3221

Because if a game has the ability to swap out skills at will it will be designed and balanced with that in mind.

3222

Crap, I keep meaning to check that one out - I really liked the demo and I’ve heard nothing but how amazing it is. Too many games right now!

3223

How do you think TQ would have been different without respecs?

3224

You can beat every zone or boss in Bastion with just about any weapon, configured however you want. This, despite the ability to hotswap everything - weapons, upgrades, special skill - before every boss and before every zone.

3225

Bastion is way more of an RPG than Diablo 3 is. My central complaint (lack of player agency) is being conflated with the respec issue. In Bastion, you choose the order in which you build buildings, the order in which you get/upgrade weapons, and you can affect the storyline in a very meaningful way. Diablo just gives you stuff at the appointed time with no input from you.

3226

That’s really cool. I haven’t tried Bastion, although I had heard there were other ways of driving the game (as JPR mentioned after your post). Sounds like a good game, though!

I read this as a rhetorical question, did I interpret that correctly? In any case, I have no problem with respecs. I want some form of respec, if for no other reason than “SHIT! I clicked the wrong button” or “Wow… that spell is nothing like I imagined it was from the description.”

JPR and others are a lot better at communicating than I am, but as they’ve pointed out, it’s about player agency. With Diablo 3 as it is now, I have precious few choices to make along the way. To crib Sid Meier, what are my interesting decisions? I don’t see any. Instead I see a railway leading through the game with the game making my decisions for me. I’m sure that makes it easy to balance and polish by making sure you can always be successful but… I’m feeling more like a viewer than an active participant (When it comes to choice I mean, not the actual gameplay!).

So, peacedog, if I may I’d like to reword your question since I think my position has been misconstrued through my poor communication skills. I would reword the question as:

"What would I think TQ would be different if you had every skill/ability maxed out?

I would say that the game would be balanced differently, knowing that you’re maxed out in both Classes you’ve chosen. As a Warrior/Nature player you’re not only a lethal fighter but have pets and good heals, so you’ll want to balance the game with that in mind. Telling the Warrior to only then use a subset of his Warrior skills would leave him in a rather gimped state, since he has no pets and no healing to augment his physical abilities, like the designers would expect.

But that’s a bit apples and oranges. Speaking theoretically, in Diablo 3 if a character consists of ALL skills and it’s just a matter of slotting them into a hotbar, playtesting is going to take that into consideration. They’re not going to go through the game and make sure that every class can be effective with subsets x, y, and z of abilities ONLY. That’s not the design of the game.

Saying “Don’t respec, then!” in Diablo 3 is a bit of a fallacy in my mind, since there are no specs. I don’t think the hotbar is intended as a specialization in the traditional (Diablo 2 / WoW) sense.

3227

Actually, their goal is exactly that - you should be able to find a skill selection YOU like that YOU built and discovered (or read about) and are having fun with and still be able to succeed with it.

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3228

I will believe that when I see it, but my hat’s off to them if they somehow pull that off.

Man, I hope I don’t sound like I’m just trying to shit on the game. The only reason I’m posting in here is because I’m such a huge Diablo fan and I’ve been waiting a decade for this title. I’m not afraid of change or anything, it’s just not change I’m liking the sound of. I’d love to be proven wrong, though! I want to love games, not be disappointed in them.

3229

No worries - even the beta testers are somewhat frozen with terror with some of the changes, all anyone can do is trust that the game will be as amazing as well all hope it will be. After all, if it’s not what we want, it’s going to be awhile before we get Diablo 4 to have a crack at a better Diablo 2 then…

I think even if they could have (in the end) done the character development stuff better, the game itself is tight and plays incredibly well. For what it’s worth.

3230

My specific response there was about the balancing issue. Bastion gives you access, by the end of the game, to every single weapon and upgrade, and you can change freely between levels and before every boss. Yet I swear by either Pike + Musket or Pike + Cannon, and my housemate and friend runs Machete / Mortar and swears by it.

I agree that the current system seems suboptimal. I would certainly have unlocks gated in a way that responds to player input, whether that’s buying rune unlocks with skill points / level ups or just choosing which ones to focus on. Or even having them unlock by using; e.g., use fireball, unlock fireball runes.

However, all of this frothing about how Diablo III is taking the RP out of RPG because stat allocation and skill trees are gone is idiotic.

3231

It’s more to do with not having player choices/control than it is being wedded to particular systems, at least to me.

3232

Throughout this conversation, I can’t help but feel that re-specs are very much like inflation. (Hear me out!) The theory goes that you can increase economic growth by increasing the money supply (not to get into debate about whether the theory is true…). However, it only works if people don’t expect inflation, otherwise, they price the inflation into their current expectations, and all that happens is numbers go up, and the economy stays the same size.

Re-specs seem kind of like that. It’s better for the players if the re-specs exist, because it makes the gameplay experience more pleasant. But, knowing that you can respec makes people less attached to their character and / or spend less time considering their build. So, ideally, you would allow respecs, but never tell anybody about it.

The decision comes at the encounter level, not the spend-skill point level. That is, every time you enter combat you get to make a choice “which abilities do I want to use?” It’s a meaningful choice not because you’re stuck with it forever, but because it significantly changes the way you’re going to approach that battle. You have more opportunities for meaningful choice, not fewer.

3233

I get what you’re saying but the problem is that’s not a meaningful choice to me. Picking whether I go Support or Assault in BF3 isn’t meaningful either, since I just die and respawn again. The difference to me is BF3 is a manshoot. I expect a little more from RPGs, in that regard.

If I’m wrong and the new system works splendidly for me I’ll be posting here eating crow, believe me. I just have serious doubts.

3234

Doubts are okay, keeps your sense of excitement and expectations in check at least. I wish I could do that. :( Longest wait EVER.

3235

From Jay Wilson:

We think you’re going to love Diablo III when it’s released, and speaking of release plans, you can seriously expect a launch-date announcement from us in the near future. See, I didn’t say “soon,” so I’m not taunting you. ;) You’ll know as soon as I know for sure the exact date.

http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/a-message-from-jay-wilson

3236

Well, they’re certainly sounding very confident.

I’m really hoping to be wrong about this new approach to character building. I like to be right, of course, but I’d much prefer a worthy D2 sequel ;)

3237

So to bring up weird things that might cause concern, what’s going on with the basic attack stuff? I don’t actually follow the blizzard forums but I happened to see a link to there saying they removed the ability to make basic attacks from the game, which means that witch doctors and wizards can’t attack at all and demon hunters can’t use melee weapons. Oddly this makes all the runes for the wizard magic weapon skill useless because they proc stuff on melee attacks. That might seem like a bug, but then they also removed all the passive skills that affected basic attacks too?

3238

basic attack is still in the game.

3239

Not only that but when you can’t afford a right/left mouse skill (or if it’s in cool down) you’ll auto attack if you click.

3240

What last I heard is that Basic Attack isn’t an assignable skill. Thus, once a skill is put into left/right mouse button, there’s no way to get “back” to Basic Attack.

Thus, once you’ve chosen a skill for it, it’s basically lost forevermore.

This could have changed in a patch in the last day or two; I’m not in beta so I wouldn’t necessarily know.