Diablo III: Not Just a Vitality Race!

[The Succubus]

Alright, being a lanky witch doctor who throws jars of spiders at people has won me over. Doing that for a few hours is totally worth $60.00 and no one can tell me otherwise.

Release the spiders.

[Karoht]

So how many times would I have to kill the Skeleton King to max out my level?

2.5 for me. As in, killing him twice, and then doing some minor grinding got me 13.

[TamerBill]

Quick question - how much freedom are you given in remapping the keys? I'd love for my wizard to have Frost Ray and Arcane Orb on separate mouse buttons, but they're both "secondary skills." Despite a BEAMLAZOR! being a perfect fit for a primary, at least to me.

Turning on 'Elective Mode' in the options will let you ignore the skill categories and set them as you wish. Frost Ray isn't a primary skill because all Wizard primaries are free to cast.

[The Glyphstone]

2.5 for me. As in, killing him twice, and then doing some minor grinding got me 13.

Oh, the beta caps out at level 13? Boring then, I wanted to see what Tactics and Rage were.

[Xapi]

So, I know this was announced beforehand, but is anyone else who played the Beta this weekend extremely disappointed by the fact that your character is in no way customizable, other than items?

I am a sad fanboy. sad, sad.

[Divayth Fyr]

So, I know this was announced beforehand, but is anyone else who played the Beta this weekend extremely disappointed by the fact that your character is in no way customizable, other than items?

I am a sad fanboy. sad, sad.

Yep. Generally the beta made me happy I didn't preorder, and I'm not sure I will buy the game anytime soon..

[Karoht]

As for the possibility of a patch on day 1, here is something to consider.

Since the Pre-download option was available, there have been 3 beta patches. So unless all those changes were planned prior to the start of the pre-download, odds are good that there will be a day 1 patch. How big? Hard to say. The 3 beta-patches weren't massive, I would estimate 300 megs at most.
The disc likely won't be able to avoid this either.

One possibility is, that it ships the way it ships, and the update patches come a week or two later, to avoid the first day patching issue. The game was very stable in all of those beta versions, and if memory serves me correctly, patch 14 was the first one flagged as a release candidate.


@Customization
Remember that there is no distinction/restriction of armor type, meaning you can wear every type of armor in the game, and there is a dye system available at launch. The dye system also adds effects, not just changes color.

[AgentPaper]

So, I know this was announced beforehand, but is anyone else who played the Beta this weekend extremely disappointed by the fact that your character is in no way customizable, other than items?

I am a sad fanboy. sad, sad.

...did you somehow miss the whole skill/rune system?

Because that's a LOT of customization.

[Xapi]

...did you somehow miss the whole skill/rune system?

Because that's a LOT of customization.

No, I did not miss it, but it is not a costumization of MY character, but a tactical desition to use one set of skill/runes combo at a given time.

I know and understand, and I found it to be a positive thing, that the array of skills with different effects is overwhelming taking runes into account. But I cannot specialize my character in the use of a given skill and/or weapon, as I could in D2.

Regarding dyes, you're still talking about equipment, not character.

Basically, the game seems to have lost some RPG elements.

[Psyren]

Turning on 'Elective Mode' in the options will let you ignore the skill categories and set them as you wish. Frost Ray isn't a primary skill because all Wizard primaries are free to cast.

You sir are a gentleman and a scholar.

And I don't mind not having a "free" ability mapped most of the time, AP has (so far) regenerated blindingly fast.

[Karoht]

Regarding dyes, you're still talking about equipment, not character.
Basically, the game seems to have lost some RPG elements.

It's still more visual customization options than D2 and D1. And they will be adding more (gear customization), mark my words.

As for Abilities and Runes, yes, you aren't really specialized for 1 ability anymore. Ohez noez, no more one trick ponies that get borked the minute they hit higher difficulties.

If you add in passives, you can actually specialize in certain ability sets. There are plenty of passives which affect a minor amount of abilities, and so far as I'm aware they all stack. And if you tailor the rest of your abilities, you don't build one ability specialized to do one thing. You build your entire character around doing one set of things. Or one orientation of things. And all of the abilities of your build can actually assist you in performing that orientation.


I've had this arguement with enough people, so I'll cut myself short there. Suffice to say, there is much more customization options available than ever before, and much more of it is viable than it ever was in D2.

[PEACH]

No, I did not miss it, but it is not a costumization of MY character, but a tactical desition to use one set of skill/runes combo at a given time.

I know and understand, and I found it to be a positive thing, that the array of skills with different effects is overwhelming taking runes into account. But I cannot specialize my character in the use of a given skill and/or weapon, as I could in D2.

Regarding dyes, you're still talking about equipment, not character.

Basically, the game seems to have lost some RPG elements.

Here are the basics with why they did what they did:

Attributes were meaningless. They were cookie cutter, they required weird calculations, what they did was pretty hard to figure out, and gear boosts meant that getting X or Y of a certain attribute was unnecessary for later levels but possibly necessary early on, which is a really confusing and counterintuitive system. Plus, some stats (energy) were 100% worthless on everybody, for the most part.

Skills were, likewise, not *that* customizable. You either had a ****ty character, or you had one of a few good ones; because of skill synergies, you needed huge point investments to get any individual skill usable on higher difficulties, meaning you really only had a few skills anyway. Combine with flat damage on skills making it harder to balance them and leading to frequent "good at low levels, awful later" type things, and you get some rather poor decisions.

As for specializations: You still can specialize with gems, in theory! Assuming the values from gear and gems are as high as they've been stated to be, it's entirely possible that you can actually have more customization in terms of stats (all of which are at least somewhat useful, if not key, on all characters now). Add in crafting, which lets you (somewhat) control your customization and get what you want, and you can reasonably have a character specialized through his gear, which is changeable and thus don't guarantee the character is awful if you don't get it right, instead of his skill points, which are not and do create awful characters.

You're judging the game based on the first 10 or so levels of normal difficulty, which is before most of the customization even in D2; I don't find it too problematic I can't make a useless character in that timeframe and only learn about it 50 levels later.

You sir are a gentleman and a scholar.

And I don't mind not having a "free" ability mapped most of the time, AP has (so far) regenerated blindingly fast.

Arcane Power regenerates quickly, but not quickly enough that subbing out your free ability is worth it. Considering your best AoE ability costs 105 AP to cast three times (basically draining your pool right there), and you're going to love using the 25 AP wave of force, having your kamehameha on isn't necessarily optimal later on. Generally, I'd either want kamehameha+explodyshocks or Magic missile + galaxy toss, to cover both single target and AoE.

[Xapi]

It's still more visual customization options than D2 and D1. And they will be adding more (gear customization), mark my words.

Agreed, yet not what I'm talking about.

As for Abilities and Runes, yes, you aren't really specialized for 1 ability anymore. Ohez noez, no more one trick ponies that get borked the minute they hit higher difficulties.

If you add in passives, you can actually specialize in certain ability sets.

No, not in the sense that I'm talking about.

There are plenty of passives which affect a minor amount of abilities, and so far as I'm aware they all stack. And if you tailor the rest of your abilities, you don't build one ability specialized to do one thing. You build your entire character around doing one set of things. Or one orientation of things. And all of the abilities of your build can actually assist you in performing that orientation.

I will take your word for all you said there.

But where I'm going at is that that tailored build you just came up with? I can replicate it with my character in 2 minutes. What I'm trying to say is that, mechanically, every lvl 50 demon hunter is exactly the same as any other lvl 50 demon hunter, there is no permanent investment on skills or atributes. And I believe this puts D3 closer to an action game than an RPG.

You may like or be OK with that, I don't.

I've had this arguement with enough people, so I'll cut myself short there. Suffice to say, there is much more customization options available than ever before, and much more of it is viable than it ever was in D2.

I hope with this message what I mean by costumization is clear to you.

[PEACH]

All level 50s were pretty much the same in D2, due to the limited variety in effective builds. While all level 50 DHs may have the same skill options (though not the same gear options, which Blizzard has said is more meaningful than in D2 and is easier to customize), the ways they can be played may be even more varied than the (effective) ways played in D2.

[The Glyphstone]

But where I'm going at is that that tailored build you just came up with? I can replicate it with my character in 2 minutes. What I'm trying to say is that, mechanically, every lvl 50 demon hunter is exactly the same as any other lvl 50 demon hunter, there is no permanent investment on skills or atributes. And I believe this puts D3 closer to an action game than an RPG.

You may like or be OK with that, I don't.

...but how is that different? In D2, every level 99 bowazon was the same, every 99 javazon was the same, every 99 hammerdin was the same, down to equipment and gems. You followed the one specific build of talent and gear if you wanted to succeed.

In D3, it takes 30sec to switch between 'builds', rather than 5min, a trip to town, and (now) gold. And before they patched in respeccing, it was impossible.

[Divayth Fyr]

...but how is that different? In D2, every level 99 bowazon was the same, every 99 javazon was the same, every 99 hammerdin was the same, down to equipment and gems. You followed the one specific build of talent and gear if you wanted to succeed.

If, and only if you followed a specific guide. Of course, for competitive play that was the most optimal solution, but some people don't care about that and like to do weird (or simply suboptimal things). Now there's even less than that since some things are simply impossible (like a bow wielding barbarian).

[Xapi]

...but how is that different? In D2, every level 99 bowazon was the same, every 99 javazon was the same, every 99 hammerdin was the same, down to equipment and gems. You followed the one specific build of talent and gear if you wanted to succeed.

In D3, it takes 30sec to switch between 'builds', rather than 5min, a trip to town, and (now) gold. And before they patched in respeccing, it was impossible.

I was actually disappointed when the respec feature was added on to D2.

I believe switching builds should be impossible in a RPG.

RE: Specific build: How did the Hammerdin first happen? By someone deciding to go against the "current meta" and deciding to do something wild and see if it would work.

Yes, there where a relatively short amount of "usable" builds, and a very short amount of "top tier" builds. This is not a intrinsec problem of the design, or the idea of point investing.

[Mikal]

Because 95% of the items you find are useless for your character. And killing monsters with friends > killing monsters alone.

Good thing you can sell those items. And maybe you don't want to play with others. Like me

[AgentPaper]

What does permanent character choices have to do with it being an RPG?

Anyways, there's a lot of reasons why permanent choices were removed from the game, and very few reasons that it should stay in. So, it got cutout.

However, I think you're wrong to infer that no permanent customization means no customization. What skills and what runes you choose will very much define your character regardless. Who cares if you can swap to something else easily? That doesn't mean that the choices you made aren't the choices you made. In fact, if anything the freedom to change your skills at-will makes for far more customization, because you're free to try out whatever you want whenever you want, to figure out which skills you like best. Want to see what it's like to play a melee wizard? Try it out! If you don't like it, well go back to being a fire mage, and be glad you didn't have to spend three months leveling your wizard before you found out you hated his skill set.

The diablo 2 system of permanent customization lead to one of two things most of the time: Either you made your character however you wanted, inevitably leading to a gimped character that couldn't get through higher difficulties, or you went online and built the same character as everyone else. Neither of those sound like good customization.

Also, I think you're overestimating the ease of switching builds. Yes, you can switch out the skills themselves easily enough, but how long will it take you to get used to those new skills, and become good enough using them to take on Inferno? And what about gear? It seems unlikely that one set of gear will be ideal for all builds, so you'll also need to spend time getting gear for your new build.

RE: Specific build: How did the Hammerdin first happen? By someone deciding to go against the "current meta" and deciding to do something wild and see if it would work.

Yes, there where a relatively short amount of "usable" builds, and a very short amount of "top tier" builds. This is not a intrinsec problem of the design, or the idea of point investing.

The small amount of builds is actually an intrinsic problem of the design of permanent build choice. Because it took so much investment to try out a new build, very few people took that time to try out crazy builds. There could easily be hundreds of fine builds in D2 that nobody knows about because it would take so long to discover them.

[PEACH]

I was actually disappointed when the respec feature was added on to D2.

I believe switching builds should be impossible in a RPG.

Well, unfortunately, going against the common design philosophy of basically everything is not going to earn you many points. It's already reasonably difficult to switch around gear; making respeccing impossible is just a grind constraint (question: What's the difference between having two level 50 DHs with different skill builds, or one that can have both? Answer: Jack **** besides twice the time investment). The only thing not being allowed to respec does is A: make creative building far less appealing and B: add in a huge time constraint.

RE: Specific build: How did the Hammerdin first happen? By someone deciding to go against the "current meta" and deciding to do something wild and see if it would work.

Actually, no! The Hammerdin appeared because Synergies gave it absolutely absurd damage and it was pretty obvious that it would work out. It was an effort in theorycrafting, not somebody wildly stabbing in the dark and finding an amazing build.

Yes, there where a relatively short amount of "usable" builds, and a very short amount of "top tier" builds. This is not a intrinsec problem of the design, or the idea of point investing.

Actually, that *is* an intrinsic problem with permanent point investment. If you can't change around what you do, there's no reason to *ever* go suboptimal. The only way to make it so that point investment doesn't have suboptimality traps is to be able to perfectly design a skill tree such that any combination of skills, no matter how synergistic or anti synergestic, is equally powerful. That is not possible.

If, and only if you followed a specific guide. Of course, for competitive play that was the most optimal solution, but some people don't care about that and like to do weird (or simply suboptimal things). Now there's even less than that since some things are simply impossible (like a bow wielding barbarian).

The thing is, you can do more weird things because, y'know, you've actually got the ability to try out things that don't seem amazing *before* you spend 50 hours grinding and gearing them up only to find out they can't do anything on higher difficulties. Arguing "players can choose ridiculously suboptimal choices, and some did, so having them exist isn't a bad thing" really isn't a solid argument.

[Xapi]

What does permanent character choices have to do with it being an RPG?

Do I really have to answer this one?

Basically everything.

It's not a ROLE playing game if I'm not taking the ROLE of a person and have significant choices regarding who that person IS.

Diablo 3 seems to be an action game with a built in character improvement mechanic.

Anyways, there's a lot of reasons why permanent choices were removed from the game, and very few reasons that it should stay in. So, it got cutout.

That's cool. It's just something that I know I missed while playing the Beta, and that might make me not buy the game.

If you like this, good for you, you'll probably enjoy the game more than I will.

However, I think you're wrong to infer that no permanent customization means no customization.

Perhaps I used the wrong words, forgive me for that. The point is that my character, in himself, is no different than any other character, by design. He can have different gear, and he can be using a different set of skills at this moment, but he is not inherently different. I dislike that.

You can keep arguing whatever, but the fact that I dislike it is not gonna change.

What skills and what runes you choose will very much define your character regardless. Who cares if you can swap to something else easily? That doesn't mean that the choices you made aren't the choices you made.

It means that my character is a master at every single ability available to him at the same time. It doesn't make sense. And yes, it does make choices less meaningful, if not meaningless.

In fact, if anything the freedom to change your skills at-will makes for far more customization, because you're free to try out whatever you want whenever you want, to figure out which skills you like best. Want to see what it's like to play a melee wizard? Try it out! If you don't like it, well go back to being a fire mage, and be glad you didn't have to spend three months leveling your wizard before you found out you hated his skill set.

The diablo 2 system of permanent customization lead to one of two things most of the time: Either you made your character however you wanted, inevitably leading to a gimped character that couldn't get through higher difficulties, or you went online and built the same character as everyone else. Neither of those sound like good customization.

I sort of agree, but I would have expected Blizzard to come up with a way to make the choices better and more meaningful, not taking them away.

Also, I think you're overestimating the ease of switching builds. Yes, you can switch out the skills themselves easily enough, but how long will it take you to get used to those new skills, and become good enough using them to take on Inferno? And what about gear? It seems unlikely that one set of gear will be ideal for all builds, so you'll also need to spend time getting gear for your new build.

You're describing an action game. That's ok. But it's not what I expected of Diablo 3.

[Xapi]

Well, unfortunately, going against the common design philosophy of basically everything is not going to earn you many points. It's already reasonably difficult to switch around gear; making respeccing impossible is just a grind constraint (question: What's the difference between having two level 50 DHs with different skill builds, or one that can have both? Answer: Jack **** besides twice the time investment). The only thing not being allowed to respec does is A: make creative building far less appealing and B: add in a huge time constraint.

You're saying that basically every RPG has, as a design philosophy. completely respeccable skills?

If so, I wonder what RPGs you've been playing. I have been playing Fallout 3 and New Vegas, for instance, and this doesn't happen to be the case.

Actually, no! The Hammerdin appeared because Synergies gave it absolutely absurd damage and it was pretty obvious that it would work out. It was an effort in theorycrafting, not somebody wildly stabbing in the dark and finding an amazing build.



Actually, that *is* an intrinsic problem with permanent point investment. If you can't change around what you do, there's no reason to *ever* go suboptimal. The only way to make it so that point investment doesn't have suboptimality traps is to be able to perfectly design a skill tree such that any combination of skills, no matter how synergistic or anti synergestic, is equally powerful. That is not possible.

There are reasons. Because it's fun, rings a bell. Because a slightly not as optimal skill set suits your play style better.

Still, I'm confident that with such a incredibly high number of skills available for each character, as D3 clearly has, a fairly large number of optima/near optimal builds could be made.

The thing is, you can do more weird things because, y'know, you've actually got the ability to try out things that don't seem amazing *before* you spend 50 hours grinding and gearing them up only to find out they can't do anything on higher difficulties. Arguing "players can choose ridiculously suboptimal choices, and some did, so having them exist isn't a bad thing" really isn't a solid argument.

Isn't it? I kinda like it.

[Karoht]

I will take your word for all you said there.

Don't take my word for it. Try out out. Spend some effort, go the the website and check out the skill calculator. I'm personally fond of my Turret themed Wizard, my mobility focused rage dump spamming Barbarian, my exploding dogs Witchdoctor, and my invicibility built Monk. But at any time I can go be something else. Awesome.

I found that I was building characters, not around 1 ability, but really towards an entire theme of effects. Spamming 1 ability over and over like we did in D2 is not skill, you might argue that it is fun, others would argue otherwise.

But where I'm going at is that that tailored build you just came up with? I can replicate it with my character in 2 minutes.

And any monkey can replicate an Hammerdin. What are you getting at?

What I'm trying to say is that, mechanically, every lvl 50 demon hunter is exactly the same as any other lvl 50 demon hunter, there is no permanent investment on skills or atributes. And I believe this puts D3 closer to an action game than an RPG.
You may like or be OK with that, I don't.

Prove that this will happen.
Just because build X is better doesn't mean everyone takes it. Look at D2 and the number of Necromancers insisting on focusing on their pets, which was probably the weakest builds out there. Yet they did it, and they made it work.

I hope with this message what I mean by costumization is clear to you.

The word you just used is costumization, not customization. But yes, your meaning is clear. You are simply mistaking an abundance of customization options, namely more options than ever before, with a lack of options.


D2 was positively draconian in it's illusion of choice. It's amazing how many people bought into the illusion though. I'm sure we will say the same thing about D3 when D4 comes out.

[Xapi]

Don't take my word for it. Try out out. Spend some effort, go the the website and check out the skill calculator. I'm personally fond of my Turret themed Wizard, my mobility focused rage dump spamming Barbarian, my exploding dogs Witchdoctor, and my invicibility built Monk. But at any time I can go be something else. Awesome.

I'm sorry, I like to actually play my games, I will not spend time in the skill calculator.

I found that I was building characters, not around 1 ability, but really towards an entire theme of effects. Spamming 1 ability over and over like we did in D2 is not skill, you might argue that it is fun, others would argue otherwise.

That's pretty good. I'd argue you were not actually building a character, but a set of skills to use on the same character that everyone else has, but I'm glad that you have fun with it. Be happy.

Prove that this will happen.
Just because build X is better doesn't mean everyone takes it. Look at D2 and the number of Necromancers insisting on focusing on their pets, which was probably the weakest builds out there. Yet they did it, and they made it work.

Prove that what will happen? I don't have to prove it, it is a feature. I'm not saying that everyone will play the same character. I'm saying that everyone will have the same character, and play it differently.

Like an action game.

The word you just used is costumization, not customization. But yes, your meaning is clear. You are simply mistaking an abundance of customization options, namely more options than ever before, with a lack of options.

No, I am not saying there are no options. I'm saying there are no character choices. There are tactical options though.

[Karoht]

I'm sorry, I like to actually play my games, I will not spend time in the skill calculator.

Then currently you are unaware of the options and are commenting from an unaware position. You may wish to rectify that, rather than taking someones word, is all I am suggesting to you.

No, I am not saying there are no options. I'm saying there are no character choices. There are tactical options though.

Semantics at this point. Options present choices to players. Just because a choice isn't perminent doesn't mean that a choice isn't made.


Also, just a hint, respec isn't really required either. You can by all means play through the game and only make perminent choices if you wish. Nothing prevents you from doing this. In other words, the choices can be as relevant as you make them.

[PEACH]

You're saying that basically every RPG has, as a design philosophy. completely respeccable skills?

If so, I wonder what RPGs you've been playing. I have been playing Fallout 3 and New Vegas, for instance, and this doesn't happen to be the case.

Nope. The difference is that Fallout and New Vegas aren't even pretending they are difficult, or that optimal choices matter; as long as you put your skill points *somewhere*, and actually use the skills you put points in, the games are easy to breeze through. The "respeccing is allowed" is part of the bigger design philosophy of "Players shouldn't be screwed over by their choices and have to reroll." Fallout solves that problem by making the optimization floor about two dozen feet above the amount of power required to get through the hardest parts of the game.

Now, if you want the game to be legitimately challenging, you can't allow suboptimal decisions to screw over the character literal days of playing later, or else it is not fun for the majority of the audience. So in order to have a difficult RPG, removing choices that were only "Do I want to be good, or do I want to be terrible" is not a bad thing. Did it truly give you any more of a sense of ownership of your character to know that you could, for instance, dump all your points into Energy and proceed to die? I know that kind of thing has never felt meaningful for me in any game.

There's also the fact that Diablo is, while PvE, PvE where you are asked to be as good as other players to get through. While that doesn't require *as much* balance as PvP, if the goal is to make PvE legitimately difficult, all characters have to have the option of playing on a level playing field.

There are reasons. Because it's fun, rings a bell. Because a slightly not as optimal skill set suits your play style better.

The thing is, there isn't some "not as optimal" build that actually presents a different playstyle. There are the good builds, and then there are permutations where you make those directly worse, and then there are chaotic FUBAR builds, but there's *rarely* anything in between besides a few minor varations.

Still, I'm confident that with such a incredibly high number of skills available for each character, as D3 clearly has, a fairly large number of optima/near optimal builds could be made.

That's because the theory is basically every possible set, or at least most of them, is a pretty viable way to play.

Isn't it? I kinda like it.

Nah, it's a really bad one from a game design standpoint and, from the standpoint of the players losing hours of work, also from a fun standpoint. It only really affects people who A: value the "choice" that comes from looking up outside information or B: are sadistic bastards who enjoy watching other characters fail.

[Xapi]

Then currently you are unaware of the options and are commenting from an unaware position. You may wish to rectify that, rather than taking someones word, is all I am suggesting to you.

I don't need to KNOW what the options are, because I'm not arguing that there is a LACK of options, but that they are PRESENTED in a way that does not appel to ME the way options in D2 did.

I have been playing RPG for a looong time, and a constant of the genre, one that I expect, is that I will have the choice to build my character meaningfully and permanently. Including the possibility for mistakes and being sub optimal.

I do not understand why you have the need to argue with me and explain to me how it is unreasonable for me to want (and to be disappointed when I do not get) a choice mechanic I've had for as long as I can remember.

Semantics at this point. Options present choices to players. Just because a choice isn't perminent doesn't mean that a choice isn't made.

There is a choice. What there isn't, is a character.

Also, just a hint, respec isn't really required either. You can by all means play through the game and only make perminent choices if you wish. Nothing prevents you from doing this. In other words, the choices can be as relevant as you make them.

I have played D2 without the respec button, and I enjoyed it. But I believe D3 is designed to be this way (D2's respec was a late addition) and there is no satisfactory way to emulate the permanent choice aspect as the game stands.

[Xapi]

Nope. The difference is that Fallout and New Vegas aren't even pretending they are difficult, or that optimal choices matter; as long as you put your skill points *somewhere*, and actually use the skills you put points in, the games are easy to breeze through. The "respeccing is allowed" is part of the bigger design philosophy of "Players shouldn't be screwed over by their choices and have to reroll." Fallout solves that problem by making the optimization floor about two dozen feet above the amount of power required to get through the hardest parts of the game.

Now, if you want the game to be legitimately challenging, you can't allow suboptimal decisions to screw over the character literal days of playing later, or else it is not fun for the majority of the audience. So in order to have a difficult RPG, removing choices that were only "Do I want to be good, or do I want to be terrible" is not a bad thing. Did it truly give you any more of a sense of ownership of your character to know that you could, for instance, dump all your points into Energy and proceed to die? I know that kind of thing has never felt meaningful for me in any game.

It did give me a sense of ownership that if I screwed up as badly as putting all my points into energy I would die. Because it made the choice of where to put that point meaningful. I put thought into the characters I built in D2 because I was BUILDING a CHARACTER, and screwing up ment I would be less effective in the long term.

This may also have to do with the fact that I never wanted to be "the most effective" by way of following a given build, but trying to make the choices that I thought would give me more powwer hile at the same time being fun for me.

The thing is, there isn't some "not as optimal" build that actually presents a different playstyle. There are the good builds, and then there are permutations where you make those directly worse, and then there are chaotic FUBAR builds, but there's *rarely* anything in between besides a few minor varations.

This is not a design issue, but a number crunching issue.

Nah, it's a really bad one from a game design standpoint and, from the standpoint of the players losing hours of work, also from a fun standpoint. It only really affects people who A: value the "choice" that comes from looking up outside information or B: are sadistic bastards who enjoy watching other characters fail.

Like I said, building a character, and knowing there was no way back, and that the possibility of being screwed by an old choice was there (thereby putting more thought in each choice, not looking it up), is part of what made these games fun for me.

I'm sad that it is lost. It may be better for most people, most designers or most players, or even for every single person out there. But it is not better for me.

[Karoht]

I don't need to KNOW what the options are, because I'm not arguing that there is a LACK of options, but that they are PRESENTED in a way that does not appel to ME the way options in D2 did.

I was discussing how all of the abilities interact, rather than just one, you then said you would take my word for it, I suggested you go look for yourself, you've now turned vitriolic. Thanks but no thanks.

I do not understand why you have the need to argue with me and explain to me how it is unreasonable for me to want (and to be disappointed when I do not get) a choice mechanic I've had for as long as I can remember.

Change. It happens. To the whole planet. Games too.
You chose the arguement. I was inviting you to check something out. You can stop any time you want if you don't want an arguement. At which point I have to ask, what did you come here for?

I have played D2 without the respec button, and I enjoyed it. But I believe D3 is designed to be this way (D2's respec was a late addition) and there is no satisfactory way to emulate the permanent choice aspect as the game stands.

So not changing a single skill or rune from when you start to when you hit 60 doesn't emulate this? Okay then.

[PEACH]

It did give me a sense of ownership that if I screwed up as badly as putting all my points into energy I would die. Because it made the choice of where to put that point meaningful. I put thought into the characters I built in D2 because I was BUILDING a CHARACTER, and screwing up ment I would be less effective in the long term.

This may also have to do with the fact that I never wanted to be "the most effective" by way of following a given build, but trying to make the choices that I thought would give me more powwer hile at the same time being fun for me.

Question: Did you ever actually screw up a character horribly with your choices? Did you use guides to make sure your character was effective? Did you run through D2 and other RPGs with similar "screw up, waste hundreds of hours of work" type skill systems at the highest difficulty? These aren't random questions; if you haven't screwed up your character, and especially if you haven't screwed up your character intentionally, then the choice has become meaningless (and even if you have, for anybody who knows what they are doing, it is still a meaningless choice).

If you haven't played through on the highest difficulties, then caring about the ability to make suboptimal choices is also nonsensical, because you're not at the point where your choices matter. For instance, as I've said with Fallout, while it is a fun game, your choices *really* don't matter in how your character plays (besides picking "melee or shoot stuff," maybe), because the difficulty is so low, so the problem where "I wasted hours making a bad character" isn't a problem. The same with D2; if you haven't legitimately gone through the difficulties where making a suboptimal character causes you to waste man-hours, then it would be foolishness to even argue that the ability to make sub-optimal choices is relevant; at lower difficulties, there is no "sub-optimal" choice, simply because everything is good enough to (basically) breeze through.

This is not a design issue, but a number crunching issue.

What? No. What?

Seriously, what?

I'm honestly having trouble understanding how you could legitimately think that besides dismissing anything as a "number crunching issue," which is starting to be a theme here.

Let's use an example. Let's say you have 20 skill points to spend, and two trees; hitting stuff and shooting stuff. Both trees have 20 points, total. You, theoretically, have 21 different build options; from 0-20 points in one tree, and the rest in the other. You actually have two build options; hitting stuff or shooting stuff. Any other build is directly worse than those two, no matter what the numbers are on them, simply because of basic RPG mechanics (twice the gear dependence for trying to do both), and the fact that upgrading something you barely use is never as good as upgrading something you always use, even if the upgrade for what you always use is relatively minor.

Now, let's use a less theoretical example, and move on to D2: Synergies. They basically lock you into a build where you *have* to max out not just your primary skill, but the skills it synergizes with, and since you're doing that, you're just about done. That isn't a number issue, it's a design issue, and no matter what you put the numbers at, there's no way to get a build that isn't some form of cookie cutter "best" build. Sure, you can say "Well if they made Hammerdins have far lower base damage and dropped the synergies, people wouldn't use them," but then they'd just pick a different AoE skill to focus their hard points and synergy points into (granted, they wouldn't have near unresisted damage anymore). D2 was basically designed, due to synergies, to always guarantee that you had to focus on a small set of skills, and any attempt to add variety even to what skills you specialized in was doomed to fail. That isn't a numbers issue, unless you consider "put all synergies to zero, and then magically make everything work so you can put minor amounts into it or tons of points into it and still get a viable character" a numbers issue, which is kind of like saying that trying to fly by spreading your arms and flapping your wings is an aerodynamics issue.

Like I said, building a character, and knowing there was no way back, and that the possibility of being screwed by an old choice was there (thereby putting more thought in each choice, not looking it up), is part of what made these games fun for me.

I'm sad that it is lost. It may be better for most people, most designers or most players, or even for every single person out there. But it is not better for me.

You may be in a very small minority, then, because the normal groups of people are:

People who care about screwing up their characters and so look up effective builds and don't have much in the way of choices anyway, and...

People who pick what seems fun and wind up doing horribly (or being lucky and picking close to a cookie cutter build).