D4: Will everyone playing the same build be identical?

General Discussion
1

So my biggest problem with D3 and my biggest fear for D4 is that people who are playing the same build will want the exact same stuff.

Now, i have not played beta. And i have not really seen much regarding this topic.
When you decide to play, lets say for example a Whirlwind Barbarian. Will all the items (legendary powers and uniques) be predetermined for your build? That it will just be a checklist of things to get just like D3.

Is there enough variety within the “same” builds? So that not everyone playing the same builds will just be a copy paste of each other like in D3. So far i have not seen anything that suggest otherwise

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So like every ARPG ever?

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3

I haven’t played beta but I can’t imagine it will be any different. It’s just sort of how games with stats and character builds work.

Your build determines which stats are the best for you, which ultimately determines which gear is the best for you.

The best case scenario is pretty much having multiple whirlwind builds that each individually have their own best in slot list.

4

Not sure where you get this from? During my PoE time i have played many different variations of a Cyclone (whirlwind build) All with different strenghts and weaknesses.

Just something very simple like playing it with a 2hander vs 1h and a shield or dual wield will feel different and make you gear different. Or physical vs elemental based will make you have different gearing, or making whirlwind into a bleed build. So no, only D3 will force you into a very specific set of gearing unless you want to be useless.

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5

The answer is no. The real question is will more people play the same “maxroll” meta builds since respecs cost are high rather tban free?

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No because there will be people who are not willing to pay for respec. If respec was free there would be nothing stopping them from switching to meta build.

7

Meta slaves will follow the meta. It is how it always has been since ARPGs exist.

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Instead of playing what they like some people will just copy what maxroll tells them they should use.

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9

And if somene is smarter than me I dont have a problem with that and the fact that he will use superrior build at start and that I would have to pay gold to be able to switch to his build.

So if someone does not want to pay for respec than he better figure out the meta build on his own.

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The people who are unwilling to pay for respecs are more likely to become frustrated and quit the game.

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11

And why exactly I should care???

Game should give me more ways to beat the competition.

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Whether you care about this is irrelevant.

The fact is high respec costs lead to more frustrastion and less enjoyment for a subset of players.

Overall, do high respec costs benefit the game? I think not. Using D3 as an example, is it good or bad that a player can freely change from a zDH for group and dps DH for solo pushing? I think that it is good to breakup the monotony of the game.

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13

What ever you want is also irrelevant.

Diablo 4 should not be casual friendly as Diablo 3 is.

Why you get less enjoyment if you are not able to steal the build from someone as easy as you can in Diablo 3? What type of enjoyment you get with copy paste ability?

What should give you most enjoyment is if you figure out the meta build on your own.

Does the ability to copy paste build from someone else benefit the game?

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14

I think part of the problem is that the game can become designed around this being standard gameplay, so builds stop being “play what you want” and start being “constantly switch and hyper specialize in the specific content you’re running”.

That is unless they’re gonna do the Diablo 2 route and 99% of the game’s content is simply just easy once you’ve got a handle on 1 or 2 basic mechanics so that none of it matters anymore.

I don’t know as the cost needs to be super high, but just enough to discourage characters being able to be specialized in literally everything in the game because they can respec 5 times a day.

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Casuals are the vast majority. Why would Blizzard not want to be friendly to the majority of its potential customers?

People look up builds now in most aRFGs and that will continue and become more common in D4 with high respec costs.

The reality is few do that when google, maxroll, icy viens, etc… exist

Unless the plan to eliminate the internet, the reality of the internet is something that exists for games currently.

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16

But casuals dont want to be first at anything anyway.

17

The content the game has to offers also plays a vital part in what type of build or variations you would want to build.

Like in D3 the only content that people do is rifts, so naturally the best rift variation is something everyone will play.

If the endgame consists of a more varied type, lets say “rifts” where you want aoe clear. Boss rushing builds where you would want single target more. Then you have the option to specialize your build towards the content you want to run. If 1 build is best at doing all of the things then the design has failed IMO. But the game has to be able to offer a more varied endgame for different build setups.

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18

So what? It is not about being first but feeling that you knee capoed yourself by not spending a few minutes to look up good builds.

Casuals in general prefer to play a good build versus a bad build.

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We will see how good some people truly are now that paragon maxes out at 200.

Not everyone can sit at home all day and grind out paragon like they do in D3.

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20

Unless the game has a million “affixes” like PoE (ordinary, blessings, from corruption, from other leagues, from Labyrinth, etc. etc.) similar builds will look the same.