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I see pictures from the update where it looks like the amount of skills a player can have is 6 at one time. This is terrible for Diablo.
It is nice for console and perhaps Blizzard Corp’s pockets. This is not a feature that promotes a good game. Cool downs on certain skills, ok. If you are locking me into 6 skills I’m not buying it. You did that in Diablo 3 and it’s not good. Why???
Make the Action bar two rows as an option (similar to wow) or get rid of the skill bar and have players hotkey skills that will red out if it’s on cool down (D2 system). Don’t make the game boring where we can kill everything with one or two attacks again and no monster resistances. Also, we need curses back!
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Short cooldowns nowhere bigger than 5 secs, other than that i agree.
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Stop blaming consoles for whatever you don’t like in D3/4
PoE, considered by many to be the spiritual successor of D2, was ported to console without the number of abilities being restricted.
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So you think locking the number of skills a player can use at 6 in a world where there are skill trees is done to benefit the game experience? If there are skill points, why would a certain amount of active skills be limited? Consoles is the only thing that makes sense to me cause I don’t see how a person would argue that limiting choice and variety enhances the game.
If I can only have 6 skills, that may be enough for me not to buy D4. I’m already perturbed from D3 and the smallest thing might turn me away. I don’t want simplify, simplify, simplify, arcade smash brawler. The latest update did not excite me. I don’t care about the update of the art, the game needs to be good first. All I see is the 6 skill cap again from the pictures. That’s what I see from the update and it’s incredibly disappointing that it looks like more of the same (nice art and shallow depth).
It really looks like Diablo 3 v 2.0 to me. But they will probably get rid of paragons and 20 difficulty levels cause not even the D3 fan boys can argue those are good systems. The “rune system” is weak as well (socketables is not a type of item again? just socketed rares/blues/etc? Why not have a more robust itemization?). This game is going to be junk again. Again, no charms and jewels. This is Diablo 3 2.0
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I understand the feeling of being restricted and issues just around that perception; however, I honestly don’t think it is that big of an issue.
I looked at my D2 and Grim Dawn characters and between those two games, if I ignore toggle abilities in a couple of Grim Dawn characters, I can’t think of a time where I routinely cycle more than 6 abilities with any frequency.
Just my perspective looking at actual gameplay of mine but I honestly do not find that restriction too horrible and one that can easily be looked over if the game itself is quite good.
You claim you want choice, but then advocate for having all abilities available at any time. That’s not choice.
Skill points are also a pretty sad excuse for “complexity”. This is how complex skill points are in D2:
- Max out your important abilities
- 1 point in abilities that don’t benefit much from more points
- Dump the rest into something in between.
This is why limiting the number of abilities you have on your skillbar actually makes your decisions matter, because then you don’t have all builds using the same 1-point wonders.
Consoles have nothing to do with these decisions when there are games giving you access to far more than 6 abilities. He’ll, you also ignore that plenty of PC players actually want the option of playing with a controller.
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Here is the deal though, some characters like the necromancer and paladin have tons of skills that are useful with just one skill. The sorceress has many skills that are almost required with just one point (warmth, tele, static, frozen armor, telekenisis). Even though these skills only require a point to be strong, would my game experience be better if I couldn’t use these skills?
Would it be a more fun game experience if we bottled the necro and paladin to 6 skills? No one point in vigor or holy shield? No one point in attract or decrepify? Just because a skill doesn’t require more than a point doesn’t take away the utility or usefullnes of the skill. And yes, I do feel like it takes away from a Diablo game to limit the number of useable skills. Let people find out what they like and which skills they want to use. Some people don’t want to mess with the skills teleknesis or redemption, should people not be able to use those skills at all or have to give up fireball to get them? Reward the player that wanted to spend 4 points on the tree to get lower resist to use in certain situations if they have the apm to use that skill tactfully.
Diablo 4 should not be an arcade brawler and that’s what 6 skill cap dictates. Up next - D4 items will feature no +skills or faster cast rate, again players want simple things such as damage and stats.
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And again, don’t claim you want complexity and your choices to matter, when you want to have access to all skills at all times.
This is BS. What did we do in D2? Spam one skill and then play the buff/debuff piano.
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What? I’m not sure what you mean. How is it more complex to choose 6 skills that you will dump all your points into?
Are you saying that my 10 skills that I use are actually only 7 cause everybody takes telekenis and teleport? Not sure what you’re arguing.
Nah dude, some of the skills are buffs sure. Crowd control is a skillful use of apm. Some monsters have immunities and need different types of damage. There should be problem solving and skill in being good at D4.
Skill points don’t make the game more complex, it’s the same thing. There is no real choice to improve your build, at best you have the ability of making bad choices.
That’s why limiting your skill bar actually makes your choices matter, because then you don’t have all abilities available at all times.
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You argue skill points doesn’t make a game more complex. Ok, we weren’t even arguing about that though. You’re dodging the issue.
Oh, your choices matter more because you only get 6? sure. But how is that not making things worse for players?
Edit: let me reframe that question. How does limiting 6 skills make a game with more player choices?
Blizzard thinks so yes.
And they are right to some degree. Limiting skills slots makes the skill decisions matter more. Restricting the player is important in games.
BUT, 6 slots are too low imo, it ends up reducing build diversity, because everyone need the same types of skills in those 6 slots. I’d like 7 or 8 skill slots a lot more. But not substantially higher than than that, and certainly not unlimited skill slots.
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Why not make it to where most character just find using ~8 skills is all they need? But they can use more or less if they want, some skills won’t be worth it and you can design the game in such a way to do this.
Let people do what they want, don’t chastise em and treat us like kids. That’s why I don’t play Diablo 3.
As we saw in D2, a lot of skills are likely to be come “one point wonders” if the skill slots are unlimited. Which I think is bad. That also reduces build diversity, because everyone pick up those skills.
Using less skills than the skill slots allows for should certainly be a viable option.
There should certainly not be enough skill points to max all your skills, no matter what the skill slot cap is. Sadly unlimited skill points seems to be the goal in D4 right now. Which feels like a much bigger problem than the slot limit to me.
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The current skill bar is repulsive, literally. I see it and it makes me feel sick and like D4 is already doomed to be another corporate cash grab. If everyone has the option to use the one point wonder (some one point wonders are more discretionary), then it just increases the skill cap to have more skills and makes things more interesting. Things Diablo4 needs. Diablo 4 should be a PC game, not a Playstation game that you can play on PC.
Proper design will not have most of your characters using a dozen skills but maybe a savvy necro player may want to have one point in 4-6 curses or something. Design should be where most players use about 8 skills but it ranges based on the player choices.
I can’t help but feel like the skill cap is a financial decision because ports.
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ill take 1 point in vengeance, max zeal, max holy shield, (defiance and sacrifice synergies) anytime over spending 5 points to get conviction skill.
I REALLY hope the Devs review this issue of granting unlimited skillpoints, that worked on D1 cos the sorceror was the only class that could master all spells due Magic atribute, but with even more specific class roles like in D2 it will just hurt the game if every class can max all spells.
#letsnotdumbdownclassestothelevelofamobahero
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Again, stop blaming consoles for stuff you don’t like.
PoE is now on consoles without losing any ability.
FFXIV has be on consoles since the PS3, and it has far more abilities that you use regularly than D2 ever did.
And PC players have asked for the ability to use a controller too.
Just because you don’t like that i’m suggesting that a skill cap is implemented for consoles doesn’t make it any less true. I will go ahead and suggest that until a strong case changes my mind. It’s a hard sell for me that hard capping - restricting player choice and game complexity is for the best of Diablo 4.
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Yet you have no proof, just bias against consoles.
As plenty of games prove, using a controller is no excuse to limit the number of player skills.
You can easily argue that a skill cap is not beneficial to the game.
Still doesn’t mean that the cap is there because of consoles though.
Considering Blizzards dumping down of gameplay pretty much across the board in all their games, it seems quite reasonable to believe the issue here is Blizzard, and not consoles.