I want to clarify a few things about many recent discussions of
snapshotting and make sure we’re all on the same page as to what that
means.
Snapshotting is very fundamental mechanic in Diablo III
that allows the game to work correctly and according to player
expectations most of the time. It's a bit like having electricity in
your home; you never really think about it when it's working correctly,
but you sure do notice when it's not! By and large most skills should
snapshot the state of your character at the time your ability is used
unless there is a good reason not to. This is what allows you to cast
Rend just before Wrath of the Berserker expires and retain the damage
bonus. You hit that monster really hard didn't you? Not only does Rend
snapshotting the damage at the time the ability is cast allow for
skilled players to time their abilities for maximum effect, it's also
what you would expect the skill to do mechanically—bleed a lot because
you hit really hard! As another example, you wouldn’t want to have a
character equip a very high-speed dagger, cast a bunch of projectiles,
and then switch to a high-damage two-hander to artificially boost your
damage by using the damage of your character at the time the projectiles
landed. Projectiles should do the damage the caster had at the time the
projectile was fired. They need to snapshot.
All of this is the intended and necessary design of Diablo III.
This
brings us to the confusion we see when people refer to snapshotting as
if it were a global bug. There’s a huge, important difference. While
most skills should snapshot, some skills and items with long or
persistent effects should instead update continuously. To use my analogy
from earlier - sometimes the light switch doesn't work and you REALLY
notice.
Whether a skill is subject to snapshotting is not a
black and white decision either. If I cast a 5 second Rend, I expect it
to do damage based on the strength of my character at the time that I
cast it. What about a 12 second Haunt? Should that damage be determined
at cast time? What happens when that Haunt lasts 5 minutes? Rain of
Vengeance snapshots your damage at the time you cast it, but what if we
were to make a Legendary that made Rain of Vengeance last forever? No,
we're not doing that, but if we did then we would probably want to make
it so that each Rain of Vengeance cast while that Legendary is equipped
updates continuously. There are some skills where snapshotting is
debatable, and there’s a tipping point over which you no longer want to
snapshot because of negative gameplay that results. Huge thanks to those
who have detailed instances (such as Bane of the Stricken) where a
change is needed.
As you can see, general discussions about
snapshotting don’t help as its existence is an important element of the
game design. As you continue to play on the PTR and experience new item
and skill behavior, please let us know when you encounter specific
skills or instances where you feel a skill should update continuously
rather than snapshot at the point of cast. Thank you for helping us make
patch 2.4 awesome!
Das ist das offizielle Statement von Blizzard. Ich lese daraus: bevor wir das als Fehler deklarieren und beheben müssen, teilen wir lieber mit, dass dies von Anfang an gewollt war....
Verbessert mich, falls ich damit falsch liege.
