go deeper into the catacombs after more backstory of Leoric is revealed. I'd of preferred we don't find Tyrael or Cain until the end of the act, and frankly that Cain would not of died. I didn't see a need for it, at all. So much, to the point, that even his death was an eye-rolling shock of how is butterfly going to kill Cain in the middle of town.

Act 2 was okay, lengthy, quite a bit of story, I was kulle with Kulle betraying us, it was expected, I just wish it something more along the lines of "I've been working with _____" the whole time, which unfortunately would not of made sense lore-wise. So, in the end, I'd of preferred he not betray us and keep that edgy "when is he going to betray us" thought smacking us, and have him join the party with us and once Azmodan is sucked into the stone, then he makes his move or something.

Act 3... Is when I started to feel like I was playing Gauntlet Legends with a pop-up transmission of a boss taunting me every 5 minutes.

Also, Act 4 is just terrible, to be honest. Let's not forgot the pop up if we're ready to continue with an image of Imperius plastered on it, only to... Have him fall like a little girl when he loses his wings.