and the good news for people who prefer the way Diablo 3 works is that you can still play that.
Blizzard didn’t start talking about Diablo 4 going back to the series roots because they wanted us all sitting around playing a 20 year old game we’ve all owned for decades.
Indeed, but the selection of what is or should be able to be chosen IS… In real life, you can change your mind. Almost no choice is permanent–even the choice to chop off a limb can be undone… with varying degrees of success depending on the method and how much time has passed. But in RPGs it’s no problem… just suck down a healing potion.
In real life, it would take you decades to go from the equivalent of a level 0 swordsman (for example–the diablo classes don’t exist in real life, so…) to level 70. No (A)RPG is that realistic, nor should it be: That would be fun for just about no one. But if you want to stick to the realism argument, fine: An expert swordsman–the equivalent of level 70–should be able to change fighting styles, and the tactics they use, pretty easily. Not to mention that they never have to make a choice to use only a limited subset of the tactics that are available to them–they can use everything they know, which could be dozens of skills and tactics. But more to the point, having to start from scratch, just to play with a different build/style, is not FUN, for a large portion of the gaming community. Hence, respec functionality.
This is a game. In the end, any argument based solely on realism falls down, because it can not be realistic. Nor should it be. What it should be is FUN. And designing any sort of simulation, unfortunately, involves making tradeoffs that will be fun for some people and not so fun for others, especially when the mechanics being simulated are completely fantastical, as with Diablo. You don’t like the choices a particular game made? Play a different one. Or if it’s a simple matter of preferring a particular feature not have been included, that’s easy too: Don’t use it.
Diablo 1 was the first game I was “addicted” to, Diablo 2 was the first game I hungered for pre-release and by the time Diablo 3 was released it was a massive nostalgia hit.
At a guess, I played each game about the same amount and I although I hadn’t given it much thought, 1 & 2 did have a better RPG experience. I remember thinking (early on in D3) what’s the point of playing a character more than once… other than to get a male and female variant?
However, being much older (and time poor) than I was when I discovered D1, D3 was more playable for me because I could respec. I could experiment, equip any combination of the gear I found, discover crazy new fighting styles or skill combinations without having to play the whole campaign over and over again.
As the Old El Paso girl says… “Why can’t we have both?”
Hardcore: no respec, when you die you don’t come back
Core: no respec, when you die… well you ain’t really that dead
Softcore: respec all you want, “Don’t worry, nobody dies in this story. They just get really big boo-boos”
Keep all the stashes and progression separate but have a game mode where you can test stuff out. Maybe some people would only play this way much the same way that some people never play hardcore.
Thanks bud. What a clever little chappy you are. How about this, you play Diablo 3. I’m giving advice because the release devs said they wanted to hear feedback. I won’t buy this game if they don’t go back to their roots. And I’ll be very keen to see if they can get as many people to buy this game as Diablo 3. Maybe I’m wrong. But also maybe I’m not and maybe I’m right.
Bro. I’m with you when you talk about realism and D2! I think you didn’t go far enough! For realism sake we need to get rid of magic and undead and monsters. D4 should just be a bunch of pasty dudes (and dudettes) without any discernable ways to defend themselves going out getting thrashed by mobs.
And I’m with you on the inventory thing too. You get ONE 2H sword and that’s it. Forget about playability and fun. Those weps are heavy and if you’re getting chased by zombie dogs you can’t have more stuff to carry!
We’ve all been there right?
Nah, I’m good. Had my fill of D3 after playing for years. I’ll do what I always do: Wait to see if the next thing looks fun, and if so I’ll play it. If not I’ll skip it, and find a better way to spend my free time.
Exactly. They’ll hopefully build a new game that takes advantage of all the things they’ve learned since D2 and D3, and makes the game as accessible as possible for as many players as possible, since by and large that’s what makes Diablo games fun… at least with regard to multi-player modes. Tinkering with builds is a big part of what made D3 fun for pretty much everyone I know who played it, and plenty of people on these forums over the years, so I would expect you’ll see some form of enabling that in D4. I would also expect it won’t work like D3 or D2… whatever that entails.
Diablo 3 barely had builds. The skill system was a shallow shell of what it was in D2. I’m happy to have limited respeccing as long as the skill system is deep enough to allow for completely different playstyles on the same class.
I don’t care enough to read through 200 comments. I keep seeing “it makes the game more real”, this is a hack and slash dungeon crawler where you are grinding loot. 0 story.
I started with D1, played a ton of D2 and have grown up playing all the final fantasy games and role playing games in general.
If you’re looking for a real feeling game then you’re just filling in reasons to justify why D2 felt so real.
D2 wasn’t real, it just was unforgiving with choices. Convenience is the general direction of the masses now, look at the progress of WoW. Your talents actually mattered in WotLK and then they were simply cool perks. They dumbed down the game massively.
I agree with most of this… But I think it’s worth pointing out that in D3 “instant respec” really just means changing the skills you’ve selected from the pool of skills you have available to you. You still have to level up (the simulation for actually training in a combat skill) to be able to use it. And, importantly, this often happens in response to acquiring a new piece of gear, or at least is performance-dependent on having synergistic gear. This is eminently realistic: If you’ve acquired ring daggers (in real life, I mean), but you’re currently using a hunting knife, and you want to start using the ring daggers, your combat style and tactics will necessarily change, because of your change in gear–you don’t use ring daggers the same way you use a hunting knife. And… you have to train to use a skill before you’re effective at using it, which is what leveling up is meant to simulate… So the skill is in your bag of tricks, even if it’s not one you currently choose to use, based on your preferred style and the gear you own at the moment.
I really think those in the camp of “no respec 3v4r” (or even make respec harder) are not looking at this the right way. Even in real life, you can change jobs between two seemingly unrelated fields so long as they share certain core skills, potentially without any additional training, e.g. from software engineer to technical sales, or as in my case, from retail manager to sysadmin (with a degree in MIS). The sort of respec D3 enables is extremely realistic, and also a lot of fun for folks like myself who enjoy tinkering with builds, but don’t enjoy the tedium of leveling another toon to do it.
Now, perhaps that’s where the immersion argument comes in (and it’s one I’ve made myself)–if the process of leveling was inherently more fun (immersive, or whatever) it might matter less. But regardless, if you made me choose a static set of skills, and require me to re-level to use different ones, I’d have played D3 a lot less, and maybe not at all. And all my buds who also played are probably also in that camp… or at least much closer to that camp than the “make respec hard” camp.
I disagree with the premise that respeccing makes it not an RPG.
In a TTRPG, I as a GM can play with the results of fumbles and lack of skills and shape the story with it. You’ll find some interesting characters that way, and it can lead to some hilarious and dramatic moments. The player’s choices being permanent does not ruin the enjoyment of the game because I can imagine an outcome that works and we can still play. But this is a video game with technical limitations.
If a wrong stat spread leads to a less fulfilling gaming experience, and there’s no recourse like respeccing? In a game where the main function of my stats is solely combat?
I would hate to reach an endgame and find out that because I made these decisions at a previous level, now my character isn’t viable or suffers constant death, and there’s nothing I can do except wipe and start again. Especially as I don’t have much time to play as I get older. (Thank God for dadbuilds)
Now, If D4 were to have player choices that impacted the story or shaped things, I would 100% agree that Player choices should be permanent, and they should matter.
Yes, I know in my real life I often Summon a whirlwind that surrounds me and kills the monsters I have to wade through on my way to work.
Maybe life like isnt the best choice of words. The design choices all go together and work in synergy.
The fact of the matter is this is just another Bologna Sausage post from someone (you) wanting to take something away from other players when it’s not needed.
If you don’t like respeccing don’t do it, but don’t try to make that decision for me and other players.
No. I want game design to be centred around providing meaningful skill tree choices and unique fulfilling specialisations within classes such as with weapons and spell types in Diablo 2 you goose.
Here is why I think limited respec is bad.
What if someday you were drunk, sleepy and blur while respeccing your character on the last respec you had and screw up badly? Now your character is a useless and brick character that can’t even hunt the loot on his own. Even if the game has the way for you to make another respec token, there is no way your current useless character can find those ingredients especially when it involving killing monsters and bosses.
The title of your post is why respeccing is bad
Should everything be designed to protect the lowest common denominator from doing something stupid? Yeah you were dumb and screwed up. If I get drunk and put glass in my eye can I get the taxpayer to pay for my medical bill because I was an idiot?
How can you think this is even in the same universe as to be a valid comparison?
I feel after fleshing out my ideas more. I’m not as hardline against respeccing, I just want actual meaningful choice and deep customizable skill trees with synergy such as in diablo 2. Respeccing doesnt even bother me that much but I think theres an argument to be made for