instead of Blizzard making the 'right' choices for me
OK, I understand that when people say D2 only had an illusion of choice. I get that there are optimal builds. But do I need an optimal build to truly enjoy the game? No. I played D2 with friends only. About 5 of us, and we'd have the most noobtastic builds you can imagine, some useful, others just lmao funny. We had a Barbarian with 10 levels of leap, and all he did was jump around trying to 'disturb' the creeps while we tried to slowly kill them. I suppose none of us would have lasted 2 seconds in PVP against optimal builds. However, we sat there, thought about what our favorite skills were, increased INT for our barbarians so we could use WW longer, and we loved it. Each character was planned by us, played for hours for fun, and while they might 'suck', we still snailed our way through Hell and had a lot of fun with our unique characters and builds that WE made.
Now, D3 makes the right choices for me. But instead of an RPG, it feels more like a 'connect the dots' game. This comic pretty much sums up what I feel like about leveling in D3
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iRE1f7T37Zk/TS8I2B62zdI/AAAAAAAAAUk/Z5Vk3IQcX5g/s1600/12.+Connecting+the+Dots.gif
EDIT: OK I've read a lot of posts and I think I finally understand why many people DON'T want others to be able to allocate stat points. Simply because, they're afraid that others can have better, more efficient characters! Basically, their reasoning is, if stat points are auto assigned, then everyone would be the same and therefore they would never be at a disadvantage. And because they always have 'the same' characters as other people, they'd never have to re-roll. But, if people were given the freedom to allocate their own stat points, someone would make a better character than them and suddenly, their character would be 'gimped' and 'useless' and they'd need to reroll and 'follow a build'. By forcing everyone to be the same, they'd never be outplayed by other people. By forcing everyone to be the same, they'd never be 'bad'.
Here's what I think: If you want a safe way to play the game and be able to finish Inferno, then good, Blizzard has an auto allocate skill point system that will ensure you, your character will be good enough to finish Inferno. Hooray. For other people who want to mess around with their stats, LET THEM. If they screw up and won't be able to finish Inferno, that's their own problem. Would it affect you? No. If they succeed and make a character different from what Blizzard is offering but still effective, then kudos to them. They put thought into making their own unique character different from everybody else, and it worked out for them. Will their success affect you? No. Basically, if you want your stat points to be auto allocated, great, go ahead. But if others want to mess with their stat points, why try to stop them? It will in no way affect your own game.
I'd rather play it my way and suckSource
There are billions of potential build combinations for each class not counting passives or gear or anything else, that's just skill choices. There is no way there will not be non-optimal or even downright crappy build choices you can make.
Good players understand that our default skill groups could guide them toward some decent build combinations (although you can still make some awful ones), and they'll then turn on Elective Mode and experiment for themselves to see what choices they can make to fit their desired play style.
Good players understand that our default skill groups could guide them toward some decent build combinations (although you can still make some awful ones), and they'll then turn on Elective Mode and experiment for themselves to see what choices they can make to fit their desired play style.
05/02/2012 05:13 PMPosted by TacobeefIn D3, Blizzard neutered everything to such a point that the differential between BEST and WORST is probably about 5%. On one hand, you might say "Wow, Blizzard did a great job balancing". But by removing all choice, customization and the awe of discovery - this has created a very boring game.
Please explain how your statement is accurate. I'll be right over here.
05/02/2012 07:01 PMPosted by Tacobeef
Please explain how your statement is accurate. I'll be right over here.
As long as your goal isn't to ban me for saying something you might not like...
Your developers are very skilled and have learned a lot from WoW. All abilities are tuned based on level. All abilities are tuned against each other. Assuming a consistent skill level, there is no difference in DPS output as long as you pick generators and spenders. Obviously there are a billion bad builds consisting of all spenders and all generators. I think it's fair to say we can dismiss those, but there is no possibility to create higher powered characters just by rearranging the generators and spenders. All abilities and runes are functionally equivalent from a purely mathematical standpoint.
On the off-chance there is even a hint of someone doing higher DPS or taking less damage than Blizzard would like, it will get nerfed back into the baseline expectation. The goal is for everyone to be the same. This is why everything potentially random is controlled to the maximum degree. Skills and given out on a schedule, points are assigned in a specific manner. Loot is given out tuned for your current level. This is so you could automate test Diablo in a way to ensure that there are almost no possibilities for statistical outliers. You have very smart people on your staff with statistics degrees who's job is to ensure this.
This was not as big of a concern back when Diablo 2 was made, and there was no financial motivation to keep players from feeling bad about making a mistake and potentially losing out on RMAH customers.
Thank you for listening to your fans.
Wow I didn't actually expect you to reply with anything of substance, so plus one for you! Of course you kind of 180'd on your original comment, but that's ok I actually believe you were intentionally only commenting on the 'obvious non-optimal builds' in your critique.
So, a couple things, Diablo for a lot of people is about non-optimal builds. It's about finding some crazy-!@# build that no one thinks should logically work, and using your knowledge and skill of the game to defy logic and make it successful. So just switching skills between direct parities is probably not going to be a monumental discovery that will win you an award in character building. But, that's not where the real fun and challenge of character builds generally come in. It might be fun for you though because one skill is purple and one is yellow and you really love purple, and if that makes the game awesome, awesome. As you said there are plenty of bad choices to make, which means there are plenty of non-optimal - but still potentially viable - builds to attempt.
The issue that you're taking though is actually one of customization. What you're saying is that by having these close parities between skills there's less choice, and in fact the exact opposite is true. If there are sharp distinctions (as you argue is superior) then there are sharp separations, and sharp separations means that very clear correct choices emerge. By having more parity it allows for more customization as it allows players greater freedom in choosing the skills they want to use, and not the skills they have to use because the math makes it so. Again though I'd argue that there's plenty of gray area in character builds, and that's where the true excitement and discovery comes from.
Does that make sense?
