And why on earth would such a system be maintained on a controller? That’s the problem when you argue from ignorance, you simply can’t fathom how things work with a proper controller UI.
Again, there are games actually being played right now on a controller that use far more abilities than you ever needed for any D2 build.
If you don’t maintain parity or near parity between the versions of the game then the look and feel will amount to different games with the same name on different platforms. It can be done, but over time the games will potentially diverge. This can end up helping a version 1 platform and hurt another version on a different platform.
You keep talking about a proper controller UI but you still want to ignore the lack of speed/accuracy issue of controller. Keyboard and mouse are meant to be precise/specific inputs. Controller is much less precise. D2-LoD requires precision/accuracy in bulk loads.
The controller is the limiting factor in console game design which is why so many console games are driving, or FPS or just designed around first person. If you look at BatMan, Witcher 3, Shadow of Mordor they all have the weak, leap-forward and roll mechanic. Once you get to the 6th, 7th, 8th, 10th game that have that mechanic they all start to look way too similar. The abilities start to look way too similar in style or execution. This similarity soon goes from a benefit to detractor because the games become shallow and predictable.
Keep in mind you still have yet to locate any of those DH videos. If you do go hunting for D3 Console DH videos you will notice that the DH character only moves and shoots in one direction. You don’t see the DH moving in 1 direction and firing in another via rapid stutter stepping. I’m open to you correcting me though.
You don’t need absolute parity between keyboard and controller UIs for people to enjoy playing the same game with either control scheme.
Again, you’re arguing from ignorance because you can’t even fathom what a good controller UI is. You keep expecting a controller to follow the same logic that a keyboard scheme uses.
I showed and proved my point with evidence, explanation, and videos to demonstrate my points. Where are those stutter stepping DH videos?
Just because you were a bad player don’t blame everyone else who actually knows how to play the game and prefer to use more than 6.
You didn’t prove a thing. There doesn’t need to be absolute parity between control schemes.
The fact that there are console games that have more active abilities than any D2 build ever had already proved you wrong.
Did I ever say that I only used 6 skills? I actually pointed out that in D2 most builds in a class used all the one-point wonders.
This is a bit silly. You would not use 19 skills. It would be quite inefficient.
Not needed if you have direct keys for each skills. D2s skill selection for LMB/RMB is horrible. I thought everyone on Earth agreed on that?
But if you used that setup, you could easily have unlimited skills on any type of controller.
By adding a second modifier button, you would be able to handle all these the same way as the skills.
Only needs one button total.
All the rest could be added on a controller just fine. The example in my previous post had 29 different button activations.
While I agree that the problem with controllers are the precision (and NOT the amount of buttons), the above kinda doesnt make sense. FPS by definition is high precision. There is a reason why FPS games are kinda horrible with controllers.
Diablo/A-RPGs also require precision, but surely not as much as an FPS does.
Yes. That is the danger with controllers. That the abilities added, are designed around the low precision. Like AoEs being based on your character, so you dont have to target it for example. That would be really bad.
It has absolutely nothing to do with consoles. When you people understand, games prior to D3 had way more inputs than 6. It was a design decision. Humans have 4 fingers and mice have left and right clicks. It makes sense to have 6. Im also willing to be the average skills used regularly in D2 was 6 or less. It had nothing to do with consoles when fighting games have used more than 6 for years before D3.
I mean it’s an easy areative to claim dumber dow for consoles. But it’s wrong. Especially when FF14 and POE exist and D4 still has 6. Simply put, it’s a design decision.
I disagree, I think there is some truth to it that the game was dumbed down for consoles. I mean, everything was dumbed down so it was either purely a design decision that just so happened to be great for consoles or it was a design decision to make the system great for both platforms.
The rmb lmb system is actually pretty great, I’ve never heard anyone complain about it and plenty of people are still enjoying it. In fact, I think a large majority of d2 players would prefer lmb rmb over 6 static keys.
How was it great for consoles though?
Having to click twice to do anything seems endlessly worse than direct skill access.
I don’t think so and he’s why Marvel Heroes Online is what D3 would have been had Blizzard North been allowed to finish it and it only has 8 slots, one which was typically used for healt packs. So it had 7 skills. Only one more than D3. Brevik said in an interview with some streamer when asked about his D3, he said MHO is what it was going to be. Not sure if it was planned for consoles back then, doubt it, but even the original creators were going to limit the total skills.
6 skills dumbed it down a lot as well as less complex itemization and character management.
Actually it’s like you just click once. I transition between skills instantly and it never feels lile im doing two inputs with D2. I guess it’s cause youre constantly moving with your mouse and it feels natural to aim the cursor and fire with your mouse. Have you played much D2? If you have I think you would find the systems quite nice. The game has been out 20 years and I’ve literally never heard anyone complain about this. Maybe cause the left hand switches skills while the right hand executes, you can easily skills switch between attacks or quaff potions, hold force move or force stop etc
Edit: as far as marvel heroes and what they said, obv marvel isnt diablo and who knows what exactly david liked from marvel (obv it wouldnt be exactly like mho). If it didnt happen it’s all supposition. If brevik had d3 I’m sure it would habe been quite different from the iteration at launch
I just watched the Brevik interview “it is a very different game than I would have created” on D3 - Brevik @ 6.5 minutes in. He actually elaborates and talks about how different it would have been than what Blizz North would have created and why. Basically that when they closed North, they lost a lot of arpg experience and that South makes games a different way, more story focused, etc. He said he built MHO to be more game focused.
Ok, I just watched the interview. Where does he say MHO would have been Diablo 3 if he created it? Toward the beginning he says he wanted to combine an MMO with an arpg for D3 but then it got cancelled then his next mmo/arpg at Flagship got cancelled so he was delighted to create an mmo/arpg in MHO. He never says anything about MHO being the next D3 or anything.
Fascinating, David came up with Diablo as a junior in high school. He got the name from a nearby mountain called Mount Diablo haha.
That doesn’t sound good for console though.
I am not arguing D3 isn’t dumbed down. It very clearly is.
Quite a lot yeah. I’m not saying it destroys the game or anything. But direct keybinds for each ability is surely superior.
Ya I guess sometimes I’m just holding right click to move so when I use a skill I can just hold shift to force use the move or it execute when I right click the monster or stop and right click again. I think for having several skills it is quite smooth and as to which is superior, that would be subjective. I like more than 6 skills and this system works very well for D2.
It’s great when you have a skill like frenzy, you can set it on your right click and move/frenzy continually by just holding right click. You can still quaff potions while you’re move/frenzying. In Diablo 3 you would have to left click to move then click a button every time you want to use frenzy then left click to move again. This would repeat and the rmb would be way less buttons in this instance. It’s also nice you can do things like hold right click and shift to spam hammers, etc. D3 witch doctor flame breat thing you have to move into position then hold the button and then click again to move again. D2 just release the shift key and you’re moving again. It has some advantages.
Edit: the 6 skills, the lack of charms, runes, monster resistances all seem conducive to a console port to me. I think if you tried to port D2 to console it would be tricky. Do you think a D2 port would be easy?
Basically, Brevik says that the developer of D2 is not the same developer as they lost all of their people at Blizz North and Blizz South didn’t handle D2 or arpgs. That’s why this game is an action game centered around the power of your weapon with no loot hunt. Makes a lot of sense as to why D3 is so actiony and has such a WoW feel to it.
LOL 
It allows you to use more than a WoW skill bar. You can use skills with less total inputs. More skills are easily available. LOLOLLL
It’s why so many are still playing D2 obviously, cause the rmb lmb system is so terrible. And also why so many are playing D3 now instead 
It’s not terrible, but great? If that were true most games would be copying it.
Thankfully we have much better control schemes nowadays.
TBH the bigger problem and what kinda needs to be addressed is whether or not you can change stuff during combat. Don’t feel the 6 skills cap at a time being a problem, but rather whether or not can reasonably/quickly change
I keep seeing this argument pop up around here and the ironic part is the WoW playerbase complains about how much the game has been “Diabloized” these days.
Blizzard created some kind of new monstrosity with Diablo 3, and then they turned WoW into the MMO version of it.
Also yeah, the rmb lmb system of D2 is terrible. There’s a reason why modern aRPGs didn’t copy that setup when they were copying basically everything else from Diablo 2.
I can’t even say it was good at the time. Limiting the game’s combat down to 2 buttons for skills sounds like something that if Diablo 3 did, people would cry about it being done “Clearly to cater to consoles, PCs can handle more buttons!”.