Difference between revisions of "Diablo 3 console basics"

Revision as of 01:08, 5 August 2013

After months of rumours and official non-denials, on February 20, 2013 Blizzard officially announced a Diablo 3 console version coming to the Playstation 3 and Playstation 4.^[1], ^[2].

In June of 2013 the release of the Playstation 3 version together with a version for the Xbox 360 was revealed to be September 3 2013. ^[3]

The console version of Diablo 3 has the same features as the PC version. It has the same zones, events, monsters, bosses, classes, skills, runes. It features the same systems such as the Infernal Machine, Brawling and Monster Power. ^[4] It is planned to ship up to Patch 1.0.7 but perhaps Patch 1.0.8 depending on the development time. ^[5]

Although content is near-on identical there are a few differences to note:

• There is an offline mode.
• There is no Auction House.
• Do not connect via Battle.Net.
• Camera is zoomed in a little more.
• Enemy wave spawns slightly altered.
• Movement is direct through the joystick (as opposed to click and move to).
• Evade skill included for all characters.
• Loot drops less frequently but is higher quality.
• Fast equip option.

Game Modes

Playstation 3 shared screen

Xbox 360 shared screen

As with the PC version the maximum number of players is four.^[6] The reasons for this in brief are:

• There is a noticeable impact and contribution from each of the four players.
• The most powerful group Buffs and Auras will not need to be nerfed to compensate for increased numbers simultaneously active.
• On-screen noise. More people fill more of the screen and create more action on the screen at any one time.

Offline Mode

Offline mode allows up to four players to play on the same screen at the same time. There is no split screen. In order to keep the screen as uncluttered as possible each player's on-screen UI is condensed and each one will sit in a corner of the screen.

Characters can be copied to a USB drive and then accessed via another console, allowing gamers to continue playing offline characters at each other's houses. Characters created offline can never be played on the consoles' online services however. In that way it's the same way Closed and Open characters were handled in Diablo 2. It's not known if characters created online can be transferred to offline mode.

Online Mode

Online mode is accessed via Playstation Network or Xbox Live and not Battle.Net. A Battle.Net account is not necessary to play Diablo 3 on a console. Characters created this way will be stored on your cloud storage space or on your console's hard drive. ^[7].

Online console characters and Battle.Net characters can not play together.

Controls

Evade in action

Movement is controlled by the console controllers. There is no point and click as with the PC but rather users have direct control via the joystick so movement is manually directed to the spot you wish the character to move to, taking the character around obstacles between them and to the destination.

All classes have the Evade ability, (accessed via the right stick) which enables characters to dodge and roll about 10 yards in whichever direction you wish. There is no resource cost, cooldown or level requirement so it can be used repeatedly without delay. It can also be used to smash into and break barrels and other destructibles. This gels with the visceral feel of a console game.

• Read more about Evade skill.

In offline multiplayer, (as all characters share the one screen), if a character disappears from the screen as the other players move off the character will instantly teleport to the rest of the group.

Skills

All five classes have access to the same skills as in the PC version, their stats and the way they execute are also the same. There isn't however, any cooldown when changing skills.

Items and Loot

In the console version of Diablo 3 less junk loot drops to avoid cluttering up the screen. In general better quality loot will drop as players do not have access to the Auction House to ease character progression.

In offline multiplayer games any loot on the ground can be picked up by any player so some rules of play will need to be set by those who are playing. 'Round robin' or 'need over greed' for example or just go for ninja-looting for seat-of-your-pants gaming.

Quick Equip feature

Items on the ground can be equipped without entering the inventory by using the Quick Equip feature. Picking up an item will display its details by your on-screen UI. It will display the name of the item, an icon indicating the slot it would occupy but most importantly whether it is better than the item you currently have equipped by way of up to a maximum of 3 green arrows (1 being slightly better and 3 being significantly better) in three criteria. To indicate an inferior item the arrows will be red down arrows and an item neither better or worse will display minus lines. From here you can either equip or drop it on the ground for someone else to pick up.

Using the D-Pad you can scroll through the last few items picked up in this way too.

Unlike accessing the inventory screen this action will not interrupt game play.

Loot in online multiplayer games is handled as it is in the PC game. Loot drops for each player and it's only visible to whoever it belongs to and accessing the player's inventory will not interrupt other players' game play.

User Interface

On-screen UI

The user interfaces have been remodelled so they work intuitively with the consoles' controller.

The on-screen user interface is a simpler, more condensed version of the PC version. There is no health orb, that is replaced by a simple bar under which sits the level up gauge and the character's level. Above or below that sits the skills currently equipped and the potions button, all of which are overlaid with the key needed to access. Next to that is the resource globe. It contains all the basic information needed but takes up much less space than the PC version.

Console Inventory

Skill Interface

The character's inventory is automatically organised by item slots as opposed to one large bag as is the case with the PC version. Items are grouped so highlighting the slot on the radial menu on the left will display items in the inventory that can be equipped there. Selecting one of the items will compare it to the currently equipped item that is displayed on the right of that. The new item can be equipped from there or you can carry on looking through the items available for that slot.

The Quick Equip (as detailed above) enables players to compare and equip items they've recently picked up without opening the full inventory which, in offline multiplayer games, interrupts gameplay.

The Skills interface is the same arrangement with a radial slot selection area on the left and on the right details of the skills available. This area looks pretty much the same as the PC version although it only displays the simplified skill information.

In offline multiplayer players will need to take it in turns to access their various user interfaces as they open full screen and so only one interface can be viewed at a time.

Auction House

There is no Gold or Real Money Auction House.

As online characters can be stored on the console's hard drive there would be security implications in allowing items to be bought by other players. There is no way to validate the items are not duped or altered in some way and so the trading environment would quickly descend to what we see in Diablo 2. The economy would be undermined and duped or hacked items could also disappear leaving players out of pocket and Blizzard inundated with claw-back claims. ^[8]

Items can still be traded in via the in-game trade window however.

References