sorry if this is a mini hijack of the thread but...
I think this is an interesting topic in itself.
Baracuda would like to see lvl 60 = ~D2 85, which like Leon said, was fairly easy to reach. Leon would like to see lvl 60 = ~D2 95, which was IMO a good amount of time, but there was nothing grindy about it. And like I said earlier, id like to see lvl 60 equate to D2 99+...
Baracuda I am wondering why you would like lvl 60 to be somewhat easy to reach? Leon im wondering why you would like lvl 60 to be hard to reach, but at the same time be a far more accessible then D2's 99?
Is it simply because you hated the grindy aspect of d2? I myself dont understand why anyone would want to eliminate a repayable factor so early in a game. Since the difference between level 95 and 99 in D2 was actually quite negligible (in terms of actual power), it wasn't exactly taking anything tangible away from the gameplay experience. It just gave those who cared enough about the 'achievement' of 99 something extra to do in end game scenarios.
in D3 'build' will mean what gear you use as well as what skills you use in what situations, and probably mostly what runes you use for what skills, I imagine.
Not trying to be cynical here, but how exactly are you classifying what skills I use in a certain situation a "build"? Thats a preference.
There are no skills to distribute therefore there is nothing to respec. "Builds" as we knew them no longer exist.
Based on what we know about the D3 development team, they certainly will not restrict our rotation of skills. Speculating that they will is IMO a complete waste of time.
Sure, a D3 "build" will be different than the traditional D2 "build". But to me, it's still a build, since my setup of 6 skills/3 traits could be totally different than yours, and thus differently built.
Yes they 'could' be totally different then mine, but at the drop of a hat, I 'could' make them exactly the same.
The word 'build' inherently implies an accumulation effect. You do X, Y an Z to get product F. In D2 "build" meant choose the skills you want to max, choose the gear you want to wear, appropriately map out the stat and skill allocation, and level up. In D3 'build' means drag these 6 skills... to those 6 boxes.
There are no skills to distribute therefore there is nothing to respec. "Builds" as we knew them no longer exist.
Based on what we know about the D3 development team, they certainly will not restrict our rotation of skills. Speculating that they will is IMO a complete waste of time.
I think they're counting on difficulty levels and the gearing, crafing, skill selecting etc. metagames being the seperating point from the truly casual to the more seasoned player who wants a challenge.
Yea thanks for pointing that out as I think in that statement there is hope. It just sucks having to wait until the game comes out to see if they pulled it off
This whole thing boils down to the preferences of hardcore vs casual players. There is no right or wrong answer here.
Hardcore players do not mind having 'time' as a requirement for their rewards. Casual players would rather have everything given to them the second that they open the box. (wholesale skill respeccing)
Hardcore players want their games to have some kind of margin of error. Casual players want their games to be error-proof; they want to be protected from making mistakes. (removal of stat and skill allocation)
D2 was not a difficult game by any means. There was simply different ways to play the game, some more conducive to "success" then others.
D3 will not be a difficult game either. But now there is only one way to play it and that way is synonymous with "success". There is no way to make a mistake anymore.
Obviously I am more old school in thought and have that hardcore mentality. I am upset to see Blizzard convert D3 to such a casual title. But casual is simply what sells in todays market so I dont blame them for making the correct financial decision.
I'm surprised this misinformed nonsense keeps coming up.
Ultimately there will likely be some restrictions on skill swapping, though that's speculation. I'd image you'll need to be in town and there might be a cost associated with it too. Not to mention swapping skills affects your rune decisions.
In the end, you still had the same functionality with the re-spec system. So go beat your wooden club against that topic instead.
The character development comes from your skill decisions. The loot is a driving force for anyone. You can only buy it if it's available. It will only be available if someone else found it and wants to sell it.
The fact is there is more customization and "flavor" to the series now then ever. The replay-ability of d3 will exceed that of d2 because, not only do you have systems that mimic all of the existing functionality of d2, but you have merchants to upgrade and random content to experience. Everything that was in the past games is there now. So, how is replay-ability lowered by any of this?
That post addressed absolutely nothing I expressed concerns about. You also presented zero facts, but rather a plethora of "there will likely be" and "id imagine you'll". Your ideas are not "informed" they are straight guesses.
And if you think clicking on a skill and moving it from one box to another is called, "character development" then we will have to agree to disagree. Our fundamental perspectives are so far apart that it would probably be counterproductive for us to continue this conversation.
One thing that I will agree with you about, and one thing that Blizzard has made abundantly clear, is that loot is indeed the 'driving force' now in this game. Since it is no longer possible for us to create builds, cookie cutter or oddball, the one and only thing that will make our characters different from one another is the gear we wear, or I mean buy... yay?
By looking at Diablo II and other similar games, I think it's safe to say that stat allocation only leads to cookie cutter builds. There's nothing original, exciting or really interesting on it. Except for some people who don't read guides and can end up screwing up their characters completely and have to start over - many of which won't.
Also seen in every game that had skill trees and skill point allocation is that the player skipped the bottom tiers to get only the higher lvl, stronger abilities which resulted in:
1. a variety of 1 point skills that never got used (thus skill points wasted)
2. people using only very few skills that were maxed out and one shot everything.
Again, that's not offering anything.
So we'll agree to disagree, but I feel my point is quite strong and I'm quite happy Blizzard is of the same opinion.
True we all had our cookie cutter builds. Usually within our first year or two of playing we had 2 or 3 of those.
But after that what kept us coming back was our oddball builds. It was getting our "charged bolt" sorc to level 99 and tracking down the equipment that she needed to be somewhat viable... That is what "meaningful customization" means. It was going into a game, whether it be pve or pvp and having fellow players take notice of the uniqueness of your character and saying 'hey nice sorc dude'
In D3, that process simply doesnt exist. See an interesting build that you would like to try? Try it! It will only cost you 5 minutes of your time to drag your skills into the appropriate boxes and to buy all the necessary gear at RMAH.
Diablo 2 is a great game, but when the rubber meets the road, the stat system for it sucked bad.
When creating a new character in D2, if you want, say, a Frozen Orb sorc, you put hardly any points into your character until level 30. Yes, you'll need the prerequisite skills (which you'll never use again, except for their synergies), and you'll need accessory skills like Static Field, but you end up saving about 15 points waiting on the skill you plan to use for your character and then dump them all in between two skills (Frozen Orb, Cold Master). That (a) wasn't fun at all because you suck really bad in those early levels as a sorc waiting Blizzard, and (b)it's so cookie-cutter that it's really not a customization at all - it's just following what someone else has done by going online. Not to mention the fact that the game really only had a very select number of builds that would get you through hell.
No offense man but you are exactly who Blizzard is trying to cater to now. It literally took hmm lets say, 30- 40 minutes to get a sorc to level 30. If the lack of having a usable skill for that 30 min window was so excruciating painful then Id say Diablo wasn't for you. Id suggest something more linear like Final Fantasy. But hey, tricks on me apparently... Wilson and crew have dumbed this game down sooo much that now even a 6 year old can play it successfully. Times have changed I gues.
In this new hot swap scaling skill system, you can test any rune in any skill when you want. Even just to see it in action (something I'm going to do for every skill and every rune option in time, which is about 30x5x5=750 different effects a player can generate on a monster). If I had to respec, or even redo a character, I'd never seem them all without a massive effort.
Im surprised no one here seems to even be aware that this system will effectively murder the replayability of D3. Over at the 'other' forums there's quite a bit of concern being expressed over this.
Being able to use all skills without any consequence is not a good thing. Sure it might be fun experimenting with your level 60 for a few months... heck, ill be really generous and say maybe even a year. But once you try your hand at all the skill/rune combinations, the novelty will be wear off. It destroys any and all incentive for us to create another character.
Have a level 60 barb? Congratulations you are now the grandmaster of all 24 barb skills. See another cool looking barb build running around? No problem, just switch your skills to match his and boom, within minutes you've "been there done that".
Rift and Guild Wars had similar 'all access' systems and suffered short shelf lives because of it.
So once we finish normal whats to keep us playing? To continue character development? Na we have no control over that now. To find better loot? Who cares, we can just buy it. Wilson seems to have idiot-proofed this game to a fault. It's so vanilla now that I bet even casual players will get bored with it in a years time.
this is old school but Ill miss solo item xfering. dont ask me why but that was something i enjoyed
also, im fairly certain that I will miss 8 person games (was it 8 i cant even remember?). even when you werent partied up you would often run into other players in the towns or in the fields. it gave the game at least some sense of community. I have a feeling with 4 player games solo'ing will just seem incredibly lonely.
PS Hp1notq... i dont mean this to piss you off or anything, and im not sure if im the only one with this problem, but for some reason your sig/avatar combo is the only one ive ever encountered on any forum that slows the load times of the pages. its a cool sig and everything, but would you consider something else? again, just a wishful request, you are certainly entitled to sport whatever sig you want
IMO respec must be granted as a quest reward or something (a long quest btw).
I think having long endgame quests that rewarded respecs would ultimately equate to 'wholesale respeccing'. I do like the idea of having a quest that rewards a single respec; essentially allowing each character 3 total respecs (N, NM, H).
You're proud of a character with no spec at all? How is leeching your way to 99 without contributing anything at all something to be proud of? No offense, I just don't understand why that would be something to put pride in.
Exactly my thoughts, once I saw this in your thread I completely lost any respect for your or your post. I despised those would go into every cow run and not contribute at all. All the way to 99? For shame... :\
Sorry you feel that way, and I truly regret even mentioning my pally in this thread as his creation was neither here nor there in the context of this discussion.
For the record though, I did have a unique/odd build planned for him. I was unable to acquire all of the charms that I needed for it however and I eventually lost interest in LOD entirely.
That said, I really appreciate everyone's take on respeccing. I'm praying that some of you are right in your assumption that D3 will give us a surplus of viable builds. Having 3-5 viable builds per class would be an amazing feet IMO.
Wholesale respeccing still scares me though. Here's to hoping Bashiok isn't exaggerating when he says it will be easier to reroll then to respec.
Although I can't tell if your serious, CoD: an unforgiving learning curve? really?
Not trying to compare COD to CS or anything... but IMO, yes there's fairly large gap between a good competition player and your average pub bunny allstar.
0
It will allow us to play the game as it is meant to be played in combat situations.
0
people will be cranking out level 60's in less than a days time lol
0
I think this is an interesting topic in itself.
Baracuda would like to see lvl 60 = ~D2 85, which like Leon said, was fairly easy to reach. Leon would like to see lvl 60 = ~D2 95, which was IMO a good amount of time, but there was nothing grindy about it. And like I said earlier, id like to see lvl 60 equate to D2 99+...
Baracuda I am wondering why you would like lvl 60 to be somewhat easy to reach? Leon im wondering why you would like lvl 60 to be hard to reach, but at the same time be a far more accessible then D2's 99?
Is it simply because you hated the grindy aspect of d2? I myself dont understand why anyone would want to eliminate a repayable factor so early in a game. Since the difference between level 95 and 99 in D2 was actually quite negligible (in terms of actual power), it wasn't exactly taking anything tangible away from the gameplay experience. It just gave those who cared enough about the 'achievement' of 99 something extra to do in end game scenarios.
0
I know that is highly unlikely however.
0
0
The word 'build' inherently implies an accumulation effect. You do X, Y an Z to get product F. In D2 "build" meant choose the skills you want to max, choose the gear you want to wear, appropriately map out the stat and skill allocation, and level up. In D3 'build' means drag these 6 skills... to those 6 boxes.
0
Based on what we know about the D3 development team, they certainly will not restrict our rotation of skills. Speculating that they will is IMO a complete waste of time.
0
0
Hardcore players do not mind having 'time' as a requirement for their rewards. Casual players would rather have everything given to them the second that they open the box. (wholesale skill respeccing)
Hardcore players want their games to have some kind of margin of error. Casual players want their games to be error-proof; they want to be protected from making mistakes. (removal of stat and skill allocation)
D2 was not a difficult game by any means. There was simply different ways to play the game, some more conducive to "success" then others.
D3 will not be a difficult game either. But now there is only one way to play it and that way is synonymous with "success". There is no way to make a mistake anymore.
Obviously I am more old school in thought and have that hardcore mentality. I am upset to see Blizzard convert D3 to such a casual title. But casual is simply what sells in todays market so I dont blame them for making the correct financial decision.
0
And if you think clicking on a skill and moving it from one box to another is called, "character development" then we will have to agree to disagree. Our fundamental perspectives are so far apart that it would probably be counterproductive for us to continue this conversation.
One thing that I will agree with you about, and one thing that Blizzard has made abundantly clear, is that loot is indeed the 'driving force' now in this game. Since it is no longer possible for us to create builds, cookie cutter or oddball, the one and only thing that will make our characters different from one another is the gear we wear, or I mean buy... yay?
True we all had our cookie cutter builds. Usually within our first year or two of playing we had 2 or 3 of those.
But after that what kept us coming back was our oddball builds. It was getting our "charged bolt" sorc to level 99 and tracking down the equipment that she needed to be somewhat viable... That is what "meaningful customization" means. It was going into a game, whether it be pve or pvp and having fellow players take notice of the uniqueness of your character and saying 'hey nice sorc dude'
In D3, that process simply doesnt exist. See an interesting build that you would like to try? Try it! It will only cost you 5 minutes of your time to drag your skills into the appropriate boxes and to buy all the necessary gear at RMAH.
No offense man but you are exactly who Blizzard is trying to cater to now. It literally took hmm lets say, 30- 40 minutes to get a sorc to level 30. If the lack of having a usable skill for that 30 min window was so excruciating painful then Id say Diablo wasn't for you. Id suggest something more linear like Final Fantasy. But hey, tricks on me apparently... Wilson and crew have dumbed this game down sooo much that now even a 6 year old can play it successfully. Times have changed I gues.
0
Being able to use all skills without any consequence is not a good thing. Sure it might be fun experimenting with your level 60 for a few months... heck, ill be really generous and say maybe even a year. But once you try your hand at all the skill/rune combinations, the novelty will be wear off. It destroys any and all incentive for us to create another character.
Have a level 60 barb? Congratulations you are now the grandmaster of all 24 barb skills. See another cool looking barb build running around? No problem, just switch your skills to match his and boom, within minutes you've "been there done that".
Rift and Guild Wars had similar 'all access' systems and suffered short shelf lives because of it.
So once we finish normal whats to keep us playing? To continue character development? Na we have no control over that now. To find better loot? Who cares, we can just buy it. Wilson seems to have idiot-proofed this game to a fault. It's so vanilla now that I bet even casual players will get bored with it in a years time.
0
this is old school but Ill miss solo item xfering. dont ask me why but that was something i enjoyed
also, im fairly certain that I will miss 8 person games (was it 8 i cant even remember?). even when you werent partied up you would often run into other players in the towns or in the fields. it gave the game at least some sense of community. I have a feeling with 4 player games solo'ing will just seem incredibly lonely.
PS Hp1notq... i dont mean this to piss you off or anything, and im not sure if im the only one with this problem, but for some reason your sig/avatar combo is the only one ive ever encountered on any forum that slows the load times of the pages. its a cool sig and everything, but would you consider something else? again, just a wishful request, you are certainly entitled to sport whatever sig you want
0
I also like the idea of no respecs for hardcore.
0
0
That said, I really appreciate everyone's take on respeccing. I'm praying that some of you are right in your assumption that D3 will give us a surplus of viable builds. Having 3-5 viable builds per class would be an amazing feet IMO.
Wholesale respeccing still scares me though. Here's to hoping Bashiok isn't exaggerating when he says it will be easier to reroll then to respec.
Not trying to compare COD to CS or anything... but IMO, yes there's fairly large gap between a good competition player and your average pub bunny allstar.