D3 Game Play (Day1, Panel2)
D3 hero's emerge and the game panel make introductions. 7 of them.
Why the demon hunter?
Character fills out archetypes, fits the diablo universe, an obscessed anti hero. They liked the idea of a bounty hunter hunting enimies. She is a conventional ranged class, uses gadgets and traps and shadow magic. Damn she can move fast too. She started out as a ranger with ranged attacks. So they are gong in a new direction.. they want it DARK More mysterious and needed to be medieval.
Creating the Demon Hunter
A demon hunting demons? Thee problems were player classes must be humans. So they though about making him/her part demon. The issue was townspeople would "recoil" The size and bulkiness didn't feel fast it felt slow. So shoulder armor dual crossbows no metal armor below the ribs. And again it has to be human. This is how the hero was born.. fast swift mysterious dark medieval and RANGED. Next up character art. Modeling and texturing of the demon hunter. Character hit the mark.. and she's sexy. (their quote not mine) and they are working on the male demon hunter to make him attractive for the ladies. Gearing up and what makes the character visually distinct. Character has a scarf.. so you can tell it was a demon hunter from a distance.
Demon Hunter Lore
She is the most diverse character. Demon hunters are chosen not born into a class. Bound together by a thirst for revenge. They are recruited by other demon hunters only. They have no homeland so they are more nomadic. There is a base up north that they are trained at. Ranger + bounty hunter + epic quest = win. What drives demon hunters? Obsession with killing demons. She dabbles int he darkside., but they didn't want her to seem demonic. They gave her glowing eye's for effect. She stalks demons and to strike fear into them. She realizes the true stakes of what's going on... Other classes are in it for other reason's, but she's in it to kill demons.
Demon Hunter Skills
bola shot - it explodes after it wraps around the target, pushing the core concepts. She has a shadow theme
vault - it looks like its a fast charge of some sort.
spike trap - selling traps and gadgets and it has a sense of preparation,
gernades - they bounce off walls around corners and off walls and
multishot - it has been ramped up and broght to a new level for d3. They showed it but its hard to tell from one shot
Content Designers
The skill system has been overhauled. Trade system overhauled. The ui they used last year was unwieldy and overwhelming. It had class lines that were arbitrary. They went to a tabbed approach. All the skill lines couldn't be seen all at once. Then they went to a list approach. All 7 skills in one place.> on the right choosing new skills was easier but not quite good enough. So its still a list approach now and it looks a lot nicer now though. Leveling up opens slots. You can have 7 total skills at a given time. Upgrading skills is easier too. It's also easier to re-spec.. (so char respecing is in the game) They are going over skills and abilities of classes we saw last year.. so I won't give details unless theres a big change. The new graphics for meteor = sweet. Spirit walk for whitch hunter is like a guided teleport. The monk wave of lite combines mystic arts with combat arts.
System Traits
Traits are passive skills. Trait example. Barb inner rage - it reduces rage costs and gains rage gained
The wizard uses prizmatic cloak that so why traits the main reasons for char customization to address the attribute points placement. There are choices for traits for each class and spec. With more variety there,s more options. There's 50 traits with 5 levels each. the acitve vs passive skills ... the passive skills are boring so they were moved to traits.. and other skills are in the skills ui. The design for passive traits has to be big numebrs.. no .01% upgrades that feel lackluster. They are working on the ui.. they dont feel its awesome yet. Gaining traits every other level feels a little strange. There are probly too many traits at the moment and too many ranks of each. Back to the first guy. tailmen in d3. They act like charms from d2 but they charms took up too much inv space. They solved this by a tailsmen which is a dedicated inventory for your charms it grows over time. You still have limited space. Charms will be more focused on core attributes.. as opposed to charms for everything. And that is the talismam.
Skill Runes
They are fully implemented in barb witchdocter and wizard.. and are playable at the show. Runes are a system for modifying your skills. They work like gems but for skills and they dont go in your weapons and armor. Skill runes will provide more class builds.. so he's done the math to find out how many skills builds you can have and its 96,886,969,344 build posibilities per class times 5 classes. This should allow for diversity in class skill runes effect the way a spell works and looks. There's still 5 types of skill runes. This was changed form the old system because they had ideas that didn't fit with a specific skill. There are 7 ranks of runes per rune type. the more ranks a spell or action has the wilder it gets.. Each level adds soemthing to the spell or action. He just confirmed hell dificulty in a comment. The barb has the ability to pick up and throw a corpse. Hydra has been brought back in d3. Hey are no longer just fire.. You can have arcane orb ice fire acid.. based on the runes you select.. one of them is a big hydra that drops firewalls as it casts. One of the runes gives a rain of toads.. one of them's a giant toad that eats monsters. And you still get loot if he eats them.
Battle Arena
A dedicated arena for your pvp needs. What do you want to bet that the demon hunter gets baal's body explosion from the diablo 2 FMV. Focused on team absed play for pvp. pvp is going to be helped by a team of builds instead of jsut your own. You build a pve char into a pvp monster as opposed to pvp chars fromt he start. There are many skills that are pvp based.. lots of stuns and slows. These are fought with countermoves these are fought with countermoves to get out of those things. There's a round mechanic. So the arena's will be best of 5 or so. They havent decided on the numebrs yet. Teams will be matched based on skill. They are looking for specific teams and one on ones against ya.. they are working on those apects at the moment. D3 will be progression based. Rewards for wins and achievments.
Q&A was canceled this panel. D3 released not announced.
Edited by Silverfox, 25 April 2011 - 05:41 AM.