17,263
edits
Changes
ADVERTISEMENT
From Diablo Wiki
no edit summary
'''Runes''' in [[Diablo 3]] are small items that are socketed into '''active''' [[skill]]s, (not into [[item]]s as they were in Diablo 2). Diablo 3's skill runes grant special bonuses to the skill they are socketed into, improving the skill's function in various ways, such as adding damage or multiple hits, reducing cost, etc.
There are five types of runes, each representing a general type of bonus, the names of which have changed repeatedly during game development. The most recent information came from final name change was revealed in May 2010, when [[Bashiok]] in late May 2010, when he revealed the current rune names as Crimson, Indigo, Obsidian, Golden, Alabaster. [http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/new-skill-rune-names-revealed/] revealed the names as having changed to [[Crimson]], [[Indigo]], [[Obsidian]], [[Golden]], and [[Alabaster]]. Considerable, but not total, changes to their bonuses came with that name change.
Runes spawn at various levels of quality (5 or 6 levels), e.g., "Minor Alabaster Runestone."
[[Jay Wilson]] has stressed that runes must add a useful function to multiple types of skills, since every type of rune will be socketable in every action skill. (As far as we know.) This leads to some odd and creative design decisions, since while it's obvious what most runes will do in most skills, there are some exceptions. Consider what a rune that adds multiple hits or damage does for a purely defensive/shielding skill? Or a movement skill like the Wizard's Teleport?
The [[D3 Team]] wants all the runes to be useful to all [[class]]es, so they did not add runes that just boosted one type of skill, or one character's skills. They have had to find general function bonuses that worked across the board, which is why there are not fifty types of runes. Just Instead there are just fiverune types, though one of the five is basically even with just 5, their functions change quite a wild card rune that does odd and different things bit from skill to skill, in different skillsmany cases.
==Rune Types and Functions==
Though the five types of runes kept changing names, but their functions seemed to be largely set all through 2009 and into 2010. This apparent certainty was overturned by new info[http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/jay-wilson-interview-g4tv/] from [[Jay Wilson]] at the [[Gamescom]] show in August 2010.
===Rune Tool Tips===
The team has stressed that every rune will have an informative tool tip, letting players know approximately what that rune will do in a given skill. To see this in the game, players need pick up a rune and then hover it over a skill with a socket. [http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/new-skill-rune-names-revealed/]
::Pick up a rune and mousing it over a skill and the tooltip will tell you how it affects the skill. The UI does a good job of informing you how each rune interacts with each skill.
===Original Rune Functions===
* The Striking rune: "And one of them we call just... the weird rune, which is our grab bag for anything unusual we want to stick on."
Though all the names have changed, three of the functions remain largely intact. Most skills still benefit from a +damage rune, a multishot/strike rune, and a critical hit boosting rune. The wildcard rune is still very wild. The biggest change is that the former Energy rune is largely changed to a second wildcard rune, since changes to the [[resource]] systems made its former function largely obsolete.
Jay did not list what all five runes did in Hydra, and his explanation left fans confused. Where were the three elemental damage types coming from? Nothing like that seemed to fit wit the previous rune functions.
Many of the skills in the game have undergone similar transformations, in terms of their Runestone effects. The D3 Team has gone over all of them, more than 600 (20-25 skills per char x 5 chars x 5 runes) and tried to make them all "awesome." Visual, interesting, exciting; not just stat-tweaking. This is a huge project, with a lot of trial and error, and it's ongoing. The changes to artwork and graphics were are extensive, but they can usually modifiedadapt other art elements from the game, rather than having to make so many visual changesnew effects from scratch. For instance, for a new effect runestone change to the [[Witch Doctor]]'s [[Corpse Spiders]] spell spawn caused a huge "mother spider" they to spawn, instead of just tiny spiders. The artists were able to use create this by modifying an existing artwork for monster spiders, modify it a bit, apply spider model. They put on a new texture, change changed the size, tweaked the AI, and voila, itthey's ve got a big spider that fits perfectly with the new runestone effect.
The biggest problem seems to be balancing. How can they even out the effects and utility of so many runes doing so many different things? Bashiok admitted that was a challenge, but said that perfect balance wasn't required. As long as none of the rune properties were wildly over or underpowered, it would be find for [[PvE]] play. They might have to do more fine-tuning when it came to PvP though, since there it really does matter if one skill is slightly better than another. But they're not to the point of worrying much about that, yet.
==Rune Names==
There are five types of runes in Diablo 3. Their names have changed during development, though when he named them in (May 2010), Bashiok said these were fairly set for the final game: [[Crimson Rune|Crimson]], [[Indigo Rune|Indigo]], [[Obsidian Rune|Obsidian]], [[Golden Rune|Golden]], [[Alabaster Rune|Alabaster]]. These The team refers to these as "substance/mineral" names are all adjectives for colors (red, blue, black, gold, white), but it's not known if the rune names will appear in those colors in the game.
::For example: "[quality] [rune type] Runestone"
===Rune Crafting/Upgrading===
The D3 team has not yet revealed any information about item confirmed that the [[craftingMystic]] in Diablo 3will have some crafting recipes to create new runes, though there are no details yet, other than to say that they won't have any {{iw|Horadric_Cube Horadric Cube-style}} converting itemswill use old Runes in the process.
It's therefore not known if runes will also be craftable, or upgradeablepossible to [[salvage]] unwanted runes for magical materials, but given the game's focus on items, it's certainly possible.
===Rune Storage===
At the [[BlizzCon 2008]] demo, runes were stored in an [[inventory]] grid on the skill tree menu; not in the normal inventory. There were 10 rune slots below the skill trees. It's not known if they will still be They are now stored there in the final gamemain inventory, and like runes should stack, if there will be ways to increase the number of slots, or if they can be stored in the save on inventory insteadspace.
===Rune Appearance===
[[Image:New_Rune_Socket.png|thumbleft|Rune Socket]][[File:Runestone1.jpg|frame|left|Crimson rune.]]As of BlizzCast episode 8 (30th of March, 2009) [http://www.diii.net/blog/comments/blizzcast-8-live-with-diablo-iii-goodies/] Runes and Rune Sockets changed from squares below a skill to horizontal rectangles, as seen in the image to the right. ==Rune Function Examples==Skill Runes in [[Diablo III]] improve a character's active [[skill]]s in various creative ways. Runes can be used strategically; different runes in the same spell will do things, and there are multiple quality levels of the same rune type, scaling the increases upleft.
==Rune Function Examples==The [[D3 Team]] gave several examples of rune functions during a panel at [[BlizzCon 2008]] when Skill Runes were first revealed as a game feature. ([http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouYP1zGfd0s Watch the demonstration] on YouTube.) The rune names have all changed since this time, but the illustrated functions are said to still be nearly identical, hence the following examples, though outdated, remain illustrative of what we'll see in the final gamelargely unchanged.
