I very much would if I ordered in my language and she spoke my language.
The majority of gamers just understand fine with that term.
In which case D3 would have no meta.
This whole “discussion” is a bit weird. I bet every single person here knows what meta means in the context of Diablo 3. And why it is bad and should not be repeated in D4.
I’ll just repeat myself from earlier:
Which I guess is Zymurgeists argument too, in relation to dominant strategies. When your game is shallow, offering very few challenges, it leads to a very narrow meta (as in, very few ways you can play effectively). Which is bad game design. In a perfect world there should be be hundreds, thousands or millions of ways to deal with a situation.
A game like Stacraft offers this, partly due to its complex “soft” rock-paper-scissors design, and partly due to it being PvP, with people adjusting to each other. Something you can’t really get out of a PvE game. At least not in the world we live in today.
Diablo could at least have the “soft” rock-paper-scissors design though (“soft” meaning, 100 rocks might beat 1 paper). Where different monsters need different strategies. And not the shallow meta we know from D3: Cluster up as many mobs as possible, and AoE them down. Throw in a zDPS character or two to execute the strategy.
Excellent summation.
That would be quite easy to program actually.
Diablo player uses melee skill -> AI mobs start kiting him
Diablo player uses ranged skill -> AI mobs start charging him
Boss always switches weapon and play style to counter the skill used by player
It won’t be much fun, however. If you code the AI to play optimal, you end up with players changing builds and not progressing further.
And aRPGs are about progressing and developing your character in a world that’s kind of static - that’s the best way you can measure your progress properly (this also shows why D3 paragon is a joke system). And it’s a pro argument for having respec costs since minimizing the weaknesses and maximizing the strengths serves for more deeper character progression than simply always evaluating what’s optimal.
I mean, sure, and I hope we see that. But those are scripted responses. Not really comparable to a PvP scenario of people adjusting to each other.
And scripted responses themselves will become part of the meta. Players will do specific things to trigger specific responses from enemies.
A case of that is the Souls games, where the most skilled players know exactly at which range to stand and what to do, to trigger specific boss attacks. Playing in certain ways, to make the bosses act less dangerously.
Most players dont bother with, or know, that, but the very top? They certainly do.
Which is not a problem, as it allows for skillful play, by abusing the enemy design. That in itself is gameplay that rewards skill and knowledge.
Just again, quite different from a SC PVP match, where the opponent can see if you try to counter it.
But it is exactly the kind of thing Diablo 4 should go for. Enemies behaving in different ways, both based on their types, but also somewhat based on what you do.
If enemies tried to run out of your AoE in D3, that would already help a bit (not much, due to CC, of course).
Though I agree, they should not react too much, a ranged build should obviously be allowed to play as a ranged build, and a melee char should not have to run helplessly after every single monster trying to kite you.
Rather, the monster type should play a bigger role than reacting to the player. As in, some enemies will charge you, no matter what the heck you do.
So, for the AoE example above, rather than all monsters running out of AoE, some monster types should just be designed as being anti-AoE. Always running out of it, or taking less dmg from AoE, or getting enraged whenever a puny human tries to AoE or CC them.
Yeah. Static and shallow is not the same however.
Having 1000 different enemy types, doing 1000 different things, which you need to adjust to, is still static.
Indeed it is.
If you have enough of these switching based on current and recent player gameplay approach it won’t be much different than having adaptive AI at least for solo. ARPGs are much simpler than RTS games like SC and WC due to player controlling a single unit and not developing a base.
The more advanced AI you have in the game the more the skill cap raises. What they can do in D4 if they go in the direction of implementing more advanced AI (scripted or not) is to make it triggerable after certain GR level for example so normal players aren’t affected by this. It could be a game for the experienced players, to make them try more builds and gameplay styles.
This becomes difficult if there is high respec costs at end game 
Probably the same
I usually create my own variations to builds, thus never adhiring to true cookie-cutter fashion, so this wouldn’t effect me much personally.
I don’t think it would increase diversity at all. IMO, all it would do is force people to look for set builds that work on sites like maxroll.gg. This happens anyways, but this would put more of an emphasis on finding the best builds online because you don’t want to screw up your character. This is a concept that has to be designed around in order for it to work. D3’s design would not do well with such a feature.
Less:
All features that add complexity to this aRPG, wich i play as an arcade mobblaster, within a frame of immersion and Good vs Evil Lore are unwanted.
Yes, that’s why the middle ground regarding respecs is the best case scenario - make free respecing possible at the cost of something. For example MF, thus at late game when you have all the gear, you won’t need MF, and you can free respec as much as you want without feeling penalized, but in early/mid game you’d be forced with a choice.
If it costs something, it’s not free.
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It’s “free” in the sense of not falling behind those who won’t do it (since you gain other type of advantage when doing it) - something you can’t have with their current implementation of respecs.
They won’t do respecs in D4 as you have them in D3 aka completely free.
…not actually being free.
The cost should always stay relevant. Not become meaningless toward the end of the game.
Perhaps not overly burdensome while reducing the tendency to tweak a build into a thousand minor situational variations. Choices need meanings and changes that have no disadvantages aren’t truly choices at all.
I’m not opposed to it just curious about the reasons why.
I dont see any reasons why a character that has been played for 1000 hours should be cheaper to respec than one that has been played for 10 hours, if anything, the 10 hour character should probably be a bit cheaper, to allow for testing stuff while lvling.
The positive aspect of not being able to freely respec; having to commit to strengths and weaknesses in a build, enforcing meaningful choices, making combat more interesting when you cant optimize for everything, are as important at hour 1000 as it is at hour 100.
Similar to how a death penalty/survival bonus should aim to stay equally relevant throughout the game. If it is something you can ‘grow’ out of, it feels like it loses its purpose.
1 Like
Yes, but that’s the whole point - a player that grinded 90% of the Season with a single spec and has all the items deserves the luxury to free respec with these items.
In a game with little content and builds, I’d say “Scrap free respecing totally”. D4 won’t be such game however. Not allowing the player that has all the items to respec as much as he wants might be seen as demotivating and needless by many.
It’s okay the game to stimulate respec costs as long as the player progresses in the game. Once that journey is over and the player is capped/maxed, respec costs simply constraint the player from experiencing new gameplay. While that would be okay within a game with little to none content, it is wrong in a game with many builds that are to change each Season (and we expect D4 to be such game).
The whole idea here is to make respecs in such a way that:
- Grants most gameplay value to the player
- Prevents the player from having everything too soon too quickly
Free respecs with MF penalty would comply with the above two rules. Going to either the total free respec camp, or the non-free respec scenario violates one of these.
I dont get that kind of reasoning.
The players should not earn the right to break the game. That is just bad design.
If the game developer believes (which I hope they do), that free respeccing is bad, due to taking away meaningful build choices, then why would you make them “earn” something you think is bad for them?
Just like you should not allow players to “earn” immortality for their characters, a quadrillion DPS from gear, or endless gear raining from the sky, ruining the gameplay.
The rules of a game, especially those that tries to preserve the gameplay experience, should not be ignored just because “oh, I guess you played a lot…”.
That is not a reward, it is just your game falling apart, out of negligence.
Just because I have played 10000 hours of chess, I should not be able to move the pieces in whatever way I want, ignoring the game rules.
How is free respecing breaking the game?
You should be able to free respec (but get a loot penalty) from the start of the game if that’s your preferred play style. You’d simply disregard the value of the loot penalty in end game which is the whole point of the mechanic - to grant the player more gameplay.
Now, if there exist players in end game that have all the gear, but don’t want to use free respec - that’s simply a choice they’d make - to continue experiencing the old type of gameplay.
Such mechanic is good for all players in a game rich of updates.