After trying D4 for some time i have come to many thoughts regarding my decision to shelf it for now. Some have already been expressed in other threads but i just wanted to touch on one that is more personal to me and what l liked from D3 that i don’t see in D4.
In the leveling process of D3 you unlocked skills and over time additional runes would unlock that gave you ways to adjust/alter the skill in one way or another.
I always liked that because not only did it give variety in a skill such as if you like the concept of say a Sorcerer with their arcane orb but got to change if it was arcane base, fire based, or even smaller size but bigger explosion perhaps.
Or perhaps say a Barbarian Whirlwind where you could choose a rune to suck in mobs, heal you when you crit, or create little dust devils.
The point being that while leveling you could alter and change to your liking as you wanted with the click of a few buttons. Need more survival? Change a skill to a rune the boosts more survival. Need more aoe? Change a skill to a rune that favor more aoe/spread damage. Just get an upgrade in gear that give you more than enough survival? change that previous run you had for survival back to something else that maybe you want to improve on.
The fluidity of it just felt better than current D4. Long story short of D3 skill tree compared to D4 as to not repeat what others have said in other posts: in D4 You tend to pick a build/route, lock yourself in, and grind away hoping to get more gear to compliment that build. No changing mid build unless you want to respec the whole thing over and realocate every point.
The other thing D3 rune system gave was expanding the skills by letting the runes change the damage type. If you like the mechanic of frozen orb or the bounce of the chain lightning but currently are going fire those skills tend to be left by the wayside.
In a D3 rune system you would have been able to keep the mechanic of that spell you love but now have it change to fire to fit what you were going for.
That’s sorta the thing: Despite what people say negative of D3 i personally liked the options, the choices, the diversity in the rune system to compliment whatever it was i was doing or help me to pick and change things to compensate for what i need or am going for while leveling and playing.
Now i know, and will likely here it here as in other threads, that the end game resolves some* of the issues because you have all te gear or all the aspect power to make* a build work. But there is a glaring problem and a truth that is said but not openly admitted when those arguments are made: That the build/spec works “only” once you have everything at the end level MEANING in the early leveling and casual playing stages you are left playing around with things that are admitted to not work or function WITHOUT said gear/powers.
That’s part of why i left D4: The idea of slogging through leveling till you get to the end level to THEN have fun just seems unpleasant to me. One should be able to enjoy the full experience start to end. That as you level you grow stronger, gain new skills, unlock new things, and get to build out and test things openly.
To have so many builds* gated/locked back behind gear and powers that you may never see till the end game just feels wrong. I’m not advocating all that power early on, in fact it’s less on power and more on mechanics and what skills do that i am referring to.
Changing a skill to be a different element or exchanging some single target damage for more cleave/aoe i think is what was great about runes: really letting you customize your skills without necessarily making you stronger in damage i thought balanced the rune system out.
But as it stands i just don’t see D4 going that route for the future in any shape or form. Maybe it’s not the game for me and that’s ok because maybe it fits what someone else is looking for. But i thought i would give my two cents on why i think some, like myself, maybe are feeling like we just don’t like this iteration of the game as compared to D3 that some of us may have started with and came from.