Wasn’t talking about PoE, but see I’m more about ckass identity with definitions and restrictions. I get it may be cool to play a bow barb, or a physical melee sorc, but to me that’s just silly and takes away from class identity.
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Even if it had little meaning, it should still be included.
But I agree, some of the barbs skills definitely should work with a bow. And easily could work with a bow.
For sorc it should be simple really; add a good Weapon Enchant skill, and it hardly needs anything else. Maybe some passives as well. Bonus points for allowing the Weapon Enchant skill to also enchant shields.
Sure, the barb should look like the barb. Just because a barb was using a bow, the character would still look the same.
Just like a sword-swinging Sorc would look like a fireball throwing Sorc.
I also really agree that Diablo should have strong class identities. One of the reasons I am against classes having access to other classes skills as they did in D2. That should not happen.
That is what hurts class fantasies. Not shared weapon pools.
A Bow Barb is still a strong Barb fantasy. A Sword and Board Sorc is an extremely strong Sorc identity. Arguably one of the strongest Sorc fantasies in existence.
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I feel like these two things cannot exist at the same time.
How can you want strong class identity but also joke classes that people will laugh at and will make the world look silly?
It will completely ruin the aesthetic.
I also want the game to be balanced both for pve and pvp. There is no point making it a social gaming experience just to throw any chance of balancing the game to the wayside.
Once you add multi-shot to a Barb, well now all their buffs and synergies that previously weren’t being applied to a ranged multi-shot attack, now have to be balanced for a ranged multi-shot attack. I want the Barbs melee builds to be built beautifully not have to make sacrifices to cater for tons more builds. Tons more build options and complicated skill trees does not equal a better game.
Should there be lightning Necromancer? No. They should use necromancer magic not fire or lightning. This is a bad case of giving every class everything then having NO class identity, and balance across the board having to suffer big time.
Yeah, no one’s saying that a Barbarian should be casting a blood nova or shooting multishots, or that a sorceress should be using leap or whirlwind.
But then Shad also says the Barb should have a bow. So are we saying the Barb should have an entire set of unique bow skills? How far does this go? How much extra development would it require to add this? How much would this take away from the core class identities and balance of those core skills?
I think far too much. The core Barb identities will suffer and the Barb will not look like a Barb. Whatever the lore says the actual games have never had Bow Barbs in the game and will for sure look out of place to what Diablo players think of the Barbarian.
Only a very few small subset of people are actually going to know obscure lore like this and really doesn’t matter to what is right for the entire player base.
I find it disappointing that people would actually give up fun and creativity for canned looks. Blizz supplies a base look for the class with their own skills, that should be enough to fulfill both.
I believe Shadout has always been that they should be able to use bows, but they would be gimped, like if they used a magic wand. No skills associated with, but the option to do so.
Exactly so, we are simply saying that if a Barb wants to pick up a bow and fight with it, even if it’s the most ineffective trash imaginable, they should still be able to do it, it’s a matter of choice over forced gameplay style.
Preventing people from trying out extremely strange and unusual combinations does not improve the game; it devolves it into a cookie cutter (play this way only and don’t even try to be creative about it) mode which is frankly disgusting.
How about this as an example. Provided there were not ridiculous restrictions preventing people from actually coming up with fun ways to enjoy the game. While adventuring my cute and delicate Sorceress happens upon a strange glowing 2H Axe hidden away in the crypt of some unknown warrior. Usually such a weapon would be of no interest to her kind, however this one calls to her and… she answers. Using an arcane gesture which springs to her mind she directs the Axe to fly across the room destroying a stack of barrels and then immediately returning to her side to wait patiently for its next command. Determination and resolve solidify in her gaze as she marches forth from the dark crypt to bring her bloody axe-wielding vengeance down upon all those who mocked her unorthodox ways…
The simple bit is, we should not be prevented from finding new and creative ways of doing things. Restricting which specific items a character can use reduces gameplay options in a negative way. Nothing is being suggested to change skills or add options to make these things viable, just that if people want to try out strange things they should be allowed to try.
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Yet this very thing was scoffed at in D3.
It’s not just looks. It’s the aesthetic and immersion that look provides.
You only have to look at D3 to see this can be a major issue for people.
And it’s also about BALANCE and CLASS IDENTITY.
If this is the case, why is it important? A Barb that has zero skills to use with a bow and could never make a build with it or use a single skill apart from basic attack. Why would they NEED to do this?
But the choice serves no purpose whatsoever it just seems like a waste of dev time to me.
This just seems like a contradiction. For this to exist you would need to add a bunch of telekinesis attacks that affect weapons now making an entire sub class of Sorc which I thought was something you are against?
I instead would want more time gone into making people who play fire Sorc be able to differentiate themselves from each other by having more skills to choose from and different ways of adding things to those skills to change the way they work.
Because some find it fun. I have a Pinball Crusader build that has 1 damaging ability, Shield Bash. The rest are defensive and utility. I just bounce around from enemy to enemy. Is ot a good build? Hell no, but it sure is fun.
What waste of time? All they have to do is not restrict every weapon to only this or that class. No one is asking them to support off the wall combinations. Only that they don’t prevent people from trying them. Who cares if trying this stuff ends up being non-Meta and useless in the overall gameplay. We still deserve the right to experiment and try off the shelf stuff, just to see what happens. We understand that 95 percent of stuff we try won’t be viable, but the fun is in trying it out just to see what happens.
The choice serves all the purpose. These type of games are meant to be all about choice, the less choices we have the more the game becomes about following the one and only prescribed path, and don’t you dare try walking off down that side street to see what mischief you might get into.
Leaving weapons unrestricted would free the Dev’s up to focus on more important things, rather than going around saying, no Bow for you, no Axe for you… That is what sounds like a complete waste of time to me.
Not really considering that enchanted weapon skill is a fairly typical Sorc ability. My example was simply meant to elaborate on how a 2H Axe wielding Sorc is not unreasonable given the proper elements.
Having a single basic attack on certain weapons, this is the freedom you want? To go through the entire game doing 1 attack? Maybe for someone who’s on their thousandth playthrough with nothing better to do might want this. Most people won’t.
This functionality would have to be added. It didn’t take effort to turn them off, animations and damage numbers etc would have to be created for this, purely so a couple of players who got bored cause they maybe play a little too much and now find all the amazing combinations and actual classes boring, what to use a single basic attack to play the game.
They should not design the game around the 0.1% of players on any issue.
Should the difficulty in end game also allow for you to be able to play this way? If not why even bother in the first place. The difficulty definitely should NOT be tuned to allow for this kind of gameplay so it would be added just for early game?
I think Dusty made a good point. Sure you can have barb shoot fireball, pull a bow & I don’t know, do a floss emote. But game dev is about spending in places that are meaningful. Is is worth the dev effort to make animations for meme builds last than 1% of people will play?
Is it worth the effort to do so, or resource can be better use else. I do not might barb or melee class use bow, I enjoy my holy fire explosive arrow paladin in D2R, but it still remain if effort could be better use, say making anaimation for a few brand new core skills.
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No one is asking that it be made viable, we already expect 95 percent of it to be severely under powered or completely useless. There is no request for any change to gameplay at all, and no request for anything to be added. We are only asking that they not take stuff away as options. Restricting stuff is what takes work, there is no work if they just don’t make the restrictions to begin with.
As for the “animations” stuff. The animation code for every weapon already exists in the game. They act upon a base framework model which is later skinned to appear as whichever character is being played. So, there is no additional Dev time or work needed to leave all weapons usable (without any skill benefits to support them of course). The removal of choice to some of them is what costs time and Dev resources, not the other way around.
I am not fan of taking stuff away if it doesn’t affect gameplay.
However, we cannot be talking stuff away if it was never there. The more accurate question is, should we add these option in, & would the same effort be better spend elsewhere, like I mentioned before, new animations for new useful skills
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Please see my edit above. It was always already there to begin with, no added effort needed. The only thing using up time and effort is in the process of taking it away from certain classes.
This isn’t how game development works. Someone has to ADD the functionality to allow for this to happen. Devs have to write code and make animations etc.
It doesn’t work like this Kiadaw is right.
You can’t just add animations from Rogue to Barb. They have different body types it’s not that simple. Adjustments and refinement would have to be added.
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Not true. In the beginning demos and examples of the game, weapons had no specific class restrictions. Those limits have been added just in the last year or so. The code for each and all of them was already there when they added each weapon. Restricting some of the weapons to only one class has been a later development, which is taking up Dev resources now.
I am fairly sure they have different people animating different classes include for each gender. See how the female wiz & Dh moves & attack. Then see how a male Wiz & female move.
In any case, if its a low effort, or the dev thing is worth it, I do not mind more weapon welding/attcking options being added in. I am not against it. I am barely asking questions.