3081

I wouldn’t use SWtOR as the ideal example for this :)

The game is a joke when it comes to appropriate challenge.

As for your prediction that D3 will be fully understood after a few weeks, well, that’s something that remains to be seen.

I’m not sure why you think it didn’t take any brainpower to successfully combine the right active skills with the right passive skills, especially considering that your gear has to support everything.

Maybe I’m just not very bright, but it certainly took me a LOT of effort to succeed in D2 Hell difficulty without following guides - and I never felt I was not using my brain.

Oh, and I do fully intend to shield myself from the vast majority of player feedback. I do this with all new releases - because the ratio of truth to misinformation is around 1:10000 - and I get sick of trying to separate the know-it-all morons from the select few who’re actually able to think for themselves and qualify their statements.

It took years of reading up on WoW mechanics before I truly understood them, and they also changed everything constantly.

Still, the most fun I have in these games is invariably the first few months - where everything is new. This is precisely why I’d greatly enjoy the incentive to plan strategically and think ahead - as opposed to this no-limit experimentation without any incentive to understand the interplay of mechanics.

But that’s me.

3082

Am I the only one here who plays (or is going to play) Diablo 3 for fun, rather then having the optimal/perfect/most efficient/whatever build???

It’s what I did in Diablo 2 anyway, and the fact that it resulted in getting stranded on Hell lvl sometimes due to a wrong strategy didn’t bother me, I would just start another character and try something different. Or, respec, once they introduced that option.

I guess it helps I don’t have that much time to game anyway, so I know upfront I wont be the first to achieve anything, I wont have the best gear, I wont be top of the PvP ladder etc. Makes playing a lot more relaxed, really…

3083

I think we all play for fun, but that we might not find “fun” in the same things.

Personally, I’m not looking to be “the best” necessarily. I just love the strategic aspect of character building. I love the same aspect in PnP D&D games - and I love it in games like Baldur’s Gate and Neverwinter Nights.

It’s about planning and seeing the plan come to life. The process isn’t a grind - to me - but I can easily see it being that to others.

Believe it or not, but as soon as I come up with a “plan” - my fun is trying it out.

But if I can switch out skills pr. will at any time - there’s really no “plan” aspect. There’s just trial and error.

That seems pretty boring to me, but maybe the game will prove me wrong.

3084

It’s funny, when you said this, I thought “oh, having the ability to change stuff around will actually LET you try a crazy plan.” I can’t tell you the number of times I read about some cool build in Diablo 2, and I started a character, and I ran out of steam before I got to the part where I could see it. Of course most of the builds started out “put 1 point in this and 1 point in this and wait until level 30” as mentioned above.

So the fact that you try some offbeat idea with very little penalty (time invested in trying it out) seems like a positive move, whereas it appears you’re saying that is a negative.

I do see the concerns about lack of investment in a character, but I don’t know if that’s really necessary if the driving force is the loot you’re going after.

As for the lack of differentiation, while I understand that all characters unlock runes and abilities in the same order, I thought when you unlocked a rune you had the choice to apply it to any of your attacks. So either I don’t understand the new rune unlocking mechanism or there is a little wiggle room for people to have some differentiation.

3085

Yes, I’m fully aware that people perceive the ability to switch out skills pr. will as the ultimate way to try out builds.

It IS a much better way to experiment - and it’s much easier to test stuff in that way. Well, I say better - but I should say “more efficient”.

What could be wrong about that?

Well, as I said - I’m waiting for the game to come out to make any final judgement call.

But it seems to me, that the “psychological” aspect of planning a character, strategically, and the entertainment of working towards a final build will be lost. There will be no progression through the content - where you can use this plan as an incentive to go on - to see that next key ability work as you wanted it to work.

Think about a game like Neverwinter Nights - or even a PnP session with a character.

What would it be like, if you could switch around feats and skills pr. will? Would it be “more fun” to continuously be able to adjust and even totally rebuild your character? Would it not affect the relationship with the character - and how you identify with that character?

I understand that Diablo is a hack/slash game - and most people will probably see their character as a means to an end.

But that’s not how I approach these games. I always identify with my character - and I “need” a certain approach to combat, which I can call “my approach”. Something I came up with (or at least, something I refined) - so as to create a unique identity that’s truly “me”.

I don’t know how to better explain it - but I fear that most of that identity will be lost - seeing as how you can change your character - at the core - at any given moment.

You will sort of lose your attachment to your guy - and you will not really focus on a specific set of gear for a specific purpose - because you know that everything is potentially useful - and there’s no reason to really be excited about that legendary dagger - because you won’t necessarily be using it anyway.

I’m still not sure how it will play, and I don’t immediately recall any other hack/slasher with this level of unrestrictive character building.

Maybe you’re all right - and I’m wrong. Maybe it was always just a totally meaningless grindy part of the game - that deserves to be streamlined like this. Maybe that’s true of many aspects of many games - and we’re just stubbornly old-fashioned.

I can’t really know. But I don’t quite trust Blizzard with D3. Not after what they’ve done to WoW these past few years.

3086

From some other folks in this thread, it sounds like the runes unlock in a pre-set order at a pre-set powerlevel, which they’ll remain at indefinitely.

In fact, at present, I don’t really see any way to significantly alter the power of skills at an arbitrary time, in-game, without just switching out weapons for one with more/less damage and slower/faster attack speed. With runes and their levels out, there’s simply no way for your skills to progress outside of the carefully planned power structure, leaving your character purely dependent on gear.

I mean, I guess that this just doesn’t sound very customizable or unique. . . especially when Diablo 2 had gear that changed everything plus the ability to directly tweak your stats and the ability to directly tweak your skills and the ability to get items that benefited a specific skill directly.

3087

DKDArtagnan and I seem to be on the same page, he describes what’s making me feel so meh about the game. Maybe we’re just dinosaurs or oddballs, but I’m really curious to see if D3 has the same kind of legs that D2 had.

3088

I don’t think anyone’s right or wrong here. The meat of this discussion boils down to personal preference and the particular form of enjoyment people are seeking from the game. I just want the damn thing to release already!

3089

To be fair what you guys want is the same thing I really like. However, having played even just the first hour of the beta well over 20 times now, and I still look forward to booting it up - especially now, the early skill rune unlocks and the overall pace of the game feels amazing.

I wish we could have a closer connection to our character (though that will still be there thanks to random and hopefully varied loot drops?) but I also like that I can build whatever I want with the things I’ve unlocked and putz around with them. It actually makes it more likely I’ll jump into some multi-player games at some point, I believe.

I do hope they work on the UI some more, and I’m sure we’ll see some tweaking. I was REALLY, REALLY hoping it worked that when you hit certain levels you got like “rune points” and you could use them to unlock any rue for any skill you had access too - I’d have loved that degree of customization. Sadly, it is what it is. But what it is…is still pretty damn great.

3090

For me, this is talking about one of the psychological reasons why modern MMOs are mostly failures. Everything is too easy. The only way to create value in games is via difficulty and investment. When things are too easy, or there is no real investment of time, the payoff is greatly diminished. It’s not just getting the reward, it’s how much work you went through to get that reward. If this wasn’t the case, you could just make a game that had a player push one button, and loot dropped out.

Having to commit to a character build, invest time into it, and quite possibly fail, is what makes putting together a successful build such an achievement. Game devs have been steadily moving towards instant gratification ever since Everquest, in my opinion games have really suffered for it.

Without risk, there is no reward. Regardless of what most players think they want, the truth is the easier these games get, and the less commitment they require, the faster people tire of them.

3091

I completely agree. I sometimes wonder if the varying attitudes toward this perspective on electronic gaming is influenced by when the individual engaged the hobby.

3092

I feel like this game is becoming more of a Call of Duty unlock system than an RPG. The only thing it’s missing is weapon attachments lol

As far as Runes go I think it would be better if they actually did use a level up system but it should be based on use of the rune. So the more you use it in combat the more it levels up. Thus you would have to make a commitment to certain skill/rune combo at a point because the unlock system could take a while to max out a rune.

3093

I agree in principle but disagree, at least partly, in reality.

Diablo 2, at least for me, boiled down to having my character run through content and not spending skill points until a relatively high level at all until I had done enough research to know what the best build is. Allowing respeccing would allow me to actually play the game.

But then again, I’m not sure if they added anything more than respeccing. Doesn’t one still have plenty of investment by dong copious amounts of magicfind/itemfind runs?

3094

IMO, that’s a failure of skill tree design than it is a failure of the skill tree concept.

3095

The skill tree concept itself has an annoying tension between specialization and diversification. When optimizing, heavy specialization tends to win out. This was true in D2 even though Blizzard specifically made every monster in Hell mode immune to an entire school of magic, sometimes two, sometimes even more. That’s a fairly drastic attempt to encourage diversification except it still didn’t really work.
.

3096

I don’t get the hate against respecs, I really, really don’t. I’ll use Dragon Age as an example again. Did anyone really enjoy arbitrarily picking skills (based on a small text blurb) and having no way to change that later if it didn’t work out? Let’s say I want to pick a fairly exotic bunch of abilities instead of the usual “fireball iceball lightningball”, I could easily find myself gimped later on and have no way to change it. The only way to rectify this becomes to replay the whole fucking game, which is just an exhausting prospect. It encourages you to follow some cookie-cutter build you cribbed from the interwebz, whereas with respecs the punishment for making a non-optimal “fun” build that you later want to change, is minimal.

I want to try a Dragon Age build with goofy telekinetic powers and support powers like the buffs and debuff trees. I really do. But I’m not going to play through the whole game again to do it. Let me try it for a few hours. Then I change it up again if I like to.

Leaving out respecs is a fundamental design flaw. It works only for the absolute hardcores who will play through multiple times. It’s just stupid to ask someone to make early decisions that will have vast consequences later on, with minimal information and NO hands-on experience, and no way to change these decisions. It gives the player a feeling of paralysis.

3097

I agree with all of that. But what I think some people here are saying is that they like having to commit to a spec and live with the consequences because it makes those choices more important. My game time is not nearly so infinite that I can find enjoyment that way, however.

3098

Sure, choice is fantastic, but this could be solved by offering hardcore-lite and hardcore modes, with the first being normal minus respeccing and the other one being perma-death (or something like that). No need to take respeccing away from everyone.

3099

Why do they even need modes? If you hate respeccing, just… don’t?

3100

But you also need to remember they don’t want to separate the community too much. Especially with the auction houses.

I have no issue with the change skills at will system but they still need some kind of upgrade system somewhere to create a sense of achievement aside from ooh another skill/rune (and at the end it’ll probably be one I don’t care for)

Although earlier games used to be about maxing out your level. These days maxing out level has been made easy so it’s more about the end game experience than the character development. And let’s be real, inferno will be a lot more fun than endless Baal runs