First off let me say how SUPER excited I am about D4. I loved the cinematic, I loved the game play, it looks moody and edgy; dark and gothic. I love it! This looks like the true successor to D2.
However, it looks like the devs on D4 are already making mistakes and it’s not even close to soon™ yet. During the first panel it was mentioned how much character customization and choice mattered. It was also mentioned that you were learning from your mistakes of the past.
If all that is true, the why the Diablo hell would you make what appears to be skill choices permanent? Nothing absolutely nothing in the word permanent or your choice to make skill choices permanent says customization or player choice. Sure we choose the skill but what if we don’t like it? Oh well sorry you are stuck with it? How do we test builds out? Make 30 of the same character?
Please if I am wrong here and this is not how it will work please please say something. But if I am right I urge you to nip this in the butt immediately. Better now than later at launch after you lose thousands of players because of one really bad idea that you never learned from.
Again I am very excited for this game, and it looks like it is headed in the right direction.
During the first panel it was mentioned how much character customization and choice mattered. It was also mentioned that you were learning from your mistakes of the past.
If all that is true, the why the Diablo hell would you make what appears to be skill choices permanent? Nothing absolutely nothing in the word permanent or your choice to make skill choices permanent says customization or player choice. Sure we choose the skill but what if we don’t like it? Oh well sorry you are stuck with it? How do we test builds out? Make 30 of the same character?
I agree with you 100%.
But there was some amount of feedback that D2 was better than D3 because D2’s permanent allocation of skill points was a superior way to do things. So Blizz went in that direction.
Myself, I like being able to have a character where I can go back and make changes. With permanent allocation, if a character turns out to be ineffective, you have to delete it and start from scratch with a new character. I’d prefer to be able to modify a character as needed to get it right, not have to start from the beginning.
But that point of view did not win out, apparently.
You sound like you want to switch an entire build with just few clicks. That was so terrible. D2 didn’t let you to change anything, yet everyone loved it. Yes, there will be characters, which should end up in the trash bin and that’s good. Imagine you can’t beat some boss because you lack crowd control abilities. Oh hey, just click some buttons and switch build. Horrendous idea. If they allow respecs, they should come at great costs.
I completely disagree.
Choices without meaning is pointless. Some amount of permanency makes the choices matter.
In Diablo 2 I might make a frost sorceress or a fire sorceress, or something way more specific than that. It gave characters identity.
In Diablo 3 you just make a Wizard. Which is the same as all other wizards.
This is a very good change imo.
Also, as they have said, you can get enough skill points to max all skills. So no, you dont need to make multiple characters if you dont want to.
But hopefully it might feel worth it to make multiple characters instead of grinding it out on just one.
Actually that was one of the things I HATED about D2. I want to be able to change a character skill layout on my terms, not have to make another character…
There is nothing wrong with having the option to change. You could however make an incentive to lock it instead for an additional bonus to something, be creative in that fashion, not restrictive.
I believe you’ll be able to eventually learn and max out all of your skills. The talent aspect however, you won’t be able to learn all, but you can re-spec.
They are saying you can respec the talent tree whenever you want. Sounds like D3 respeccing. Only the skills are permanent.
So far anyway.
I’d like some cost to respeccing talents too.
My ‘dream’ system would be a concept somewhat based on Sacred 2’s survival bonus.
Have a slowly increasing bonus build up as you play, giving you stuff like magic find/gold find and what not.
If you die, the bonus resets completely.
If you respec your character, the bonus resets, or alternatively, gets -X amount, since otherwise respeccing would essentially be free after a death.
While I myself prefer the idea of sticking with a build and not having the complete freedom that Diablo 3 had I think there could easily be a compromise of sorts.
Imo a rare commodity drop could work well with changing skill or passive allocations but as stated it would need to be rather rare. Maybe if you accrue enough of this commodity you could then have a full reset.
But Diablo 3’s way was far too easy in that the only different between your different characters was the name and sex (as far as I remember).
I honestly believe Diablo 2 had the best method whereas characters could freely respec only 3 times, any further respec had to be earned via in-game content.
Kind of like the socket item for weapons in D3. Have a material with a ‘limited’ supply for respecs on the talent tree but make it a bit of a chore to get so it always feels like a limited resource that has meaning behind it.
In D3 leveling up to 70 is a chore absolutely meaningless. A build is the same, absolutely dependant on gear.
I hope they don’t go this way and re-speccing possible but limited / at a cost.
So if you go lightning sorc, you stick to it. maybe later you find more items suited for a fire sorc and you decide to switch, fine, meet the criteria to earn the re-spec and do it.
I mean something possible but that you gotta think twice before doing so, not like changing your build 3 times a week.
I played Diablo 2 right on release, they did let you change out skills but it wasn’t easy. If I remember correctly though in the beginning you could not and I absolutely hated it. You really want to screw up your high level character by either selecting the wrong skill or somehow accidently choose the wrong one for whatever reason and be stuck with it? I dont want a free push me button and dont care if its a cost button. I just want the ability to fix or try other builds without having to make 100s or characters.
One of the worst ideas in D2 was to make things permanent the way they were, and the majority agreed and that is why it was changed.
If they did say this than my point is mute. I did not see this or read it anywhere. If this is true than awesome I would gladly grind out what is needed. Thanks for the heads up.
Personally I was a huge fan of D2, I loved it and had more hours put into it than anyone should have. I just absolutely hated that I had to remake a character so many times when i either made a mistake or wanted to try something new with the same character. They eventually changed it thankfully. But as other have already stated, I guess you be able to eventually get all the skills so hey kool.
Dont get me wrong, there might be no meaningful choice in that. Hard to tell yet. It very much depends on how they balance stuff.
But…
Lets say for example that it takes 1000 hours to max skills on one character, But it takes 50 hours to lvl a new character and get enough skills for a single build.
It might be much easier to start a new character than fix “mistakes” (or just a desire to try something new) on a previous one, even if is it theoretically possible. In that case, the choices made on each character is still meaningful - at least until you do actually max a character, at that point the meaningful choices are gone. But that can be okay. That is what seasons are for I guess.