You're assuming any further compromise is necessary. Blizzard obviously feels it isn't. I happen to agree, considering that all playstyles are currently supported. If you want permanence, you have permanence. Nobody is putting a gun to your head and forcing you to swap skills at any interval whatsoever. However, putting arbitrary timesinks, goldsinks, or restrictions on swapping does hamper those who want to skill swap at will.
The only further argument being made is on the faulty basis of some imagined imbalances that might occur as a byproduct of unlimited skill swapping. Again, wait and see if it's actually a problem before jumping to the conclusion that it is. The fact that Blizzard hasn't made any further changes, despite Inferno testing being in full swing, tells me it really isn't an issue. And if by some fluke they completely manage to miss the issue in testing, I'm sure there will be plenty of people bringing it to their attention at release - and they'll find a way to fix it.
You would likely be running into rare/champion packs that would benefit from having bash on your bars anyways.
We're limited to 6 skills at a time, so in our scenario it's a restricted choice between cleave or bash for fury generators. Keep in mind that your other skills will offer such variety as single target nukes, AOE nukes, defensive spells etc. All of which will cost fury. Clearly if cleave can get the job done most efficiently while you're racking up those fury points, you won't be needing to whip out your bash when you approach a rare encounter, you'll instead be unleashing the rest of your arsenal upon them.
People love to refer to how they'll skill swap for bosses, simply because you know where they are and what they do, but for the other 95% of what you'll be doing (running entire areas) you'll have no idea how the next champion/rare pack will challenge you.
So as your counterpoint to my claim, you're saying that there is no problem with the system because 95% of the time you won't be skill swapping?
Because of this you're being encouraged to develop a well-rounded build that can handle whatever randomness is thrown at you, not to skill swap.
You're absolutely right. Having to come up with a well-rounded build is what we want to have, and this is what would be happening during a dungeon run - but it's the bosses and possibly other special events that breaks this down.
In addition, pointing to the SK currently is a flawed example - the SK on normal is using a fraction of the abilities he'll have on Inferno. Inferno SK is going to throw a lot more at you to handle.
He'll be using more abilities against us? Doesn't that imply we need more defensive abilities? It doesn't negate the argument that bash > cleave however. And it could quite possibly mean that you'll even be swapping out your large AOE nukes out and that'll probably be a wasted skill as well in the later difficulties.
You can skill swap, if you want to. But since you say you prefer permanence, I would assume you'd rather find a well-rounded build you enjoy and stick to that. If you find yourself swapping skills out frequently, then maybe you don't like permanence as much as you pretend to?
I'm not going to be suffering a lack of performance just because I would prefer some permanence...
I could have spent hours finding the perfect version of the weapon I previous had, and it will more than likely give me a minimal boost in power - say, +5%.
Why would I work so hard to achieve this goal, but then gimp myself significantly by not swapping skills? Bash offers more than a +20% boost in power over cleave. Of course I'm going to swap, and everyone else that wants to excel in the hardest difficulties will do so as well.
Regardless, there's no good reason for forcing permanence on people, or instituting arbitrary gold/time sinks. People love to trot out the, "Builds should require thought!" argument - and they do. When you first make them. You know what doesn't require thought? Paying gold or waiting out a timer. The thinking is in coming up with a build, realizing it's not viable, and then analyzing what to do to fix it and actually fixing it via experimentation. No part of that process requires implementing arbitrary time sinks in the middle. To that end, Blizzard has intelligently cut out the middle man and let you get directly to the part that actually involves thinking - correcting your build's deficiencies, and doing so quickly and getting it out of the way, instead of having to first do things that require no thought whatsoever - such as paying a fine or waiting out a timer.
But there is no "One build to rule them all". There will be more viable builds for each situation, and you will learn what these are as you journey through each difficulty.
Have you heard some the alternate suggestions on how to fix this skill swapping issue? In inferno, you could be given the option of locking your skills into place to gain an MF/GF boost, and if you wanted to unlock them again, you had to pay a fine. This sounds like a pretty sweet deal considering it will force you to find a well-rounded build that can handle each situation reasonably well for the added MF/GF bonus, instead of handling each situation very well without the bonus.
Those that wouldn't take this option will be the ones that are swapping out their skills consistently and thus that means they find that more rewarding over the bonus offered.
We're limited to 6 skills at a time, so in our scenario it's a restricted choice between cleave or bash for fury generators. Keep in mind that your other skills will offer such variety as single target nukes, AOE nukes, defensive spells etc. All of which will cost fury. Clearly if cleave can get the job done most efficiently while you're racking up those fury points, you won't be needing to whip out your bash when you approach a rare encounter, you'll instead be unleashing the rest of your arsenal upon them.
Then your argument is essentially that you can't find a good reason to have bash on your bar. Not that you have any problem with skill swapping. Pretty easy fix - make bash worth taking. But it has nothing to do with the presence or absence of free skill swapping.
So as your counterpoint to my claim, you're saying that there is no problem with the system because 95% of the time you won't be skill swapping?
I think that having a problem 95% already solved and the other 5% you not being able to present a factual argument on is a pretty good state to be in. The solution for bosses? Make them require a well balanced build. Make bosses require aoe damage, single target damage, escape spells, movement spells, and crowd control. Ta-da. Your balanced build is now supported 100% of the time.
You're absolutely right. Having to come up with a well-rounded build is what we want to have, and this is what would be happening during a dungeon run - but it's the bosses and possibly other special events that breaks this down.
If you're already running around with a well-balanced build, you'll have a build capable of beating the bosses and special instances. Problem solved. Why do you need to know that other players aren't doing something you don't find fun, likely in other games you will never be witness to?
He'll be using more abilities against us? Doesn't that imply we need more defensive abilities? It doesn't negate the argument that bash > cleave however. And it could quite possibly mean that you'll even be swapping out your large AOE nukes out and that'll probably be a wasted skill as well in the later difficulties.
Again, you don't have a problem with skill swapping. You have a problem with the skill bash. If you want to argue that bash should be made more competitive, then do so. But it has nothing to do with the argument above.
I'm not going to be suffering a lack of performance just because I would prefer some permanence...
I could have spent hours finding the perfect version of the weapon I previous had, and it will more than likely give me a minimal boost in power - say, +5%.
Why would I work so hard to achieve this goal, but then gimp myself significantly by not swapping skills? Bash offers more than a +20% boost in power over cleave. Of course I'm going to swap, and everyone else that wants to excel in the hardest difficulties will do so as well.
Again, you assume that you will be gimped by a significant amount. You don't have any actual proof that that will be the case. Especially when we have developer commentary saying they intend for balanced, viable specs to perform within 1%-5% of each other. So, who should we listen to? The paranoid fearmongering of people who have no hands-on experience with the game or any portion of its development, or the developers themselves?
Blizzard has already said that they're fine with some specs offering up to a 5% advantage. There likely will be some out there that are. But that's not enough of an advantage as far as they're concerned to cause people to constantly skill-swap to optimize. The reality of the matter is you'll be able to get through the content with your balanced build. And the difference between that and an optimized build will be so negligible, you aren't even going to be aware of the difference. If you still somehow manage to convince yourself that skill-swapping is providing you some tremendous untapped advantage, and you feel compelled to skill-swap for that 5%, then more power to you. Nobody's going to stop you except yourself. Because nobody can control your own neuroses' but you.
But there is no "One build to rule them all". There will be more viable builds for each situation, and you will learn what these are as you journey through each difficulty.
Of course there is no 'one build to rule them all'. But there are as many viable builds as Blizzard can possibly squeeze into the game. This is accomplished by balancing individual skills against one another. If single target damage abilities A, B, C, D, E are all balanced against one another (by varying their damage/resource/cooldowns/mechanics), then it doesn't matter which flavor of damage-dealing ability you prefer in your build. They're all balanced against one another. It doesn't matter which type of escape ability you put into your build. They're all balanced against one another. It doesn't matter what CC, or AOE nuke, or battlefield control ability you choose to throw into your build. Because they're all balanced against one another.
"But but but, I can just put a bunch of damage on my bar and then I'll obviously be more optimal!" - You had to sacrifice something else to load up on damage. Have you sacrificed a vital escape skill you need for the fight? Or crowd control? Or movement? If I were Blizzard, I'd make sure that you can't load up on one specific purpose without neglecting some other vital component of your build. And since you have no proof that they have omitted this aspect, you should wait until the game is actually out before claiming they are as if it were fact.
In addition, you're apparently extremely worried about this 5% advantage. How do you expect this advantage to manifest? In all likelihood, you're only talking about damage-dealing abilities, because how do you gauge someone who escapes 5% better? Who has movement 5% better? Who has crowd control 5% better? These things aren't going to win the fight for you, all they will do is keep you alive longer. Damage is what wins the fight in the end, so I can only presume that damage is what you're so focused on. To that end, who CARES that a more optimal build will put out 5% more damage? It will be completely imperceptible to you and your teammates. And Diablo sure isn't going to care.
On top of that, even if you load up your entire bar with damage boosting abilities, you're still limited by several universal factors; your casting speed, and your resource pool. It doesn't matter how specialized you are into one particular goal if you can't put out any more than your limits will allow. You can't cast more than a single spell at a time. You can't constantly bomb your most resource-intensive abilities.
Have you heard some the alternate suggestions on how to fix this skill swapping issue? In inferno, you could be given the option of locking your skills into place to gain an MF/GF boost, and if you wanted to unlock them again, you had to pay a fine. This sounds like a pretty sweet deal considering it will force you to find a well-rounded build that can handle each situation reasonably well for the added MF/GF bonus, instead of handling each situation very well without the bonus.
Those that wouldn't take this option will be the ones that are swapping out their skills consistently and thus that means they find that more rewarding over the bonus offered.
The fact that you use the word 'forced' in the statement above says volumes about what you would like to do to other people's playstyles. Regardless, it still wouldn't force people to do it. If they wanted to play with constant skill-swapping, they would. This supposed advantage that is offered by skill swapping would still be there for those who do skill swap, and those who don't would get a bonus that has absolutely nothing to do with your combat effectiveness. That argument is ridiculous. It's nothing more than cognitive disonnance; you want to feel like a unique and special snowflake, and think you should be given special rewards for playing in the 'right' way. The fact that you don't want those rewards to even provide a combat advantage similar to what you claim skill-swappers are getting tells me that your argument that people would be advantaged by skill swapping isn't even the focus of what you want or a real concern in your mind. You're just using it as weak justification to try to get what you want.
I really don't understand why people are so resistant to this system. Just goes to show how a nostalgic mindset can close people of to exciting new possibilities.
Well said sir. I agree.
Please stop throwing around nostalgia as a blanket counterargument to people criticizing the new system. I can't think of many people that are arguing that respecs should be out of the game. Many people have concerns that allows skill swapping will take away the idea of builds, letting people quick switch their abilities on the fly for fights giving them huge advantages, particularly on boss fights. Basically when swapping skills is your best option, there is little restriction on a build. When you don't have restrictions when making a build there doesn't need to be any thought put into what you should take making your choice of 6 skills good over all, because you can just make up for areas of weakness in your build by supplementing them with other abilities in situations when having them instead of something else would hurt you. If you don't need to think about what goes into a "build", because you have access to near everything is there really even builds anymore?
Blizzard brought the number of skills you have in the game from 7 down to 6 so that you would have to think more about what you picked for your build. Now you just have to think more about what you need for that fight, and not what a build would need.
Maybe some people would like to play the game thinking out what abilities to use before each fight, but I was hoping for a system where the best way to play was thinking out and choosing your 6 abilities for your build. Not constantly swapping them for the most efficient play style.
Edit: I understand you can force yourself to play with 6 skills, but any game where you need to force yourself into actually making decisions has a hollow feeling.
You have the 15 second cooldown when swapping skills. What about skills that have really long cool downs? Something like the Wizard's Archon spell? Could you cast it, then once the cooldown starts, swap it out for something else whch you can use? Or, does the cooldown stay on the particular slot?
I just don't want there to exist a possibility for people to write macros to gain an advantage by swapping skills continunously.
While that cricket analogy is true in real life, let me expand on it a little.
That cricket player's skills are all related to cricket, just like maybe my pet-based Witch Doctor isn't any good at fighting without pets. If you ask the cricket player to suddenly go play pro basketball, he probably isn't going to be very good at it, just like how my Witch Doctor shouldn't be very good at being pet-less.
This is why most RPGs are more rigid in terms of re-speccing - they understand that it's not necessarily fun to have no respecs at all, but they also understand that part of the appeal of the RPG is that the character you create is the way they are because of the choices they made. Just like in real-life, a cricket player can't make the switch to basketball at the drop of a hat, so too should your RPG character be defined by the choices you make. In life, no one can be good at everything - if you put more training time into cricket, that's less time you have to train your basketball skills.
Fortunately, as Bashiok said, this is a videogame not real-life, and we can get to lvl 60 and then be good at whatever we want WHENEVER we want.
I do agree with what he says to a large extent - in the end, difficulty of respeccing is largely for the benefit of 'street cred', as he put it.
But how is it true for skill choices? There weren't just a right and wrong answer for skill choices in D2, but in D3 any sense of building your character through the choices of skills seems to have gone out of the window.
To which Bashiok replied:
I dislike real world analogies, but try this one on for size:
"That's like saying because you can change clothing, that assembling an outfit goes out the window."
When you're choosing skills, runes (and yes, there are choices as you unlock more and more of them), and gear, you're assembling them toward a cohesive whole. While you'll be free to change, that doesn't mean that you'll want to. The customization is there, but the sense of a whole 'thing' is there too. Much as you would change, for example, the jacket you're wearing with an outfit, you might swap a single skill, or change some runes around, but you can still arrive at something that works.
And even though Bashiok dislikes real-world analogies, I must provide one of my own in support of the ability to choose an unlocked skills and runes for our characters at any point in the game:
When a Cricket player is standing on the pitch, and the opposition has delivered the ball, he has several choices:
I was following till you said cricket.....Americans know absolutely nothing about that sport...
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
One is never hurt by being given additional choices, only by taking them away. A QUADRILLION MAGIC FIND is worthless if you can't kill shit!
You have the 15 second cooldown when swapping skills. What about skills that have really long cool downs? Something like the Wizard's Archon spell? Could you cast it, then once the cooldown starts, swap it out for something else whch you can use? Or, does the cooldown stay on the particular slot?
I just don't want there to exist a possibility for people to write macros to gain an advantage by swapping skills continunously.
If a spell is on cooldown, it can't be swapped. If you use something with a 2 minute cooldown, you can't swap out that spot for 2 minutes.
We're limited to 6 skills at a time, so in our scenario it's a restricted choice between cleave or bash for fury generators. Keep in mind that your other skills will offer such variety as single target nukes, AOE nukes, defensive spells etc. All of which will cost fury. Clearly if cleave can get the job done most efficiently while you're racking up those fury points, you won't be needing to whip out your bash when you approach a rare encounter, you'll instead be unleashing the rest of your arsenal upon them.
Then your argument is essentially that you can't find a good reason to have bash on your bar. Not that you have any problem with skill swapping. Pretty easy fix - make bash worth taking. But it has nothing to do with the presence or absence of free skill swapping.
What? I never said I can't find a good reason to have bash - just that cleave is a better choice for the dungeons, and bash is better for the bosses, and since most of the content in the game consists of large numbers of minions, cleave will be the obvious choice to have active most of the time, with the occasional skill swap to bash before a large boss fight of course.
I think that having a problem 95% already solved and the other 5% you not being able to present a factual argument on is a pretty good state to be in.
Fact - Bash has +20% more damage per swing over cleave
Fact - We are given ample time before encountering the SK to swap skills
Fact - If min-maxers pull their hair out trying to gain even the tiniest bit of strength, you can bet they'll be swapping skills, even at the cost of ruining their preferred style of a permanent build
The solution for bosses? Make them require a well balanced build. Make bosses require aoe damage, single target damage, escape spells, movement spells, and crowd control. Ta-da. Your balanced build is now supported 100% of the time.
So rather than having a quick and simple fix of restricting the skill swapping by offering a bonus in another form, such as the MF/GF boost, you feel it is a better idea that Blizzard goes back to the drawing board to reiterate all the bosses mechanics?
If you're already running around with a well-balanced build, you'll have a build capable of beating the bosses and special instances. Problem solved. Why do you need to know that other players aren't doing something you don't find fun, likely in other games you will never be witness to?
Well rounded means exactly that - You're effectiveness at tackling each different situation is standard. Specialized builds will be much more effective at dealing with the scenario they were built for, and players will obviously be changing their builds so that they're specialized for each encounter.
He'll be using more abilities against us? Doesn't that imply we need more defensive abilities? It doesn't negate the argument that bash > cleave however. And it could quite possibly mean that you'll even be swapping out your large AOE nukes out and that'll probably be a wasted skill as well in the later difficulties.
Again, you don't have a problem with skill swapping. You have a problem with the skill bash. If you want to argue that bash should be made more competitive, then do so. But it has nothing to do with the argument above.
Bash is already competitive. But here's the catch, only against bosses.
Please think more clearly about what I'm saying...
And I do have a problem with skill swapping. Why would I be supporting the cause to change the system if I didn't have a problem with it? It's not about the skill bash vs. cleave, that is just an example. If you want me to give you more examples you just need to ask. I can even offer you entire builds if you need.
Again, you assume that you will be gimped by a significant amount. You don't have any actual proof that that will be the case. Especially when we have developer commentary saying they intend for balanced, viable specs to perform within 1%-5% of each other. So, who should we listen to? The paranoid fearmongering of people who have no hands-on experience with the game or any portion of its development, or the developers themselves?
Blizzard has already said that they're fine with some specs offering up to a 5% advantage. There likely will be some out there that are. But that's not enough of an advantage as far as they're concerned to cause people to constantly skill-swap to optimize. The reality of the matter is you'll be able to get through the content with your balanced build. And the difference between that and an optimized build will be so negligible, you aren't even going to be aware of the difference. If you still somehow manage to convince yourself that skill-swapping is providing you some tremendous untapped advantage, and you feel compelled to skill-swap for that 5%, then more power to you. Nobody's going to stop you except yourself. Because nobody can control your own neuroses' but you.
But there is no "One build to rule them all". There will be more viable builds for each situation, and you will learn what these are as you journey through each difficulty.
Of course there is no 'one build to rule them all'. But there are as many viable builds as Blizzard can possibly squeeze into the game. This is accomplished by balancing individual skills against one another. If single target damage abilities A, B, C, D, E are all balanced against one another (by varying their damage/resource/cooldowns/mechanics), then it doesn't matter which flavor of damage-dealing ability you prefer in your build. They're all balanced against one another. It doesn't matter which type of escape ability you put into your build. They're all balanced against one another. It doesn't matter what CC, or AOE nuke, or battlefield control ability you choose to throw into your build. Because they're all balanced against one another.
"But but but, I can just put a bunch of damage on my bar and then I'll obviously be more optimal!" - You had to sacrifice something else to load up on damage. Have you sacrificed a vital escape skill you need for the fight? Or crowd control? Or movement? If I were Blizzard, I'd make sure that you can't load up on one specific purpose without neglecting some other vital component of your build. And since you have no proof that they have omitted this aspect, you should wait until the game is actually out before claiming they are as if it were fact.
In addition, you're apparently extremely worried about this 5% advantage. How do you expect this advantage to manifest? In all likelihood, you're only talking about damage-dealing abilities, because how do you gauge someone who escapes 5% better? Who has movement 5% better? Who has crowd control 5% better? These things aren't going to win the fight for you, all they will do is keep you alive longer. Damage is what wins the fight in the end, so I can only presume that damage is what you're so focused on. To that end, who CARES that a more optimal build will put out 5% more damage? It will be completely imperceptible to you and your teammates. And Diablo sure isn't going to care.
On top of that, even if you load up your entire bar with damage boosting abilities, you're still limited by several universal factors; your casting speed, and your resource pool. It doesn't matter how specialized you are into one particular goal if you can't put out any more than your limits will allow. You can't cast more than a single spell at a time. You can't constantly bomb your most resource-intensive abilities.
Ok it's clear what the problem is. I'll explain this just once, so pay attention.
You have a critical misunderstanding of what Blizzard meant by the best builds being at most 5% more effective than other viable builds. If builds were locked in place, then yes, this would be the case, but they're not - and this is the deal breaker.
With permanent builds, most viable builds will be roughly equal in overall effectiveness. This considers that a viable build which specializes in, say, AOE damage will clear out the dungeons faster, but slower at the boss encounter, while on the opposite end of the spectrum, a specialized build in single target damage will be slower through the dungeon, but quicker with the bosses (and champions, rares, etc.). Over the entire run however, they should equalize. Their strengths and weaknesses differ, but overall they're equal. The only difference with a well-rounded build is that it can handle each situation moderately, thus also being equal to the rest when you add it all up.
Now, with skill swapping, this is no longer the case. If you can grab a specialized build to take out the dungeon, then switch to a different build that specializes in taking out the boss, this is a significantly more effective "build" than choosing a well-rounded one and not switching.
I hope this clears it up for you, because it's really not that complicated.
The fact that you use the word 'forced' in the statement above says volumes about what you would like to do to other people's playstyles. Regardless, it still wouldn't force people to do it. If they wanted to play with constant skill-swapping, they would. This supposed advantage that is offered by skill swapping would still be there for those who do skill swap, and those who don't would get a bonus that has absolutely nothing to do with your combat effectiveness. That argument is ridiculous. It's nothing more than cognitive disonnance; you want to feel like a unique and special snowflake, and think you should be given special rewards for playing in the 'right' way. The fact that you don't want those rewards to even provide a combat advantage similar to what you claim skill-swappers are getting tells me that your argument that people would be advantaged by skill swapping isn't even the focus of what you want or a real concern in your mind. You're just using it as weak justification to try to get what you want.
It could look like that, if you didn't realize that skill swapping definitely gives a noticeable bonus.
Have you even played the beta? Because I have, many times in fact, and many other beta testers can agree with me that you're in the wrong. The only beta testers that wouldn't agree that skill swapping is more effective are either just ignorant, or haven't actually taken a moment to think about it or try it out for themselves.
What? I never said I can't find a good reason to have bash - just that cleave is a better choice for the dungeons, and bash is better for the bosses, and since most of the content in the game consists of large numbers of minions, cleave will be the obvious choice to have active most of the time, with the occasional skill swap to bash before a large boss fight of course.
You unknowingly are. See, you make the blanket statement that bash is better for bosses, and cleave is better for dungeons. This entire statement is based on nothing more than your own assumptions. Yes, bash does more damage to a single target while cleave does less damage to single targets but more if there's multiple; that's called a tradeoff. You make the completely uninformed statement that bash will be the go-to ability for boss fights; why? Have you been through Inferno? Have you verified that boss fights are so narrow in scope that they wouldn't throw tons of adds at you and benefit from having cleave on your bar? Have you been through the entirety of the game and verified that bash in combination with other skills isn't also equally viable for dungeon runs? You're apparently willingly ignorant at times that you WILL be running across single champions while running dungeons. Champions that you WILL be at a disadvantage against if you're using cleave instead of bash. What are you going to do then? Throw your faulty logic at that champion and say, 'HEY I'M IN A DUNGEON! IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE CLEAVE TIME WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE!?'
Fact - Bash has +20% more damage per swing over cleave
Fact - We are given ample time before encountering the SK to swap skills
Fact - If min-maxers pull their hair out trying to gain even the tiniest bit of strength, you can bet they'll be swapping skills, even at the cost of ruining their preferred style of a permanent build
And I haven't presented a factual argument?
Fact - Bash has 20% more damage per swing over cleave TO A SINGLE TARGET.
Fact - You have no clue or proof whatsoever that one is more advantageous than the other when fighting the SK on inferno.
Fact - If people are pulling their hair out when they don't have to, that's THEIR problem.
Fact - You still don't have an argument based in reality. You have an argument that assumes a bunch of things you can't verify in the slightest. And no amount of trying to make up facts will make your argument factual so long as it's based on things you have no first-hand knowledge of. Whatsoever.
So rather than having a quick and simple fix of restricting the skill swapping by offering a bonus in another form, such as the MF/GF boost, you feel it is a better idea that Blizzard goes back to the drawing board to reiterate all the bosses mechanics?
Why are you assuming that they haven't already done this and would need to reiterate?
Oh that's right. It's because your entire argument hinges on assumption.
Well rounded means exactly that - You're effectiveness at tackling each different situation is standard. Specialized builds will be much more effective at dealing with the scenario they were built for, and players will obviously be changing their builds so that they're specialized for each encounter.
And again, instead of actually rubbing two brain cells together and responding to the points you're actually presented with, you continue to regurgitate the same nonsense in a new way hoping that your point will be made any differently. It isn't. You continue to ignorantly pretend the fact that you're going to be running across completely randomized champion/rare packs doesn't exist, in which players won't be able to change their build for in advance, unless they have a maphack and can see both what and where the champion packs in the level are. Is that going to be your next assumption? That everyone is running around with maphacks?
So obviously dungeon runs aren't the problem when you can't accurately predict what's coming next. Knowing your next argument will be "Well then what about bosses!" - See the above. If Blizzard is smart (and they are), they will have designed bosses to require a well rounded build. At it's heart, Diablo is a co-op game. They're not making this game for obsessive min-maxers who are freaking out over perceived advantages that may or may not exist. Nobody is comparing damage meters. People just want to get through the content. And if you make a well-rounded build, you will. If you want to specialize to the circumstance and eke out a little advantage for yourself, you can. But nobody is FORCING you to do so. I know that I'm not going to. I'm going to find a nice build I like, settle into it, and enjoy it until I get bored of it. And, SURPRISE, I'll be able to get through the content! The balancing is NOT binary. It is NOT a case of 'either they balance around skill swapping and content is too hard for people who don't', or 'they don't balance against skill swapping and the content becomes too easy for those who do.' It is ENTIRELY possible for them to make content which remains difficult regardless of whether or not you skill swap. If you don't understand how this would be (entirely likely given how little you seem to understand of game balancing in general), I would be happy to educate you.
Bash is already competitive. But here's the catch, only against bosses.
Please think more clearly about what I'm saying...
Wrong. Also against randomized champions/rares tailored for single target high damage encounters whom you can't account for in advance. And then comes the tradeoff; yes you were either running with cleave, or you were running with bash. Are you going to be disadvantaged if you run across a champion that benefits more from bash with cleave on your bar? Of course. Are you going to be disadvantaged if you run across a rare pack that benefits more from cleave with bash on your bar? Of course. But there's nothing you can do about that except stop freaking out about your neuroses to min-max to every scenario when you don't even find it fun. It'll be FINE. You'll get through the content, and you might actually ENJOY yourself if you're not obsessing about what the fight would have been like had you been running in the absolute most perfect optimal build for it.
Also, you continue to make the completely uninformed assumption that Bash will be what you use against all bosses in Inferno. Yet another thing you can't verify or prove. Especially when in Normal, we already get adds in the SK fight. Do you need help understanding how an easy fight with adds on normal difficulty would scale up in Inferno? I can help you, if it's really that difficult for you to understand.
And I do have a problem with skill swapping. Why would I be supporting the cause to change the system if I didn't have a problem with it? It's not about the skill bash vs. cleave, that is just an example. If you want me to give you more examples you just need to ask. I can even offer you entire builds if you need.
You can give as many examples as you want - until it gets to the point where you can see all the champions/rares in a map in advance, or you actually have firsthand knowledge with Inferno boss requirements, the point is still moot.
Ok it's clear what the problem is. I'll explain this just once, so pay attention.
You have a critical misunderstanding of what Blizzard meant by the best builds being at most 5% more effective than other viable builds. If builds were locked in place, then yes, this would be the case, but they're not - and this is the deal breaker.
With permanent builds, most viable builds will be roughly equal in overall effectiveness. This considers that a viable build which specializes in, say, AOE damage will clear out the dungeons faster, but slower at the boss encounter, while on the opposite end of the spectrum, a specialized build in single target damage will be slower through the dungeon, but quicker with the bosses (and champions, rares, etc.). Over the entire run however, they should equalize. Their strengths and weaknesses differ, but overall they're equal. The only difference with a well-rounded build is that it can handle each situation moderately, thus also being equal to the rest when you add it all up.
Now, with skill swapping, this is no longer the case. If you can grab a specialized build to take out the dungeon, then switch to a different build that specializes in taking out the boss, this is a significantly more effective "build" than choosing a well-rounded one and not switching.
I hope this clears it up for you, because it's really not that complicated.
Again, your entire post above hinges on a bunch of assumptions you can't verify and faulty understanding of how players will interact with champions/rares. It's a critical misunderstanding on your part that assumes you will be able to compensate for the situation at hand in each case in advance, or that specialized builds will be viable or noticeably more effective in the various boss fights; something which can be mitigiated by forcing players to have a more well-rounded build via fight mechanics. The point of the game is to get loot. You get loot from champions, rares, and bosses. Champions and rares can't be predicted or accounted for in advance. Bosses can be designed to minimize the effectiveness of build specialization. Those are facts. Stop making assumptions until you have some actual experience in Inferno and evidence that the above is noticeably affected by skill-swapping.
It could look like that, if you didn't realize that skill swapping definitely gives a noticeable bonus.
Have you even played the beta? Because I have, many times in fact, and many other beta testers can agree with me that you're in the wrong. The only beta testers that wouldn't agree that skill swapping is more effective are either just ignorant, or haven't actually taken a moment to think about it or try it out for themselves.
Have YOU even played the Beta? Because you seem to be completely ignorant of the fact that it is a tutorial. Of course you can get significant gains from playing with the system on the first 1/3rd of the easiest act on the easiest difficulty. You only have access to 4 out of 6 skill slots. The SK is using a fraction of his abilities he'll be using on Inferno. The fight is purposely easy to ease new players into the game. Do you REALLY need me to explain to you how the situation will be vastly different in Inferno than the completely miniscule portion of the game's tutorial that you're familiar with, and why basing what actual inferno fights will be like on a TUTORIAL boss is not adequate justification for your argument? PLEASE tell me you don't.
I think the underlying problem is that this game isn't going to be what you want it to be. It's a co-op game about smashing monsters with your friends. It's about playing how you want to play. It's also not going to be nearly as tight on balancing requirements as WoW, where encounters are balanced on a razor's edge where 1% means the difference between a win and a wipe. It's being balanced more openly and loosely so as to encourage a greater diversity in build viability. And that's okay! Because the game can STILL be made challenging for everyone in ways other than having to eke out that extra 1%. The mechanics themselves can be made difficult, how the player is forced to react to a changing environment, or boss abilities, or environmental effects. The reality is, if you're going into this game with the mindset of 'omg omg I need to min-max if I'm not constantly swapping skills I'm disadvantaged!', then frankly you're going to be disappointed. Especially when you're imagining that you're being forced into doing something which you are in no way being forced to do.
Sorry that Blizzard disagrees with you on the philosophy of D3, but at this point we'll simply have to agree to disagree. There are plenty of other ARPG's out there which better cater to obsessive min-maxers and those who want permanence forced upon them.
Our high-level goal with this system has always been to give players a great degree of power to customize their characters. We believe we accomplished that early on by abolishing skill trees and moving toward an open-ended system where skills, rune variants, and passives are chosen at-will by the player in a flexible customization system.
Burzghash: you're a troll. I don't care how right you think you are, your posting etiquette sucks.
I only give back what I get. If you begin statements with, "I see what your misunderstanding is," and end them with, "It's really not that complicated," I'm going to clarify for you everything that you're ignorant on and not taking into consideration.
Fortunately, your commentary on my posting etiquette does nothing to refute my points or change what this game is going to be. As far as I'm concerned, today is still going to be an awesome day. Made even better by the fact that the statement above is (entertainingly) the only thing you have the wherewithal to come up with.
Burzgash, you yourself are also making the same crude assumptions, it's just that they are opposing mine. How do you know what's to be expected in inferno?
Can't you imagine a scenario where another build will be more effective at tackling some boss than the build you were using to get through the dungeon? Don't you think players will be swapping their build each time if they know the encounter is going to be a difficult one, and every extra ounce of strength counts?
Champions and rares may be randomized, yes, and you'll most likely have to tackle them without the possibility of swapping to the more effective build, but this is a choice that you've made based on certain criteria.
A certain dungeon may mainly consist of many weak, but fast creatures, so your build would likely be based around large AOE type spells. But then you run into the odd encounter of a rare pack, so what? You've cleared the main portion of the dungeon faster than you could've otherwise, so this loss in time is hardly a worry.
The next dungeon may be different however. It could be comprised of mostly fewer monsters but with more HP. This doesn't mean however that when you run into that one enemy that spits out faster little guys, that they'll bring you to your knees.
And then to the bosses. Some may be more about their large army of summons, or in the SK's case, about the boss himself. In Inferno, the few extra abilities may change your style of tackling the boss, but it doesn't complete neglect the fact that there will be a superior build with the encounter. There must be a superior build, because each boss is different in their own way. They have their own set of characteristics that defines the boss.
The SK doesn't move very much, but he can teleport to his chosen victim. With this info alone, you can already tell that snares will be pretty useless against him, while mobility type spells such as leap attack on the barb or vault on the demon hunter will be much more useful.
You can't tell me that you think because the bosses in inferno will have a few more abilities, they'll be completely well-rounded in every respect - as will all the other bosses.
It could look like that, if you didn't realize that skill swapping definitely gives a noticeable bonus.
Have you even played the beta? Because I have, many times in fact, and many other beta testers can agree with me that you're in the wrong. The only beta testers that wouldn't agree that skill swapping is more effective are either just ignorant, or haven't actually taken a moment to think about it or try it out for themselves.
Have YOU even played the Beta? Because you seem to be completely ignorant of the fact that it is a tutorial. Of course you can get significant gains from playing with the system on the first 1/3rd of the easiest act on the easiest difficulty. You only have access to 4 out of 6 skill slots. The SK is using a fraction of his abilities he'll be using on Inferno. The fight is purposely easy to ease new players into the game.
You dodged my question because you haven't. Thanks for making that clear, because it does explain a lot.
So what if it's a tutorial? You can still gather ideas about what the game will be like from the beginning acts. It's just like any other ARPG, there will always be a better way to do something.
If you've played D2 and remember it by any chance, could you honestly tell me that you wouldn't find it a little weird if a necro was running around using bone spirit while clearing the dungeons? A single target nuke is hardly a suitable spell to use in that situation, because bone spear could get the job done much more efficiently. But against pretty much every boss, the bone spirit spell was definitely effective.
If you think it's flawed reasoning to make an assumption that if it happened in D2, it could very well happen in D3 as well, then there's nothing else I can say or do to reason with you.
Our high-level goal with this system has always been to give players a great degree of power to customize their characters. We believe we accomplished that early on by abolishing skill trees and moving toward an open-ended system where skills, rune variants, and passives are chosen at-will by the player in a flexible customization system.
Blizzard has changed their mind about many things. They've even done complete 180's on even the most basic foundations of how they think the game should be played.
Were you here to see when they abolished the cauldron of jordan and salvage cube because they decided that keeping the action going was a bad decision, so now they effectively force players to go back to town to "take a break"?
You dodged my question because you haven't. Thanks for making that clear, because it does explain a lot.
Oh look, I can cherry-pick parts of your post as well.
Actually, I've been in since the very first F&F wave. Being that I'm friends with a Blizz employee. But thank you for continuing on the same trend of making arguments entirely out of assumption. I can take a screenshot of me logged in with a character name of your choice, but since I'm sure you're smart enough to know that my being in the beta or not is completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand and does nothing to refute my points (with you admitting as much by your following statements not addressing my point at all and going on another meaningless tangent of 'well it was kinda like this in D2 so please validate my baseless assumptions on how D3 should be...') I'm sure you won't embarass yourself further by asking me to do so.
As mentioned, agree to disagree. This game is not going to be what you want it to be. And as much as you would love to pretend that they're going to do a complete 180 in the 1th hour, the systems that are in place now are how they are going to be at release, because we have hit content lock. It's final.
Our high-level goal with this system has always been to give players a great degree of power to customize their characters. We believe we accomplished that early on by abolishing skill trees and moving toward an open-ended system where skills, rune variants, and passives are chosen at-will by the player in a flexible customization system.
And don't forget the 180 they did on the attributes. Conveniently, every time Blizzard changes its mind on a given idea, the proponents of the original idea are nowhere to be seen.
Change on attributes - before content lock.
Current system in place - after content lock.
Verbiage from Blizzard: Finalized.
But hey, don't let a little thing like reality stop you.
So in other words the system should stay the way it is because it's going to stay the way it is...?
If you believe that I've nitpicked through your post, please care to direct me to the point that you would like answered, because I'm too tired to read through the wall of text again.
I think the game is fine, but it can use improvements here and there. If they don't place skill locks in some form or another then I'll be joining the 'skill swapping to suit the situation' bandwagon.
I get why swapping skills would dramatically change the gameplay in a Hardcore or Competitive environment, but for typical play the timer seems unnecessary. I typically stick with the skills that I like, but I do try new skills when they become available. So the timer usually only comes into play now when I'm switching from a skill I don't like back to one I do like. I'm not going to keep using a skill I don't like instead of waiting 15s for the timer, which makes the timer nothing more than an annoyance standing between having less fun and getting back to having more fun.
If anything I actually preferred it when you could only change skills at the shrines. I would swap, test and swap until I found a setup I liked and then head back out into the fray. From a gameplay and lore perspective that actually made some sense (similar to "class trainers" in MMO's), rather than the current system where you can switch to a new skill instantly, but if you want to switch back to an old skill they slap an arbitrary 15s timer on the process.
If they don't place skill locks in some form or another then I'll be joining the 'skill swapping to suit the situation' bandwagon.
Has no affect on me or how I'll play in the slightest. Bearing that in mind, I hope that what you end up doing is actually fun for you. Because I know I'll be playing in the way I find the most fun.
If they don't place skill locks in some form or another then I'll be joining the 'skill swapping to suit the situation' bandwagon.
Has no affect on me or how I'll play in the slightest. Bearing that in mind, I hope that what you end up doing is actually fun for you. Because I know I'll be playing in the way I find the most fun.
What you or I do personally does not represent what the community does. But I can damn well bet that if a player works their heart and soul into gathering the best gear (which we can reasonably assume will be many) then they'll be squeezing out every last vessel of strength out of their build choices as well.
And being stronger actually has its own set of enjoyment, else I wouldn't waste my time MFing.
What progress if you cant pass them, some unique packs will have like a pattern you will need to follow if you don`t have those skills it will be very hard to pass so guess what ? people are not masochists, so they will change regularly, so the game resumes to swapping skills 24/7 like in a swapping festival.
You know what's funny? In Diablo 2 there were triple immune monsters, you HAD to change builds in order to kill them, but you COULDN'T change! In Diablo 3 there are no immune monsters, you CAN change builds, but you DON'T NEED to. Speaking about masochism
you never know.. there could be immune monsters in the later game, i dont see why they would make ice fire poison lightning enchants in the game just to simply not rectify it with immunities...jmo <-----i put the pirate because im good like that.
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The only further argument being made is on the faulty basis of some imagined imbalances that might occur as a byproduct of unlimited skill swapping. Again, wait and see if it's actually a problem before jumping to the conclusion that it is. The fact that Blizzard hasn't made any further changes, despite Inferno testing being in full swing, tells me it really isn't an issue. And if by some fluke they completely manage to miss the issue in testing, I'm sure there will be plenty of people bringing it to their attention at release - and they'll find a way to fix it.
So as your counterpoint to my claim, you're saying that there is no problem with the system because 95% of the time you won't be skill swapping?
You're absolutely right. Having to come up with a well-rounded build is what we want to have, and this is what would be happening during a dungeon run - but it's the bosses and possibly other special events that breaks this down.
He'll be using more abilities against us? Doesn't that imply we need more defensive abilities? It doesn't negate the argument that bash > cleave however. And it could quite possibly mean that you'll even be swapping out your large AOE nukes out and that'll probably be a wasted skill as well in the later difficulties.
I'm not going to be suffering a lack of performance just because I would prefer some permanence...
I could have spent hours finding the perfect version of the weapon I previous had, and it will more than likely give me a minimal boost in power - say, +5%.
Why would I work so hard to achieve this goal, but then gimp myself significantly by not swapping skills? Bash offers more than a +20% boost in power over cleave. Of course I'm going to swap, and everyone else that wants to excel in the hardest difficulties will do so as well.
But there is no "One build to rule them all". There will be more viable builds for each situation, and you will learn what these are as you journey through each difficulty.
Have you heard some the alternate suggestions on how to fix this skill swapping issue? In inferno, you could be given the option of locking your skills into place to gain an MF/GF boost, and if you wanted to unlock them again, you had to pay a fine. This sounds like a pretty sweet deal considering it will force you to find a well-rounded build that can handle each situation reasonably well for the added MF/GF bonus, instead of handling each situation very well without the bonus.
Those that wouldn't take this option will be the ones that are swapping out their skills consistently and thus that means they find that more rewarding over the bonus offered.
Then your argument is essentially that you can't find a good reason to have bash on your bar. Not that you have any problem with skill swapping. Pretty easy fix - make bash worth taking. But it has nothing to do with the presence or absence of free skill swapping.
I think that having a problem 95% already solved and the other 5% you not being able to present a factual argument on is a pretty good state to be in. The solution for bosses? Make them require a well balanced build. Make bosses require aoe damage, single target damage, escape spells, movement spells, and crowd control. Ta-da. Your balanced build is now supported 100% of the time.
If you're already running around with a well-balanced build, you'll have a build capable of beating the bosses and special instances. Problem solved. Why do you need to know that other players aren't doing something you don't find fun, likely in other games you will never be witness to?
Again, you don't have a problem with skill swapping. You have a problem with the skill bash. If you want to argue that bash should be made more competitive, then do so. But it has nothing to do with the argument above.
Again, you assume that you will be gimped by a significant amount. You don't have any actual proof that that will be the case. Especially when we have developer commentary saying they intend for balanced, viable specs to perform within 1%-5% of each other. So, who should we listen to? The paranoid fearmongering of people who have no hands-on experience with the game or any portion of its development, or the developers themselves?
Blizzard has already said that they're fine with some specs offering up to a 5% advantage. There likely will be some out there that are. But that's not enough of an advantage as far as they're concerned to cause people to constantly skill-swap to optimize. The reality of the matter is you'll be able to get through the content with your balanced build. And the difference between that and an optimized build will be so negligible, you aren't even going to be aware of the difference. If you still somehow manage to convince yourself that skill-swapping is providing you some tremendous untapped advantage, and you feel compelled to skill-swap for that 5%, then more power to you. Nobody's going to stop you except yourself. Because nobody can control your own neuroses' but you.
Of course there is no 'one build to rule them all'. But there are as many viable builds as Blizzard can possibly squeeze into the game. This is accomplished by balancing individual skills against one another. If single target damage abilities A, B, C, D, E are all balanced against one another (by varying their damage/resource/cooldowns/mechanics), then it doesn't matter which flavor of damage-dealing ability you prefer in your build. They're all balanced against one another. It doesn't matter which type of escape ability you put into your build. They're all balanced against one another. It doesn't matter what CC, or AOE nuke, or battlefield control ability you choose to throw into your build. Because they're all balanced against one another.
"But but but, I can just put a bunch of damage on my bar and then I'll obviously be more optimal!" - You had to sacrifice something else to load up on damage. Have you sacrificed a vital escape skill you need for the fight? Or crowd control? Or movement? If I were Blizzard, I'd make sure that you can't load up on one specific purpose without neglecting some other vital component of your build. And since you have no proof that they have omitted this aspect, you should wait until the game is actually out before claiming they are as if it were fact.
In addition, you're apparently extremely worried about this 5% advantage. How do you expect this advantage to manifest? In all likelihood, you're only talking about damage-dealing abilities, because how do you gauge someone who escapes 5% better? Who has movement 5% better? Who has crowd control 5% better? These things aren't going to win the fight for you, all they will do is keep you alive longer. Damage is what wins the fight in the end, so I can only presume that damage is what you're so focused on. To that end, who CARES that a more optimal build will put out 5% more damage? It will be completely imperceptible to you and your teammates. And Diablo sure isn't going to care.
On top of that, even if you load up your entire bar with damage boosting abilities, you're still limited by several universal factors; your casting speed, and your resource pool. It doesn't matter how specialized you are into one particular goal if you can't put out any more than your limits will allow. You can't cast more than a single spell at a time. You can't constantly bomb your most resource-intensive abilities.
The fact that you use the word 'forced' in the statement above says volumes about what you would like to do to other people's playstyles. Regardless, it still wouldn't force people to do it. If they wanted to play with constant skill-swapping, they would. This supposed advantage that is offered by skill swapping would still be there for those who do skill swap, and those who don't would get a bonus that has absolutely nothing to do with your combat effectiveness. That argument is ridiculous. It's nothing more than cognitive disonnance; you want to feel like a unique and special snowflake, and think you should be given special rewards for playing in the 'right' way. The fact that you don't want those rewards to even provide a combat advantage similar to what you claim skill-swappers are getting tells me that your argument that people would be advantaged by skill swapping isn't even the focus of what you want or a real concern in your mind. You're just using it as weak justification to try to get what you want.
Please stop throwing around nostalgia as a blanket counterargument to people criticizing the new system. I can't think of many people that are arguing that respecs should be out of the game. Many people have concerns that allows skill swapping will take away the idea of builds, letting people quick switch their abilities on the fly for fights giving them huge advantages, particularly on boss fights. Basically when swapping skills is your best option, there is little restriction on a build. When you don't have restrictions when making a build there doesn't need to be any thought put into what you should take making your choice of 6 skills good over all, because you can just make up for areas of weakness in your build by supplementing them with other abilities in situations when having them instead of something else would hurt you. If you don't need to think about what goes into a "build", because you have access to near everything is there really even builds anymore?
Blizzard brought the number of skills you have in the game from 7 down to 6 so that you would have to think more about what you picked for your build. Now you just have to think more about what you need for that fight, and not what a build would need.
Maybe some people would like to play the game thinking out what abilities to use before each fight, but I was hoping for a system where the best way to play was thinking out and choosing your 6 abilities for your build. Not constantly swapping them for the most efficient play style.
Edit: I understand you can force yourself to play with 6 skills, but any game where you need to force yourself into actually making decisions has a hollow feeling.
You have the 15 second cooldown when swapping skills. What about skills that have really long cool downs? Something like the Wizard's Archon spell? Could you cast it, then once the cooldown starts, swap it out for something else whch you can use? Or, does the cooldown stay on the particular slot?
I just don't want there to exist a possibility for people to write macros to gain an advantage by swapping skills continunously.
That cricket player's skills are all related to cricket, just like maybe my pet-based Witch Doctor isn't any good at fighting without pets. If you ask the cricket player to suddenly go play pro basketball, he probably isn't going to be very good at it, just like how my Witch Doctor shouldn't be very good at being pet-less.
This is why most RPGs are more rigid in terms of re-speccing - they understand that it's not necessarily fun to have no respecs at all, but they also understand that part of the appeal of the RPG is that the character you create is the way they are because of the choices they made. Just like in real-life, a cricket player can't make the switch to basketball at the drop of a hat, so too should your RPG character be defined by the choices you make. In life, no one can be good at everything - if you put more training time into cricket, that's less time you have to train your basketball skills.
Fortunately, as Bashiok said, this is a videogame not real-life, and we can get to lvl 60 and then be good at whatever we want WHENEVER we want.
I do agree with what he says to a large extent - in the end, difficulty of respeccing is largely for the benefit of 'street cred', as he put it.
A QUADRILLION MAGIC FIND is worthless if you can't kill shit!
If a spell is on cooldown, it can't be swapped. If you use something with a 2 minute cooldown, you can't swap out that spot for 2 minutes.
Fact - Bash has +20% more damage per swing over cleave
Fact - We are given ample time before encountering the SK to swap skills
Fact - If min-maxers pull their hair out trying to gain even the tiniest bit of strength, you can bet they'll be swapping skills, even at the cost of ruining their preferred style of a permanent build
And I haven't presented a factual argument?
So rather than having a quick and simple fix of restricting the skill swapping by offering a bonus in another form, such as the MF/GF boost, you feel it is a better idea that Blizzard goes back to the drawing board to reiterate all the bosses mechanics?
Well rounded means exactly that - You're effectiveness at tackling each different situation is standard. Specialized builds will be much more effective at dealing with the scenario they were built for, and players will obviously be changing their builds so that they're specialized for each encounter.
Bash is already competitive. But here's the catch, only against bosses.
Please think more clearly about what I'm saying...
And I do have a problem with skill swapping. Why would I be supporting the cause to change the system if I didn't have a problem with it? It's not about the skill bash vs. cleave, that is just an example. If you want me to give you more examples you just need to ask. I can even offer you entire builds if you need.
Ok it's clear what the problem is. I'll explain this just once, so pay attention.
You have a critical misunderstanding of what Blizzard meant by the best builds being at most 5% more effective than other viable builds. If builds were locked in place, then yes, this would be the case, but they're not - and this is the deal breaker.
With permanent builds, most viable builds will be roughly equal in overall effectiveness. This considers that a viable build which specializes in, say, AOE damage will clear out the dungeons faster, but slower at the boss encounter, while on the opposite end of the spectrum, a specialized build in single target damage will be slower through the dungeon, but quicker with the bosses (and champions, rares, etc.). Over the entire run however, they should equalize. Their strengths and weaknesses differ, but overall they're equal. The only difference with a well-rounded build is that it can handle each situation moderately, thus also being equal to the rest when you add it all up.
Now, with skill swapping, this is no longer the case. If you can grab a specialized build to take out the dungeon, then switch to a different build that specializes in taking out the boss, this is a significantly more effective "build" than choosing a well-rounded one and not switching.
I hope this clears it up for you, because it's really not that complicated.
It could look like that, if you didn't realize that skill swapping definitely gives a noticeable bonus.
Have you even played the beta? Because I have, many times in fact, and many other beta testers can agree with me that you're in the wrong. The only beta testers that wouldn't agree that skill swapping is more effective are either just ignorant, or haven't actually taken a moment to think about it or try it out for themselves.
You unknowingly are. See, you make the blanket statement that bash is better for bosses, and cleave is better for dungeons. This entire statement is based on nothing more than your own assumptions. Yes, bash does more damage to a single target while cleave does less damage to single targets but more if there's multiple; that's called a tradeoff. You make the completely uninformed statement that bash will be the go-to ability for boss fights; why? Have you been through Inferno? Have you verified that boss fights are so narrow in scope that they wouldn't throw tons of adds at you and benefit from having cleave on your bar? Have you been through the entirety of the game and verified that bash in combination with other skills isn't also equally viable for dungeon runs? You're apparently willingly ignorant at times that you WILL be running across single champions while running dungeons. Champions that you WILL be at a disadvantage against if you're using cleave instead of bash. What are you going to do then? Throw your faulty logic at that champion and say, 'HEY I'M IN A DUNGEON! IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE CLEAVE TIME WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE!?'
Fact - Bash has 20% more damage per swing over cleave TO A SINGLE TARGET.
Fact - You have no clue or proof whatsoever that one is more advantageous than the other when fighting the SK on inferno.
Fact - If people are pulling their hair out when they don't have to, that's THEIR problem.
Fact - You still don't have an argument based in reality. You have an argument that assumes a bunch of things you can't verify in the slightest. And no amount of trying to make up facts will make your argument factual so long as it's based on things you have no first-hand knowledge of. Whatsoever.
Why are you assuming that they haven't already done this and would need to reiterate?
Oh that's right. It's because your entire argument hinges on assumption.
And again, instead of actually rubbing two brain cells together and responding to the points you're actually presented with, you continue to regurgitate the same nonsense in a new way hoping that your point will be made any differently. It isn't. You continue to ignorantly pretend the fact that you're going to be running across completely randomized champion/rare packs doesn't exist, in which players won't be able to change their build for in advance, unless they have a maphack and can see both what and where the champion packs in the level are. Is that going to be your next assumption? That everyone is running around with maphacks?
So obviously dungeon runs aren't the problem when you can't accurately predict what's coming next. Knowing your next argument will be "Well then what about bosses!" - See the above. If Blizzard is smart (and they are), they will have designed bosses to require a well rounded build. At it's heart, Diablo is a co-op game. They're not making this game for obsessive min-maxers who are freaking out over perceived advantages that may or may not exist. Nobody is comparing damage meters. People just want to get through the content. And if you make a well-rounded build, you will. If you want to specialize to the circumstance and eke out a little advantage for yourself, you can. But nobody is FORCING you to do so. I know that I'm not going to. I'm going to find a nice build I like, settle into it, and enjoy it until I get bored of it. And, SURPRISE, I'll be able to get through the content! The balancing is NOT binary. It is NOT a case of 'either they balance around skill swapping and content is too hard for people who don't', or 'they don't balance against skill swapping and the content becomes too easy for those who do.' It is ENTIRELY possible for them to make content which remains difficult regardless of whether or not you skill swap. If you don't understand how this would be (entirely likely given how little you seem to understand of game balancing in general), I would be happy to educate you.
Wrong. Also against randomized champions/rares tailored for single target high damage encounters whom you can't account for in advance. And then comes the tradeoff; yes you were either running with cleave, or you were running with bash. Are you going to be disadvantaged if you run across a champion that benefits more from bash with cleave on your bar? Of course. Are you going to be disadvantaged if you run across a rare pack that benefits more from cleave with bash on your bar? Of course. But there's nothing you can do about that except stop freaking out about your neuroses to min-max to every scenario when you don't even find it fun. It'll be FINE. You'll get through the content, and you might actually ENJOY yourself if you're not obsessing about what the fight would have been like had you been running in the absolute most perfect optimal build for it.
Also, you continue to make the completely uninformed assumption that Bash will be what you use against all bosses in Inferno. Yet another thing you can't verify or prove. Especially when in Normal, we already get adds in the SK fight. Do you need help understanding how an easy fight with adds on normal difficulty would scale up in Inferno? I can help you, if it's really that difficult for you to understand.
You can give as many examples as you want - until it gets to the point where you can see all the champions/rares in a map in advance, or you actually have firsthand knowledge with Inferno boss requirements, the point is still moot.
Again, your entire post above hinges on a bunch of assumptions you can't verify and faulty understanding of how players will interact with champions/rares. It's a critical misunderstanding on your part that assumes you will be able to compensate for the situation at hand in each case in advance, or that specialized builds will be viable or noticeably more effective in the various boss fights; something which can be mitigiated by forcing players to have a more well-rounded build via fight mechanics. The point of the game is to get loot. You get loot from champions, rares, and bosses. Champions and rares can't be predicted or accounted for in advance. Bosses can be designed to minimize the effectiveness of build specialization. Those are facts. Stop making assumptions until you have some actual experience in Inferno and evidence that the above is noticeably affected by skill-swapping.
Have YOU even played the Beta? Because you seem to be completely ignorant of the fact that it is a tutorial. Of course you can get significant gains from playing with the system on the first 1/3rd of the easiest act on the easiest difficulty. You only have access to 4 out of 6 skill slots. The SK is using a fraction of his abilities he'll be using on Inferno. The fight is purposely easy to ease new players into the game. Do you REALLY need me to explain to you how the situation will be vastly different in Inferno than the completely miniscule portion of the game's tutorial that you're familiar with, and why basing what actual inferno fights will be like on a TUTORIAL boss is not adequate justification for your argument? PLEASE tell me you don't.
I think the underlying problem is that this game isn't going to be what you want it to be. It's a co-op game about smashing monsters with your friends. It's about playing how you want to play. It's also not going to be nearly as tight on balancing requirements as WoW, where encounters are balanced on a razor's edge where 1% means the difference between a win and a wipe. It's being balanced more openly and loosely so as to encourage a greater diversity in build viability. And that's okay! Because the game can STILL be made challenging for everyone in ways other than having to eke out that extra 1%. The mechanics themselves can be made difficult, how the player is forced to react to a changing environment, or boss abilities, or environmental effects. The reality is, if you're going into this game with the mindset of 'omg omg I need to min-max if I'm not constantly swapping skills I'm disadvantaged!', then frankly you're going to be disappointed. Especially when you're imagining that you're being forced into doing something which you are in no way being forced to do.
Sorry that Blizzard disagrees with you on the philosophy of D3, but at this point we'll simply have to agree to disagree. There are plenty of other ARPG's out there which better cater to obsessive min-maxers and those who want permanence forced upon them.
http://us.battle.net...anges-2_18_2012
I only give back what I get. If you begin statements with, "I see what your misunderstanding is," and end them with, "It's really not that complicated," I'm going to clarify for you everything that you're ignorant on and not taking into consideration.
Fortunately, your commentary on my posting etiquette does nothing to refute my points or change what this game is going to be. As far as I'm concerned, today is still going to be an awesome day. Made even better by the fact that the statement above is (entertainingly) the only thing you have the wherewithal to come up with.
Can't you imagine a scenario where another build will be more effective at tackling some boss than the build you were using to get through the dungeon? Don't you think players will be swapping their build each time if they know the encounter is going to be a difficult one, and every extra ounce of strength counts?
Champions and rares may be randomized, yes, and you'll most likely have to tackle them without the possibility of swapping to the more effective build, but this is a choice that you've made based on certain criteria.
A certain dungeon may mainly consist of many weak, but fast creatures, so your build would likely be based around large AOE type spells. But then you run into the odd encounter of a rare pack, so what? You've cleared the main portion of the dungeon faster than you could've otherwise, so this loss in time is hardly a worry.
The next dungeon may be different however. It could be comprised of mostly fewer monsters but with more HP. This doesn't mean however that when you run into that one enemy that spits out faster little guys, that they'll bring you to your knees.
And then to the bosses. Some may be more about their large army of summons, or in the SK's case, about the boss himself. In Inferno, the few extra abilities may change your style of tackling the boss, but it doesn't complete neglect the fact that there will be a superior build with the encounter. There must be a superior build, because each boss is different in their own way. They have their own set of characteristics that defines the boss.
The SK doesn't move very much, but he can teleport to his chosen victim. With this info alone, you can already tell that snares will be pretty useless against him, while mobility type spells such as leap attack on the barb or vault on the demon hunter will be much more useful.
You can't tell me that you think because the bosses in inferno will have a few more abilities, they'll be completely well-rounded in every respect - as will all the other bosses.
You dodged my question because you haven't. Thanks for making that clear, because it does explain a lot.
So what if it's a tutorial? You can still gather ideas about what the game will be like from the beginning acts. It's just like any other ARPG, there will always be a better way to do something.
If you've played D2 and remember it by any chance, could you honestly tell me that you wouldn't find it a little weird if a necro was running around using bone spirit while clearing the dungeons? A single target nuke is hardly a suitable spell to use in that situation, because bone spear could get the job done much more efficiently. But against pretty much every boss, the bone spirit spell was definitely effective.
If you think it's flawed reasoning to make an assumption that if it happened in D2, it could very well happen in D3 as well, then there's nothing else I can say or do to reason with you.
Blizzard has changed their mind about many things. They've even done complete 180's on even the most basic foundations of how they think the game should be played.
Were you here to see when they abolished the cauldron of jordan and salvage cube because they decided that keeping the action going was a bad decision, so now they effectively force players to go back to town to "take a break"?
Oh look, I can cherry-pick parts of your post as well.
Actually, I've been in since the very first F&F wave. Being that I'm friends with a Blizz employee. But thank you for continuing on the same trend of making arguments entirely out of assumption. I can take a screenshot of me logged in with a character name of your choice, but since I'm sure you're smart enough to know that my being in the beta or not is completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand and does nothing to refute my points (with you admitting as much by your following statements not addressing my point at all and going on another meaningless tangent of 'well it was kinda like this in D2 so please validate my baseless assumptions on how D3 should be...') I'm sure you won't embarass yourself further by asking me to do so.
As mentioned, agree to disagree. This game is not going to be what you want it to be. And as much as you would love to pretend that they're going to do a complete 180 in the 1th hour, the systems that are in place now are how they are going to be at release, because we have hit content lock. It's final.
http://us.battle.net...anges-2_18_2012
Change on attributes - before content lock.
Current system in place - after content lock.
Verbiage from Blizzard: Finalized.
But hey, don't let a little thing like reality stop you.
If you believe that I've nitpicked through your post, please care to direct me to the point that you would like answered, because I'm too tired to read through the wall of text again.
I think the game is fine, but it can use improvements here and there. If they don't place skill locks in some form or another then I'll be joining the 'skill swapping to suit the situation' bandwagon.
If anything I actually preferred it when you could only change skills at the shrines. I would swap, test and swap until I found a setup I liked and then head back out into the fray. From a gameplay and lore perspective that actually made some sense (similar to "class trainers" in MMO's), rather than the current system where you can switch to a new skill instantly, but if you want to switch back to an old skill they slap an arbitrary 15s timer on the process.
Sure, let's add putting words in people's mouths to the list of logical inconsistencies. We're already on such a roll after all.
Has no affect on me or how I'll play in the slightest. Bearing that in mind, I hope that what you end up doing is actually fun for you. Because I know I'll be playing in the way I find the most fun.
What you or I do personally does not represent what the community does. But I can damn well bet that if a player works their heart and soul into gathering the best gear (which we can reasonably assume will be many) then they'll be squeezing out every last vessel of strength out of their build choices as well.
And being stronger actually has its own set of enjoyment, else I wouldn't waste my time MFing.