Mystery Char

[NASE]

Re: Mystery Char

What about a 'trap' which explodes and knocks back foes when they hit the player in melee combat? Actually the Sorceress had spells like that in D2. Anyway that's also a trap in a sense.

Again, you are even saying it yourself. Why limit yourself to traps? All you need is an fire armour.

What does a trap do in this kind of game, or rather what SHOULD a trap do? It may help to define this sort of thing. Let's try it:

A trap is a technique which counters an enemy action.

This is pretty loose, but it doesn't seem bad. Enemy tries to run towards you, gets impaled by a spike trap. Enemy attacks you, gets exploded/frozen. Enemy casts a spell, receives heavy lightning damage. Going with this theme we could come up with lots of stuff, just think of what the enemy might do.

Again, no need for traps. All those things can be covered by a pure magic system.

 

[Sass]

Re: Mystery Char

Why limit yourself to traps?

I think that's a build inevitability. The traps supplement the sin as is like in hybrids (ww/ls, k/t, etc) but trappers became a full build (synergies also helped tho).

traps like an explosive rune, or glyph magic might work if spells are used with them, but maybe a more mundane trap that makes sense could be used.

And with glyph magic, the class will eventually feel like a caster, or at least magic user, so possible hybrid. The picture itself gives no indication of a magical prowess however.

 

[NASE]

Re: Mystery Char

I think that's a build inevitability. The traps supplement the sin as is like in hybrids (ww/ls, k/t, etc) but trappers became a full build (synergies also helped tho).

And to get there, not using a full, complete traps tree is a good place to start. that enforces people to use different skill, certainly when investing more points in a single tree has advantages.

 

[Knight_Wolf]

Re: Mystery Char

Then you are working with slow paced things. You create your traps in one room, run to the next trying to get the monsters to run into the room with the traps.

I don't know but i feel that scenario is deliberately made to fit your view about traps being BORING .. either way .. i can already give many examples (and i already did) where you can use Traps mid-combat to cover your back or create choke points before dealing with a boss, a large mob swarming you or something like that .. there are tons of situations were traps can be useful and even more useful than normal minions or skills.

This makes it slow paced and will cause problems with multiplayer. Your barbarian ally won't play like this. He will run in try to kill the monsters, get killed, call you a noob and leave. Where's the fun in that?

That's what happens when players don't know a thing about each others play styles .. they could both agree to attack the monsters .. then the trap user would place some traps under their feet .. after damaging some of them he moves back laying traps on his way .. turn around and shower those who will chase him with arrows using bow skills.

And if both players are swarmed and need to fall back traps will do wonders if they leave a couple of them in their wake.

P.S. And why couldn't an arc shot function the way you want. Ice on the floor stay ice for some time. And that ice freezes for some time. That magnetic skill will keep on working for a period of time.

Sigh ... That's what traps are for.

A decoy works for a period of time, as does hydra (perhaps a bit short) and grim wand.

Hydra could very well be considered a trap more than a minion .. it's not very different from Assassins fire trap except it doesn't need activation.

You don't need traps. It's not like you want to secure a room for monsters that may or may not come within the next hour.

Exaggeration will not get you point through really ... monsters do swarm players all the time if you ever played the game .. in in MANY occasions you HAVE to fall back to previous room, a choke point or a tight corridor .. that's a given fact .. traps do work like wonders in those situations .. and like i said before they also do work very well in mid combat.

If you don't like them fine .. other people do like them and have creative and different ways for using them ... just don't use characters that have traps .. and if you want to use them .. don't spend point on the trap skills .. surely there will be so many other viable builds for a class that employs ranged bow skills and light melee combat skills.

 

[NASE]

Re: Mystery Char

Sigh ... That's what traps are for.

Hydra could very well be considered a trap more than a minion .. it's not very different from Assassins fire trap except it doesn't need activation.

That's the point. You don't need traps to get trap-like effects.

in in MANY occasions you HAVE to fall back to previous room, a choke point or a tight corridor .. that's a given fact ..

And what do we do? we put up a decoy or a valk. Or use grim wand. Or use freezing arrow.


All effects similar to traps without the need to really use traps.

 

[Chorkstain]

Re: Mystery Char

Again, you are even saying it yourself. Why limit yourself to traps? All you need is an fire armour.

What does a trap do in this kind of game, or rather what SHOULD a trap do? It may help to define this sort of thing. Let's try it:

A trap is a technique which counters an enemy action.



Again, no need for traps. All those things can be covered by a pure magic system.

So you're saying that there's no need to have traps, because these effects could be a result of spells instead of traps?

Well really, these could be a result of anything. Often whether something is a 'spell' or a 'trap' or a 'melee technique' is irrelevant when it comes to the in-game effect of the ability, it's just a name and a bunch of graphical effects.

When I defined traps, I wasn't specifically talking about mechanical devices that take enemies by surprise, but rather giving a name to a gameplay concept, a gameplay concept that is so far undeveloped in other classes.

 

[Taddl]

Re: Mystery Char

I think there was already a topic about this picture, it could be true they are planning a desert themed character and this was one attempt at it (other than the Dervish which we know got canceled early on).

Or he could be what Blizz was working on before realizing he is the Barbarian with a different skin then replaced him with the Barb (remember Blizz said the Barb was something else before they settled on bringing him back ... looking at the arm and chest muscles of the character here they pretty much resemble the Barb's strong body built).


Either way ... i too do wish we get a Ranged/light Melee/Assassin/Trickster hybrid with a Desert flavor ... that would be unique and NEW for a change.

... the dervish didnt get cancelled... all they said was that some of the team members liked the idea of having an dervish like char and all that jay said was that they never would call him dervish, because the majority of dumbass americans out there wouldnt know what a dervish is (except of those who played guildwars^^)

but the fact that they talked about a dervish class in public makes it really unlikely that this char will be in the main game... well, i like the dervishs stile and i sure would like to play one in an arpg... well, maybe in the expanxion

 

[Sass]

Re: Mystery Char

When I defined traps, I wasn't specifically talking about mechanical devices that take enemies by surprise, but rather giving a name to a gameplay concept, a gameplay concept that is so far undeveloped in other classes.

I can speak for myself that when I hear trap, i think of a contraption, usually mechanical, that surprises an enemy (we'd use bear traps, pit falls, snares, etc).

D3 could use some, but I kinda vouch not having a whole tree, even if they were corrected from D2's traps.

 

[NASE]

Re: Mystery Char

So you're saying that there's no need to have traps, because these effects could be a result of spells instead of traps?

Yes. Because spells can be easier combined with other spells in a single tree. While true traps (some sort of physical device with physical or magical properties) will probably result in a traps only tree (as has been proposed here and on many other occasions).
And that not really what I want and I don't think I need this.

replace 'I' with 'we' when appropriate.

 

[Chorkstain]

Re: Mystery Char

Oh yeah, not having a whole tree of traps, for sure. So far most of the classes are designed so that each tree does not only encompass a single skill type. But it doesn't make sense that he's refuting my definition when he has obviously made additional assumptions about it when all I said was:

"A trap is a technique which counters an enemy action."

 

[Knight_Wolf]

Re: Mystery Char

That's the point. You don't need traps to get trap-like effects.

No it isn't .. things that have Trap-Like effects ARE traps or trap variations no matter what you name them.

And what do we do? we put up a decoy or a valk. Or use grim wand. Or use freezing arrow.

Not if you are busy clearing the way in front of you as well ... besides Traps can effectively slow/damage/stun/curse/distract multiple enemies without you having to aim or waste time targeting them.

Not to mention if you spotted the boss or mob before they did and planted few traps few steps ahead then moved into their sight to lure them into the traps you can damage them double the amount by BOTH the traps and your RANGED SKILLS .. BOTH at the same time.

All effects similar to traps without the need to really use traps.

lols ... That could be said for minions as well .. why use minions to attack my enemies when i can attack them with zeal or WW ... same logic .. and it fails badly .. the game does provide different ways to do the same thing .... each person picks the way that fits him .. what's so complex about that.

 

[NASE]

Re: Mystery Char

lols ... That could be said for minions as well .. why use minions to attack my enemies when i can attack them with zeal or WW ... same logic .. and it fails badly .. the game does provide different ways to do the same thing .... each person picks the way that fits him .. what's so complex about that.

Minion add a tanking and distracting effect too allowing weaker character to perform close range combat. Something you don't have with zeal.
At most, you could compare it to large range crowd control effects yet I don't think include the same damage over time is such a large crowd control thing will be balanced. Not to mention the fact that minions can be killed, something nor zeal nor those crowd control skills have.

 

[Knight_Wolf]

Re: Mystery Char

Minion add a tanking and distracting effect too allowing weaker character to perform close range combat. Something you don't have with zeal.
At most, you could compare it to large range crowd control effects yet I don't think include the same damage over time is such a large crowd control thing will be balanced. Not to mention the fact that minions can be killed, something nor zeal nor those crowd control skills have.

I already listed the differences between the Traps on other skill types.


-They can't be damaged like minions

-They can create effective choke points even in the open areas

-They offer you the chance to double/triple/.. etc your damage out put cause you can attack freely using your other skills while they activate and damage enemies on their own.

-They Offer AoE effects exactly where and when you want them regardless of what you are doing now (busy attack a boss or luring a unique away from your party)

-They allow you to activate two/three/four/five ... etc etc different effects ranging from damage to crowd control effects at the same exact time ... which is very hard to do in any other way


I can keep going .. but i hope you got the idea .. it is a fact there are people who like to use traps and can find great benefits in using them ... regardless of you considering them boring or not .. simply put .. traps aren't your thing .. but that's not a reason not to include them in the game.

 

[jakotaco]

Re: Mystery Char

Then you are working with slow paced things. You create your traps in one room, run to the next trying to get the monsters to run into the room with the traps.
This makes it slow paced and will cause problems with multiplayer. Your barbarian ally won't play like this. He will run in try to kill the monsters, get killed, call you a noob and leave. Where's the fun in that?

Yes, conventional wait-for-something-to-walk-into-traps would indeed be of little use in most scenarios. And I see what you mean, there are several trap skills in Median Mod and most suffer from that so that they are mostly used when the player knows monsters will spawn in their area (baal throne for example) However in some of the trailer videos it seems monsters are a bit more aggressive so while I agree there should probably not be a full tree for that kind of traps I don't see why it couldn't be one or two of them. Could be handy at times, and those who doesn't like them can just skip them.

And then there are trap like skills that can be used in combat aswell. Another Median example is the "Exploding Totem" which is pretty much a summon on corpse "Decoy" with very low hit points and a very powerful stun nova on death. Really nice skill.

 

[NASE]

Re: Mystery Char

I can keep going .. but i hope you got the idea .. it is a fact there are people who like to use traps and can find great benefits in using them ... regardless of you considering them boring or not .. simply put .. traps aren't your thing .. but that's not a reason not to include them in the game.

The point is that you don't need classical traps as there are different (more original) ways to achieve the same effect. With this in mind, you can distribute your trap-like effects over the other trees enhancing the versatility of those trees while at the same time enhancing the versatility of the whole character by allowing a third different tree to be developed.

 

[sinned]

Re: Mystery Char

Who cares, guys?! You two keep arguing for 3 pages now about something really offtopic.

Let's go back to the mystery char, you know, the actual topic of this thread, shall we?

The first thing I thought about when seeing the picture was a rogue/thief. I dunno how or if stealth would work in Diablo, but I'd definitely want to see a stealthy char ambushing enemies and sneeking around. The picture doesn't look anything like a barbarian, his style of clothing is different.

 

[Knight_Wolf]

Re: Mystery Char

Who cares, guys?! You two keep arguing for 3 pages now about something really offtopic.

Not really off-topic .. rather on-topic since we are discussing the possibility of that mystery character having a trap tree or trap skills

The first thing I thought about when seeing the picture was a rogue/thief. I dunno how or if stealth would work in Diablo, but I'd definitely want to see a stealthy char ambushing enemies and sneeking around. The picture doesn't look anything like a barbarian, his style of clothing is different.

We already are past that point .. everybody knows a stealth character won't work in D3 .. so this character could be more of an agile-evasive-light-ranger/warrior type .. that's how everybody saw it that way because we know all characters in D3 must be DPS characters.

Then we moved on to whether it should have a trap tree or not ... that's pretty much natural since all people guesses were similar regarding the character being an agile-evasive-light-ranger/warrior type .. the only design point that would need to be changed is making him more lean so that he doesn't look as hulking as the barbarian (like he is in the image).


As for the barbarian thing .. Blizz said explicitly they were working on another character that ended up turning into the barbarian in the end .. considering the very strong bodybuilt of this character in the artwork we can say it was that character.

The point is that you don't need classical traps as there are different (more original) ways to achieve the same effect. With this in mind, you can distribute your trap-like effects over the other trees enhancing the versatility of those trees while at the same time enhancing the versatility of the whole character by allowing a third different tree to be developed.

There is no need for an extra tree to begin with (he can already have one for ranged and one for light melee combat beside the traps one) .. why create an empty slot without having anything to put in it ... besides .. who said traps tree would be 100% traps ... it could be named (trickster tree) or something an can have trap skills ... passive skills that enhances traps .. evasive skills ... illusion skills ... etc etc.

As for so called original ways to achieve the same effect .... there is nothing original about all the things you mentioned, traps need to be traps ... how they look and work could be improved in several ways while keeping the as recognizable traps .. there is no need for convoluting things needlessly by overloading skills with extra effects.

Like wise .. take the WD minions example .. with your logic .. we should make the fire skull skill of the WD spawn fire minions whenever it is used .. and same with the fire bats and other skills ... and remove the other classical minion type skills since you don't need classical minions as there are different (more original) ways to achieve the same effect XD

 

[LaZeR]

Re: Mystery Char

Wow.
As OP of this thread I have to say some things:

1. As you can easily see if you have read my post I didn't make a Traps Tree. No, I used D3 mechanics and put traps in other tree to help other skills- Stealth traps, Range traps and close combat traps.

2. Actually, I agree with NASE. The wait-for-something-to-show-up traps won't work on D3 because it really is too slow paced. However, I agree that traps can be made into spell like traps with different theme and animation. I see no harm in this. You can call it Battle Techniques instead..

3. Can't remember who said it, but YES-the char doesn't look holy so it isn't holy. WD looks junglish so he has jungle skills, Barb looks violent so he has melee skills etc. Sure he can be holy with proper lore but for now and by only this picture he isn't.

4. That's about it. I can't see NASE's problem with having fast paced Traps that will suit D3. Considering this, we can go back to building our mystery char. I'll add some skills in a while, right now I'm kind of busy, but go ahead and suggest stuff yourselves.

 

[Knight_Wolf]

Re: Mystery Char

2. Actually, I agree with NASE. The wait-for-something-to-show-up traps won't work on D3 because it really is too slow paced. However, I agree that traps can be made into spell like traps with different theme and animation. I see no harm in this. You can call it Battle Techniques instead..

There are no such things as waiting-for -something-to-show-up traps .. that's one way to use them ... the same traps can be used mid-combat very easily, during boss encounters and during fall-back-after being-swarmed situations which are surely going to occur.

But still .. i don't mind any of the looks or naming changes you suggested.

3. Can't remember who said it, but YES-the char doesn't look holy so it isn't holy. WD looks junglish so he has jungle skills, Barb looks violent so he has melee skills etc. Sure he can be holy with proper lore but for now and by only this picture he isn't.

Sure he doesn't look very holy .. quite the opposite ... he looks like a rough desert raider, a marauder .. or maybe a desert nomad warrior.

I think Nomad would make a nice class name for him XD

4. That's about it. I can't see NASE's problem with having fast paced Traps that will suit D3. Considering this, we can go back to building our mystery char. I'll add some skills in a while, right now I'm kind of busy, but go ahead and suggest stuff yourselves.

Ok ... i'll suggest some skills .. regardless of tree.



Dual Daggers Mastery --> +20% to dagger weapons attack rating when dual wielded (5 levels .. +5% with each level).

Dual Swords Mastery -->+25% to swords hitting chance when dual wielded (6 levels .. +3% with each level).

Impeding Sands --> Nomad summons the power of enchanted sand to entangle the legs of his enemies and them slow down in a wide area ... only effective against ground enemies.

Sand vortex --> Nomad summons a violent but static sand vortex that pulls enemies into itself and damages them .. upgrades increase pulling range and damage.

Trickster ---> when active every attack the Nomad receives increase his dexterity by 4% temporarily .. upgrading increases cap .. max cap is 40%

Djinn Arrow --> A magical enchanted arrow that jumps from one target to the next .. upgrading increases the number of jumps and allows it to jump back to enemies it already hit.

Sandstorm Arrows --> every shot unleashes a barrage of earth/sand enchanted arrows that push enemies back and slow them.

Cluster Arrow --> An arrow that can hit any target or the ground .. after few seconds it explodes lunching arrows in all directions.

------------------------------

Those are just few ideas ..and as you can see i tried to make them desert themed as much as possible .... i always wondered why nobody used earth magic in Diablo.

 

[Sass]

Re: Mystery Char

We already are past that point .. everybody knows a stealth character won't work in D3 .. so this character could be more of an agile-evasive-light-ranger/warrior type .. that's how everybody saw it that way because we know all characters in D3 must be DPS characters.

Being a huge fan of subterfuge, i must dissagree.

I think d3's environment system might be able to accurately depict a stealthy char; something d2 could not (cos came close, but not very well).

The environment is far more interactive, and a char could have a possibility to use this for cover (sneak attack?) or as a vantage point (wall climbing like the ladder we saw?)

etc