Instability

Instability is the new resource pool of the Wizard, replacing mana, which is only used by the Witch Doctor, in Diablo 3.

Very little information has been released about Instability, and what we did know was reversed in August 2010, with a promise of much more information come Blizzcon in October. [http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/updates-on-fury-instability-and-other-resources/

Contents

Wizard Development

Wizards used mana when first introduced at Blizzcon 2008 and also in the Blizzcon 2009 demo, but shortly after the 2009 show Blizzard announced that all classes except for the Witch Doctor would use something other than mana for their resource. The only non-mana resource yet fully explained is the Barbarian's Fury, so while we know the Monk, Wizard, and unnamed fifth class will all use something other than mana, details are lacking.

Known Details

The concept behind instability, in terms of what type of gameplay it's meant to encourage and support, was related by Jay Wilson during an October 2009 interview. [1]

Diii.net: Everyone seems pretty happy with the function and form of the Barbarian’s Fury resource, but nothing has been revealed about the non-mana resources that the Wizard and Monk will use. Can you give us some insight into what kind of play style their resources are meant to encourage?

Jay Wilson: Well for the Wizard we want to enforce the fact that she’s a glass cannon. I don’t think it’s fun to ever run out of mana. I’m not really interested in an extended resource for her. For the WD we’re okay with mana, since he’s got some pretty good skills to recover mana that also double as attacks. And he’s not defenseless when he’s out of mana. He’s got pets and ways to attack with them that aren’t mana intensive. For him that makes mana fairly interesting.

For the wizard, when she’s out of mana she just dies. And that’s not fun. So if anything, we want to encourage how she plays. So she’s the kind of character that blasts first and asks questions later. Very vulnerable. So we want to implement a system that makes her more blasty, but even more vulnerable. We want to make that a choice for the player. "Do I want to make myself more vulnerable in exchange for being more blasty." And that’s a cool gameplay pull there.

The logic behind the change to Instability is that mana did not work as a limiting resource in Diablo 1 or Diablo 2. The play style of mage characters in the Diablo series is one of constant spell-casting. Therefore a resource that tries to limit spell casting is flawed, since players will always work to circumvent it, or else be crippled by it. As Jay Wilson said, a Wizard that can't cast spells is no fun.

This "more blasty and more vulnerable" paradigm was apparently reworked sometime during 2010, judging from an update in August of that year. A fan summarized what was known about Instability, and Diablo 3 community manager Bashiok said it was all changed. [2]

Instability on the wizard. All we know is what Jay Wilson said. She gets more “Blasty” as she gets more “vulnerable.” They have said it will make more sense then mana did once we learn about it which is cool

Bashiok: This is no longer the case. More at BlizzCon.

Instability Design Theory

From the comments made by the design team (and always subject to change pre-release) the design theme with Instability in Diablo 3 is to make the resource have an effect on the gameplay. Exactly how it will work remains to be seen, but the concept is a simple one. Instability will make the Wizard even more "blasty" with a trade off of becoming more "vulnerable."

In other words, Instability will make the Wizard cast spells more effectively while increasing the danger to themselves. [3]

The details of this; what buffs will increase the "blasty" and what debuffs will increase the "vulnerability" have not yet been revealed, and will surely remain under development and balancing for the remainder of the game's development. Common suggestions for buffs (blasty) include faster casting rate, higher spell damage, larger spell radius, and longer spell duration. Common suggestions for debuffs (vulnerable) include reduced movement speed, reduced spell casting rate, lowered hit points, lowered resistances, and lowered defense.

The key change to a Wizard in Diablo 3 though, is clear. The character will never be unable to cast a spell, due to a loss of mana or instability. The gun is always loaded. The key to playing successfully then, will be to harness the use of instability to make the character's spells more effective. To kill the monsters before they can reach the glass cannon Wizard.

Why Not Mana?

During the game's development, some fans continued to question the change to Instability, and to request a return to mana for the Wizard. Bashiok replied to a typical post on this issue in March 2010. [4]

We still don’t feel mana fits the feel of the wizard class, and making the wizard use mana to match some definition a magic wielder from some other game from some other decade would be shoehorning mechanics for the sake of nostalgia.

We’re using the instability system for the wizard because it makes sense to the style of the class; thematically as well as mechanically. If mana filled those requirements we’d use it, but it doesn’t.

I don’t want to sound like we’re being dismissive. As everyone should be aware we work iteratively and the main reason why we haven’t revealed a lot about instability is that it still hasn’t been proven. If it turns out it doesn’t work we’ll try something else. It may be that mana just works the best and we end up going with that, but right now we’re trying something.

This debate remains theoretical, since at the time of Bashiok's post no one outside of Blizzard had ever played a Wizard using Instability. (And it's unlikely anyone will before October 22-23, 2010, during BlizzCon.)

Health Orb Benefits?

Since the announcement of Instability, players have been wondering if health globes would benefit it. Health globes added to the Wizard's mana (and they boost the Witch Doctor's as well) when used in the Blizzcon 2009 demo, but did nothing for the Barbarian's Fury. Jay Wilson addressed this issue in an October 2009 interview. [5]

Diii.net: Do you envision the health globes will boost [instability] in the way that the Wizard and Witch Doctor gained mana from them at Blizzcon?

Jay Wilson: Um, maybe? *sounding intrigued* Usually in the third or fourth skill revision on classes we look at that kind of thing. For the Witch Doctor we figured that a lot of the mana things we had on the Wizard would work better on the Witch Doctor. We were having trouble maintaining enough mana while play testing the Witch Doctor. Especially if players didn’t take a specific mana recovery skill. So we focused on spreading that out across a lot more of the class so he can pull mana back more easily. When we get to other classes I’m sure we’ll look for more of that.

But the key is that we don’t necessarily want to... we don’t want to cannibalize an existing gameplay mechanic. So when you take health globes that are already important, and you make them even more important, then that doesn’t really create gameplay. For the WD, the health globes weren’t that important a lot of times, since he very rarely took damage with his pets, so for him by enhancing his desire for health globes, we’re really putting gameplay where it wasn’t. So whatever we’re designing a class that’s what we look at.

Instability Speculation

It's uncertain how this gameplay mechanic will work, but the name hints at the Wizard's lore, and also its functionality. Most likely each spell cast will cause "instability" due to the dangerous and volatile nature of the spells the Wizard wields.

Hypothesis 1

Too much instability will hurt her or make her unable to perform certain tasks or perhaps modify how a spell is cast or what spell is cast (eg: casting Disintegrate will produce Spectral Blades instead). It could just be a power gauge inspired by the now defunct Mana Burst, dealing damage based upon how much/little control she has over the instability. Remember Mana Burst was a passive skill from the previous Arcane Skill Tree, Tier 4. It was listed with a description that supposed to add 25% damage to any spell casted by a Wizzard with a full mana orb. Now, there isn't mana anymore for the Wizzard, and probably they removed this skill too. Perhaps the new system would be something like this spell: just making more damage from spells if you got high Instability, and less if you got and empty orb. Also, it would increase the damage taken if you got tones of Instability.

This theory has merit because most resource systems use one or another way of gaining a resource and using skills by spending it.

Hypothesis 2

An alternate form would be that the instability somehow helps the Wizard to cast spells better in some way. The more spells cast, the instability will actually help by causing ripples in time or similar effects.

The only problem with this is that it could be quite unbalanced if the Wizard would continuously gain power the more she did, especially in PvP.

Hypothesis 3

Instability could also take the form of a meter that fills up as the Wizard casts spells, representing the buildup of excess unstable magic as she pushes her limits. When this meter (or, more likely, orb) fills to a certain point, the Wizard begins taking damage from each spell while increasing the damage of that spell by the same amount. For example, a spell deals a base of 1000 damage. When the Instability orb reaches 30% percent, when she casts that spell, she take 2% of that spell's damage, but the total damage that spell deals is also increased by 2%. Then the Instability orb would fill another X%.

References

• Monk Mana Resource System Progressing
• Jay Wilson interview
• Instability all changed, more details at BlizzCon 2010.