So you don’t have proof.
Yeah, exactly this.
BUT there are upper and lower limits.
Being able to choose 1 skill out of 30 is less choice than being able to pick 3 out of 30. Because you reduce/remove the synergies between skills; essentially what makes a build a build. Likewise, picking 20 skills out of 30 is more of a choice than picking 25 skills out of 30 (because as you get closer to 30/30 the less hard choices remains as you also said).
So it is about finding the sweet spot between too few and too many skills out of the total amount of skills.
Which is where I think 7-8 would be much better than 6.
Not being able to change your skills doesnt make it a rotation. In that case D2 would also have a rotation.
Honestly, the rotation claim is overused by everyone.
WoW does not really use skill rotations much either.
1 Like
Why do I need proof? I just told you from my first hand experienced and others who were in the beta also experienced this. Whether you choose to believe it or not isn’t my concern. Ask around? I don’t know what to tell you.
You need proof if you want people to believe in you. People constantly claim the developers said this or that, but rarely have proof.
Some may, but I’m pretty much a spender until I need resources then use builders to cap off. All other spells I use situationally. I don’t just pop them because they came off CD. Of course some buffs you want to keep up but it doesn’t really fall into what I think of a rotation.
Yeah I was there, I participated. I don’t recall any comment of the like.
Maybe you didn’t pay much attention? It was a pretty big deal and caused a lot of confrontation.
Edited:
Here is an article about it which took me 3 seconds to google.
Apparently I’m not allowed to post links so you’ll have to manually type it.
h t t p : / / gamerant . com / diablo-3-xbox-360-controller /
D2 has no skill rotation because there are no cooldowns of spells and you use the spells when you need them in the moment.
You can use them whenever you want to if you have the right amount of mana unless its an aura skill swap like on paladin, which D3 clearly does not allow since passive buff skills use a skill slot and you cannot use strategically a certain buff when you want to, you have to decide in D3 before hand and well yeah Bad Luck if the Buff/Debuff you choose does not fit cos you already are in a fight and you cannot switch to a preferable buff/debuff under a certain situation/circumstance.
Just an example with the necro in D2 you cast lower resist first and bone prison to see poison nova and kill enemies with DoT or Golem/Merc to revive 3 different knd of summons (magical skelleton, warrior skelleton, resurrected mob) and once you got an army while fighting a pack of mobs you can use amplify damage so that your minions deal more damage and use corpse explosion to kill more Mobs and create more corpses to keep using corpse explosion OR you can before you create a minion Army use corpse Explosio n AOE to create your army afterwards.
Im already using 8 spells here when i could also use attract/confuse and slow other faster chaser melee mobs with decrepify
Diablo 2 has no rotation because the game was designed without them. Arguably certain Assassin builds might have a small one, but that’s it.
Rogues in Vanilla WoW had a rotation even though none of their attack skills are on a cooldown. The thing that makes a game have a rotation is when the gameplay is designed around your character needing to hit certain buttons in a certain order to maximize performance.
Personally I prefer the plan ahead nature that limited skills can play into. Sure it sucks to get caught without Lower Resist, but that means you have to consider the enemy you’re fighting when you’re back in town preparing to go off.
That said I’ve been playing a lot of Baldur’s Gate recently and I do love the Wild Mage mechanic of being able to cast any known spell but with a risk to it(I just wish Neera had 18 int instead of 17). I’m not sure if it would work in a more action oriented Diablo game but if they found a way to make it work, it would be a welcome mechanic in my opinion.
Except that was it on the beta forums as you claimed and has nothing to with the button layout, rather movement. It also confirms that there was no intention to develop D3 with consoles in mind rather controller support.
@Chaos use the </> icon to surround your links like this:
http://gamerant.com/diablo-3-xbox-360-controller/
We can then copy the link or in at least Firefox, highlight and right-click to open in a new window/tab (I don’t do Chrome).
1 Like
i gladly endorse this setup;
-it was always my preference to have just a few active buttons in an aRPG.
-but, as i posted once, i would welcome lotsa passives to play with builds. 
FYI, I don’t use terms like PCMASTERRACE and I do not subscribe to that ideology . I’m not an eff’ing pre-teen who has the meme-speak in order to communicate. However, the fact that you are using shows that you willing to either subscribe or support what that term represents. The fact that you failed to respond to my post directly to either acknowledge or refute, but instead attempt to re-promote a failed concept, shows that you and others like @Gilthas are trolling here.
@Shadout:
I went through the list of skills/commands in detail to show that the D2 UI and game design do not translate well to console. I could cut down the number of hot-keyed skills but it will still be above the 22.
Side Note: 14 base inputs are the 4 bumpers, 4 joy pad buttons, 2 joystics, and the 4 main buttons (xbox = A,B,X,Y and PS = Square, Circle, Triangle, X).
In theory, I could setup a 3rd, 4th and 5th modifier keys. However, what you are ignoring is that in doing so unnecessarily complicates the game play. The best example of this is the “The Core” StarCraft-2 (SC-2)keyboard layout that I link in a prior post. In “The Core” SC-2 layout the Control, Shift, and Alt keys are modifiers. So one has to learn the base key layout and 3 additional layers. This is not just brain memorization, but muscle memory which can take weeks to get up to speed with especially if one has to unlearn pre-existing habits/muscle memory. So it makes the learning curve for SC-2 high end play much steeper. Your 2nd modifier key is suggesting that the devs lean in the direction of a much steeper learning curve which runs counter to selling/promoting the game to younger gamers. While using a 2nd modifier key is doable it is going to potentially promote obtuse hand/wrist movements to be repeated in at high speeds to keep up with the game play as well as the players mental speed.
@Chaosleech:
The article you linked is going to be hard to ignore, but we should expect that they will ignore the article and promote the same claims over and over again. They can follow the Trumpian style of repeatedly broadcasting misinformation and ignoring facts, but that does not mean the rest of us are obliged to drink the kool-aid.
Excerpt: " He doesn’t feel that a game like StarCraft would work well with a console control scheme"
1 Like
However you can easily get above 22 buttons. There are also an Options button (or whatever it is called on xbox), and you can differentiate further with fast click vs. hold button. The Code Vein example got 29 buttons with just 1 modifier.
And the Diablo 2 example is just not very realistic. Which builds use 19 skills?
Just as plenty of the 35 buttons you find in D2 could be condensed.
If you can handle modifier keys on a keyboard, I am sure you can handle it on a controller as well.
I dont think anyone is saying Starcraft would work on a console. RTS doesnt really work on a gamepad. However, it is still not because of the available buttons, but because of the low precision/aiming.
The rest of the article is just saying that Blizzard think that Diablo can work fine with a controller. Which fit with what people are saying here.
One of many articles about one of many times they discussed it. But again you don’t remember it so what do you know?
Again, that article specifically talks about the movement feels in a controller. Has nothing to do with button layout for console.
But you claim there are many articles please find one that supports your claim that D3 was being developed with console in mind as the reason for 6 active skill slots.
Its not about which builds uses 35+ skills. The devs have to make allowances for all of the available commands to be hot-keyed. If one cannot hot key all of the commands then it will be confusing to some, it will be considered a bug to some, and others still will consider the game incomplete since it would be lacking capacity to use all commands.
Again not the point. The point is it would potentially force the player into obtuse finger/hand/wrist movements that cause undo stress and after long gaming sessions RSI’s. For example, let’s say one is determined to use a controller no matter the cost. Let’s allocate the:
- pinkie fingers for trigger button activation (LMB/RMB)
- ring fingers for activation of top bumper buttons
- middle and index fingers for joy pad and 4 main buttons on the controller
- thumbs will be on the joysticks
- left/right palms will be used to steady the controller
Modifier Keys:
- top right bumper <== 3rd modifier key
- X (PS4) or A (Xbox) <== 1st modifier key
- Circle (PS4) or B (Xbox) <== 2nd modifier key
Assignment (modifier 2/3 active, 1 inactive):
- joy pad up <== swap to Static on left trigger
- joy pad down <== swap to Teleport on left trigger
- Square (PS4) and X (Xbox) <== swap to Fireball
- Triangle (PS4) and Y (Xbox) <== swap to Frost Nova
- joy pad left <== swap to Meteor
- joy pad right <== swap to Glacial Spike
- top left bumper <== swap to Blizzard
Assignment (modifier 2 active, 1/3 inactive):
- top left bumper <== swap to Town portal
- Triangle (PS4) and Y (Xbox) <== toggle character stats page
- Square (PS4) and X (Xbox) <== toggle inventory
- joy pad up <== toggle belt (show/hide belt)
- joy pad left <== swap to Telekinesis on left trigger
Assignment (modifier 3 active, 1/2 inactive):
- top left bumper <== toggle full screen map
- joy pad right <== swap to Frozen Orb
- Triangle (PS4) and Y (Xbox) <== swap to cold armor right trigger weapon set #1
- Triangle (PS4) and Y (Xbox) <== swap to Lower Resist Wand charges right trigger weapon set #2
- Square (PS4) and X (Xbox) <== weapon swap toggle
Assignment Fill potion slots (modifier 1/2/3 active):
- joy pad up <== Fill slot 1 (health potion)
- joy pad down <== Fill slot 2 (health potion)
- joy pad left <== Fill slot 3 (mana potion)
- joy pad right <== Fill slot 4 (mana potion)
** Not sure how one is going to assign the slot fills and Sorc consume antidote, thawing, rejuv, and stamina potions. **
Sorc potion consumption (modifier 1/2 active, 3 inactive):
- joy pad up <== potion slot 1
- joy pad down <== potion slot 2
- joy pad left <== potion slot 3
- joy pad right <== potion slot 4
Merc potion consumption (modifier 1/3 active, 2 inactive):
- joy pad up <== potion slot 1
- joy pad down <== potion slot 2
- joy pad left <== potion slot 3
- joy pad right <== potion slot 4
Assignment (modifiers 1/2/3 inactive):
- top left bumper <== force stand still
Combat/Multitasking scenario:
- Single Player, off-line, Normal difficulty with /players 8 enabled
- Weapon set #1 is active (Teleport is on left trigger, Frozen Orb is on right trigger)
- Weapon set #2 is inactive (Teleport is on left trigger, Lower Resist charges is on right trigger)
Diablo is currently south/east of his spawning pentagram position in Chaos Sanctuary. The player has to circle around (travel movement) the Diablo boss at his current position. Cold attacks have to be woven into the multitasking commands to keep him slowed/chilled. Keep the Lower Resist curse on Diablo so that he takes more damage from the Sorc spells. There is a resist lightning shrine about 4-7 yards west of Diablo’s position. There are health, mana, stamina, and rejuv potions randomly spread around Diablo’s current position, as well as in a cluster north/west of the spawning pentagram.
You must keep Sorc and your merc alive. To keep the merc alive you will have to feed him potions as well as teleport a safe distance away from Diablo to pull the merc out of harms way when he is low health. You will have to make a few trips back to town via town portal to restock potions, rez your merc, and restock town portals. Avoid Diablo’s attacks while the merc face tanks him.
Expect to swap weapon sets for Lower Resist. Expect to swap between cold and fire attacks (ex: meteor) because meteor does both impact damage and DoT burn on the ground at the impact location +4 yard radius, and cold attacks apply damage plus chill/slow to Diablo. Expect to use a short teleport maneuver to avoid Diablo’s pink lightning attack and long teleport to save your merc. Expect to always be running so both thumbs will be in use full time.
You have magic find on most of your gear. You have a +6 Fireball leaf staff (+3 to All Fire skills and +3 Fireball). Your gear is mostly crap so, you are lacking resistances but its normal difficulty. You only have +10 FRW so you’ll need to rely on stamina potions to enable run full time.
Objective #1 is to bring Diablo’s HP down with Static. At level 30 based on Sasja’s MeteOrb guide, you only have 1 point into Static so, you will have to get in close to Diablo.
Objective #2 is to kill Diablo using any combination of Fireball, Frozen Orb, Blizzard, Glacial Spike, Frost Nova and Meteor. (I can’t remember if Telekinesis can be used on Diablo to interrupt his melee attacks or spell casts)
Command Sequence Excerpt:
- Consume stamina potion (???)
- Short Tele in close (left pinkie + left ring finger)
- Frozen Orb (right pinkie)
- Swap to Static (right ring finger + right middle finger > left middle finger)
- Static 3x (right pinkie)
- Sorc consume HP pot (right middle finger + right index finger > left middle finger)
- Long tele away (left pinkie + left ring finger)
- Feed merc (right ring finger + right index finger > left index finger)
- Sorc consume mana pot (right middle finger + right index finger > left middle finger)
- Long tele in close (left pinkie + left ring finger)
- Swap to Glacial Spike (right ring finger + right middle finger > left index finger)
- Glacial Spike (right pinkie)
- Swap to Static (right ring finger + right middle finger > left middle finger)
Feed merc (right ring finger + right index finger > left index finger) - Static 3x (right pinkie)
- Long tele away (left pinkie + left ring finger)
- Sorc consume HP pot (right middle finger + right index finger > left middle finger)
- Sorc consume mana pot (right middle finger + right index finger > left middle finger)
- Feed merc (right ring finger + right index finger > left index finger)
- Long tele in close (left pinkie + left ring finger)
- Weapon swap (right ring finger + right index finger)
- Lower Resist (right pinkie)
- Weapon swap (right ring finger + right index finger)
- Swap to Frozen Orb (left ring finger > right index finger)
- Frozen Orb (right pinkie)
- Swap to Fireball (right ring finger + right middle finger > right index finger)
- Fireball 3x (right pinkie)
- Long tele away (left pinkie + left ring finger)
- Feed merc (right ring finger + right index finger > left index finger)
- Long tele in close (left pinkie + left ring finger)
- Swap to Frost Nova (right ring finger + right middle finger > right index finger)
- Frost Nova (right pinkie)
- Weapon swap (right ring finger + right index finger)
- Lower Resist (right pinkie)
- Weapon swap (right ring finger + right index finger)
- Swap to Meteor (right ring finger + right middle finger > left middle finger)
- Meteor (right pinkie)
- Swap to Fireball (right ring finger + right middle finger > right index finger)
- Consume stamina potion (???)
- Fireball 2x (right pinkie)
- Fill Potion Slot #2 (right ring finger + right middle finger + right index finger > left middle finger)
- Fill Potion Slot #1 (right ring finger + right middle finger + right index finger > left middle finger)
…etc.
Even if one visualizes the teleports, potion consumes, swaps and attacks as clusters of finger sequences, what makes all of this obtuse is the use of both the thumbs full time for movement and targeting. The only time standing still is when the Sorc and merc are outside of Diablo’s range (ex: 2-3 screens away) and there are no monsters around.
Using special software like what comes in the nVidia driver download, one can map a Xbox controller to specific keys on a keyboard. So one can map the above and play D2-LoD with controller. However, I offer the advice of a former coworker. Its not worth the risk of getting a repetitive stress injury to try to get good with the above type of setup on a controller. I don’t use “The Core” straight from download. I’ve modified the layout just for me. So now that I’ve provided you with dual motivation (a challenge and the voice of reason), let’s see where you guys land. Are you going to back down from a challenge?
Oh and good luck trying to picking up those potions on the ground and managing inventory while trying to dodge the pink lightning.
I didn’t like one point wonders either. They could have made Teleport to start off with terrible accuracy and speed, and more points in it allows you to Teleport closer to your target and faster for example. That could have made 20 points into Teleport a viable thing.
1 Like