Blizzard continues to tinker with Diablo III and inform the internet community about their changes. This time, they rework the entire rune system that was introduced in Diablo II and refined in III.
According to game director Jay Wilson, one of the major ”system changes” that was teased a few weeks ago are now live in the current beta, and most of the changes are aimed at the rune system.
Originally, each skill of each of the five classes could be modified in five ways by equipping a rune stone, which were called “skill stones”. These stones were drops, but Blizzard has now made them unlockable skill mods. Skill runes will now unlock at level six, and in the process, the player get a new skill or skill rune unlock at every level up through the level cap at 60.
Wilson stated that stones as they were were just unwieldy, and players disliked having to ”juggle” them. ”Diablo is certainly about the items, but later in the game, having to juggle all of those various runes was not only un-fun, it was a serious and tedious inventory problem,” he explained.
Blizzard gave an example with the Impale skill of the Demon Hunter. Instead of having to find a Liquid Flame stone, the player merely has to unlock the Chemical Burn skill rune; both of them cause bleeding in addition to base damage.
Wilson also announced that the new update tweaks the user interface for skills and stats.
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