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:
He can allow the ball to pass, without making a shot
He can defend his wickets by blocking the ball
He can deflect the ball into another direction, and score a run
He can drive the ball along the ground into the boundary to score four runs
He can drive the ball over the boundary without touching the ground to score six runs
And never mind the multitude choices he has when actually playing a shot at the ball. If our hypothetical player wants to reverse sweep, he will. Or if he wants to take a few steps forward to turn a yorker into a full toss before he strikes the ball, then he will.
The point I'm trying to make is that in Cricket, the players make use of every one of their skills at any time, and their choices happen depending on the situation. And they do not get penalized for making a particular choice.
The same applies to the Diablo 3 skill and rune system.
Think of it as if your character has been in training for many years, and he or she has aquired many different skills. And now, on the battlefield, when they encounter an enemy, they would most obviously choose which of their multitude skills will be the most effective in dealing with that enemy. The warrior will make use of every one of their skills at any time, depending on the situation...
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Peter Alexander DzomlijaDo you hear, huh? The Alpha and The Omega? Death and Rebirth? And as you die, so shall I be Reborn...
I can imagine swapping skills out for certain bosses / areas, but not constantly between individual fights. I think giving players the ability to do this can only be a good thing, though.
If people want to lock in a build, its easy dont swap skills. This way all you have to do is pretend the other skills are unavailable to you and your happy. Ill be happy swapping skills to suit what im doing, to try something different (like an all poison build WD for example) and yes there might be some skills that work better against some mobs so swapping is a good thing. But hey if your not keen on swapping skills re-read the first two sentences again. :-)
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Super Cop! He knows where you live, he knows where you sleep.
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.
And the whole argument about how having all skills available all the time destroys customization and options is a really stupid point. The customization is still there, you still need to formulate your build type, and see which skills work best together, or work best for you. The options are still there, you have more than 20 skills per class that can be customized in 5 different ways, so that's 100+ skill options and you have only 6 possible slots, not to mention passive skills that change your skill choices in many ways.
But then people will argue that since everyone will have all the choices available all the time, you have nothing that'll set you apart from anyone else. Yes, you do, since your skill bar will differ from anyone else joining your game. Unless you choose to switch your skills to theirs whenever they join your game. Or do you plan on changing your skills every 2 minutes or so. If so, then you are rather indecisive and scatterbrained, both of which cases still sets you apart cause very few people will have play styles like yours.
Since we are using analogies, here's my take on it:
Let's say the skill system is the equivalent of a buffet lunch, and the players are hungry guests standing with their plates at the ready. Now the plate is only so big, so you'll only get to have 6 portions on your dish and 3 salad portions on your side dish. No one will look at that buffet table in the same way, no two plates will look exactly alike, since we are different people with different tastes. Some may try something new, some will stick to what they know, while others will eat a bit here and a bit there.
I know, it's a strange way of putting it, but it's the best way of showing just how much people differ, even in the exact same conditions. We don't eat the same, so why would we be playing the game the same way?
i think its set up so youll probably still play with your main build due to cooldown and then when you get to new areas change it up a bit. Eventually find the skills that work for you the best. Its turning out to be quite a game hope it releases soon
Everyone can play how they like, but for me, switching is something I rarely do unless I have a new idea or want to try a new spell, or am just bored of my current build. It's hard to get a good feel for switching now with so little challenge and so few spells unlocked though. My feeling is that the goal of end game will be to figure out a build that can do pretty well in just about every situation, rather than waiting around 15 seconds every time you run into a new type of mob.
I have suspicion that there will be a certain areas, that will be impossible to pass without changing skills. Example - for bosses you will need mobility and defensive skills, and a single target DPS skill. It may be difficult to avoid a boss attack without a mobility skill, while for a larger packs of monsters you will need AOE dps, but i may be wrong.
In D2, if you wanted a change, people would just delete the char, be forced to transfer over ALL the gear and charms(usually in a dangerous drop-on-the-floor-and-rejoin-after-5-minutes way), rush the character back to hell, and level up again, and then complain about how annoying it was that they made one small mistake with a skill/stat point.
Now in D3, you don't have to do any of this, and people are complaining about how bad the system it?
Then later in D2, they added items that would allow you to reset your skill/stat points, which could be collected or traded for in no time at all.
And now people are still saying how much of a problem being able to access all your skills without penalty is?
I am very in favor of the skill/rune changes, mostly because of the headache runewords ended up being in D2... I could never seem to find the runes I needed to complete the words I was working on in a timely fashion, and by the time I did there was another runeword I wanted instead. I could easily see a huge problem arising with the original rune system for D3 depending on the rarity of what were the level-6 runes. I would guess that having a max-level rune would be a basic requirement of being competitive in Inferno, and I think it would suck horribly to get all the way to 60 and only have a couple of those runes. This, I believe, would force more people to the AH, and more importantly the RMAH, which would create an unnatural barrier to Inferno play. Of course, one could go back to Hell or wherever and try to farm the runes, but with SO MANY possible combinations given runes of different levels, then factoring in the rarity of the max-level ones dropping, that sounds like a huge pain.
I also really like the idea of constantly unlocking stuff like runes and skills every level (or few) all the way up to the level cap; it'll be a nice change from other games where new skills/variations start coming a LOT fewer and farther between as you get closer to the level cap, making the grind seem all the worse with less play-altering rewards.
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i would choose my own religion and worship my own spirit, but if he ever preached to me i wouldn't want to hear it. i'd drop him, a forgotten god, languishing in shame; and then if i hit stormy seas, i'd have myself to blame.
OK if we compare real life situation then it leads me to the problem with this system - it just does not feel realistic. And yeah you can argue that diablo is a fantasy world with magic and demons so why am I looking for realistic stuff but the idea is that there are some basic rules in fantasy so for example a barbarian should not cast spells and a zombie should not be more powerful than a demon.
So my problem with the current system is that the 6 skills limit just does not have any real explanation story wise. Does the barbarian actually knows all the skill but is just limited by the interface? if so then why do we have a cooldown while switching skills? if he does not then what exactly happens he just decides to himself "hmm ok I will ponder for a second BOOM! I now know how to whirlwind like crazy and leap attack" then he ponders some more and forgets how to leap/whirl but hey I can now shout and turn into a berserker.
Sorry but it feels kind of silly even for a fantasy... I mean can you think anyone writing a fantasy story like that? :/
What I don't like about the option to switch skills so easily without any penalty (minus the 15s cooldown) is that it encourages changing your skills between each situation such as just before a boss battle. I don't like this at all.
We are given 6 skills, and in my eyes this is seen as the player's choice of what they want to excel in. Do they want to be taking out groups of mobs or taking down single monsters more efficiently? If you concentrate solely on one type, then you'll be lacking in the other and this is a consequence that you've chosen upon yourself to be among the most effective at that kind of situation.
But with the choice of freely swapping, you can choose to take solely group killing skills to clear out the dungeon, then switch over to single target skills when you encounter the boss. You no longer suffer the consequences of having to balance - and because of this, it means every min-maxer will be switching skills between fights to stay on top.
On the other hand however, I like how we're given the freedom to try out all the skill and rune combinations to see what we like. Without it, we'd all be searching sites to see what each skill does from there and act accordingly, which isn't what anyone wants.
This is why I propose that your skills should be free to change with the cooldown as it is now, up until you step into inferno. Once you do that, you cannot change your skills again without some form of monetary penalty - or possibly even permanently, forcing you to restart a new character if you want to have something else. This way, since most of the players in inferno mode will consist of the most serious gamers that will definitely be taking advantage of the skill swap system, that would all change and they'd be forced to have to balance out their skill choices.
i hate cooldowns, they suck. had to get that outta the way.
i think most ppl are mad about the ability to change skills whenever you want because of uniqueness<------MOST REASON I THINK
In d2 when i was the sorc, i made a build that initially worked well through normal and nightmare, then when i got to hell i was screwed because all my choices were pointed in the lightning build, oh and this was b4 the respecs came in with the future patch, i had to start a whole new character again because i was not able to switch some of my skills to better the situation against light immunes. So i think skill swapping at anytime is a plus imo.
Oh and just for my sake of hatred towards the only thing in d3 that i see so far are the cooldowns, what gives?!!
i remember in d2 before patches when hydra and blizzard never had a cooldown and i loved using hydra being able to mutliply them with so many which equaled more damage as well. but then when they put it on cooldown i couldnt stand that skill anymore, less damaging it was and overall effectiveness same with blizzard.
how was that an awful analogy, im basically stating the ability to adapt to any situation like the rest of the posts above were saying. and the cooldowns was just an off topic thing
In D2, if you wanted a change, people would just delete the char, be forced to transfer over ALL the gear and charms(usually in a dangerous drop-on-the-floor-and-rejoin-after-5-minutes way), rush the character back to hell, and level up again, and then complain about how annoying it was that they made one small mistake with a skill/stat point.
Now in D3, you don't have to do any of this, and people are complaining about how bad the system it?
Then later in D2, they added items that would allow you to reset your skill/stat points, which could be collected or traded for in no time at all.
And now people are still saying how much of a problem being able to access all your skills without penalty is?
What I don't like about the option to switch skills so easily without any penalty (minus the 15s cooldown) is that it encourages changing your skills between each situation such as just before a boss battle. I don't like this at all.
If you enjoy playing with permanence, then play with permanence. You are not being 'encouraged' to do anything - play how you want to play. In addition, this notion that people are going to be constantly swapping skills to suit the situation is bunk. The situations in D3 are constantly randomized. You can't predict what's going to be around the corner - it could be an event, it could be a champion/rare pack, it could be ANYTHING which requires a change in tactics and a broad-base of skills. When you cannot predict what is coming next, people have no use for constant skill-swapping. Same thing for bosses - if Blizzard has made it such that bosses only require a specialized build to be trivialized, that's not a problem with the system, that's a problem with how Blizzard balanced their game.
Im fine with having any skill at anytime. I think that is a good change. It prevent situation likein d2 where a random super unquie monser was literally unkillable because of your skills, and that is kinda game breaking. My beef is with the linear progression and locking of certain runes up to 60.
In addition, this notion that people are going to be constantly swapping skills to suit the situation is bunk. The situations in D3 are constantly randomized. You can't predict what's going to be around the corner - it could be an event, it could be a champion/rare pack, it could be ANYTHING which requires a change in tactics and a broad-base of skills.
Of course, I never implied that you'll be swapping around every corner, just in those situations when you are given the freedom to do so. Before you encounter a difficult boss, you'll probably take your time to swap skills that best counters it. You don't have a definite build anymore, it's just another game where you need to analyse situations and rather than using your abilities to use your chosen skills effectively, it's more about using your abilities to find the best combination of skills for that particular purpose.
When you cannot predict what is coming next, people have no use for constant skill-swapping.
Events such as the jar of souls and the matriarch bones actually wait for you to activate them. This gives you a clear open window to swap appropriately.
Same thing for bosses - if Blizzard has made it such that bosses only require a specialized build to be trivialized, that's not a problem with the system, that's a problem with how Blizzard balanced their game.
Blizzard will balance their game so that any possible combination of skills won't trivialize the bosses, which as a consequence will mean that it will be even more difficult for those using sub-standard skill combinations.
What I don't like about the option to switch skills so easily without any penalty (minus the 15s cooldown) is that it encourages changing your skills between each situation such as just before a boss battle. I don't like this at all.
If you enjoy playing with permanence, then play with permanence. You are not being 'encouraged' to do anything - play how you want to play. In addition, this notion that people are going to be constantly swapping skills to suit the situation is bunk. The situations in D3 are constantly randomized. You can't predict what's going to be around the corner - it could be an event, it could be a champion/rare pack, it could be ANYTHING which requires a change in tactics and a broad-base of skills. When you cannot predict what is coming next, people have no use for constant skill-swapping. Same thing for bosses - if Blizzard has made it such that bosses only require a specialized build to be trivialized, that's not a problem with the system, that's a problem with how Blizzard balanced their game.
thats called adapting to the situation my friend. the words in green
so the words in white mean the opposite its not bunk to those who like to adapt.
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To which Bashiok replied:
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:
The point I'm trying to make is that in Cricket, the players make use of every one of their skills at any time, and their choices happen depending on the situation. And they do not get penalized for making a particular choice.
The same applies to the Diablo 3 skill and rune system.
Think of it as if your character has been in training for many years, and he or she has aquired many different skills. And now, on the battlefield, when they encounter an enemy, they would most obviously choose which of their multitude skills will be the most effective in dealing with that enemy. The warrior will make use of every one of their skills at any time, depending on the situation...
Super Cop! He knows where you live, he knows where you sleep.
And the whole argument about how having all skills available all the time destroys customization and options is a really stupid point. The customization is still there, you still need to formulate your build type, and see which skills work best together, or work best for you. The options are still there, you have more than 20 skills per class that can be customized in 5 different ways, so that's 100+ skill options and you have only 6 possible slots, not to mention passive skills that change your skill choices in many ways.
But then people will argue that since everyone will have all the choices available all the time, you have nothing that'll set you apart from anyone else. Yes, you do, since your skill bar will differ from anyone else joining your game. Unless you choose to switch your skills to theirs whenever they join your game. Or do you plan on changing your skills every 2 minutes or so. If so, then you are rather indecisive and scatterbrained, both of which cases still sets you apart cause very few people will have play styles like yours.
Since we are using analogies, here's my take on it:
Let's say the skill system is the equivalent of a buffet lunch, and the players are hungry guests standing with their plates at the ready. Now the plate is only so big, so you'll only get to have 6 portions on your dish and 3 salad portions on your side dish. No one will look at that buffet table in the same way, no two plates will look exactly alike, since we are different people with different tastes. Some may try something new, some will stick to what they know, while others will eat a bit here and a bit there.
I know, it's a strange way of putting it, but it's the best way of showing just how much people differ, even in the exact same conditions. We don't eat the same, so why would we be playing the game the same way?
In D2, if you wanted a change, people would just delete the char, be forced to transfer over ALL the gear and charms(usually in a dangerous drop-on-the-floor-and-rejoin-after-5-minutes way), rush the character back to hell, and level up again, and then complain about how annoying it was that they made one small mistake with a skill/stat point.
Now in D3, you don't have to do any of this, and people are complaining about how bad the system it?
Then later in D2, they added items that would allow you to reset your skill/stat points, which could be collected or traded for in no time at all.
And now people are still saying how much of a problem being able to access all your skills without penalty is?
My conclusion is that these people are idiots.
I also really like the idea of constantly unlocking stuff like runes and skills every level (or few) all the way up to the level cap; it'll be a nice change from other games where new skills/variations start coming a LOT fewer and farther between as you get closer to the level cap, making the grind seem all the worse with less play-altering rewards.
So my problem with the current system is that the 6 skills limit just does not have any real explanation story wise. Does the barbarian actually knows all the skill but is just limited by the interface? if so then why do we have a cooldown while switching skills? if he does not then what exactly happens he just decides to himself "hmm ok I will ponder for a second BOOM! I now know how to whirlwind like crazy and leap attack" then he ponders some more and forgets how to leap/whirl but hey I can now shout and turn into a berserker.
Sorry but it feels kind of silly even for a fantasy... I mean can you think anyone writing a fantasy story like that? :/
Anyways sorry for rumbling
Potato eggs, mustard door cheese window road.
What you wrote doesn't even deserve a real response, so I gave you random words instead.
We are given 6 skills, and in my eyes this is seen as the player's choice of what they want to excel in. Do they want to be taking out groups of mobs or taking down single monsters more efficiently? If you concentrate solely on one type, then you'll be lacking in the other and this is a consequence that you've chosen upon yourself to be among the most effective at that kind of situation.
But with the choice of freely swapping, you can choose to take solely group killing skills to clear out the dungeon, then switch over to single target skills when you encounter the boss. You no longer suffer the consequences of having to balance - and because of this, it means every min-maxer will be switching skills between fights to stay on top.
On the other hand however, I like how we're given the freedom to try out all the skill and rune combinations to see what we like. Without it, we'd all be searching sites to see what each skill does from there and act accordingly, which isn't what anyone wants.
This is why I propose that your skills should be free to change with the cooldown as it is now, up until you step into inferno. Once you do that, you cannot change your skills again without some form of monetary penalty - or possibly even permanently, forcing you to restart a new character if you want to have something else. This way, since most of the players in inferno mode will consist of the most serious gamers that will definitely be taking advantage of the skill swap system, that would all change and they'd be forced to have to balance out their skill choices.
i think most ppl are mad about the ability to change skills whenever you want because of uniqueness<------MOST REASON I THINK
In d2 when i was the sorc, i made a build that initially worked well through normal and nightmare, then when i got to hell i was screwed because all my choices were pointed in the lightning build, oh and this was b4 the respecs came in with the future patch, i had to start a whole new character again because i was not able to switch some of my skills to better the situation against light immunes. So i think skill swapping at anytime is a plus imo.
Oh and just for my sake of hatred towards the only thing in d3 that i see so far are the cooldowns, what gives?!!
i remember in d2 before patches when hydra and blizzard never had a cooldown and i loved using hydra being able to mutliply them with so many which equaled more damage as well. but then when they put it on cooldown i couldnt stand that skill anymore, less damaging it was and overall effectiveness same with blizzard.
how was that an awful analogy, im basically stating the ability to adapt to any situation like the rest of the posts above were saying. and the cooldowns was just an off topic thing
haha i agree as well btw
If you enjoy playing with permanence, then play with permanence. You are not being 'encouraged' to do anything - play how you want to play. In addition, this notion that people are going to be constantly swapping skills to suit the situation is bunk. The situations in D3 are constantly randomized. You can't predict what's going to be around the corner - it could be an event, it could be a champion/rare pack, it could be ANYTHING which requires a change in tactics and a broad-base of skills. When you cannot predict what is coming next, people have no use for constant skill-swapping. Same thing for bosses - if Blizzard has made it such that bosses only require a specialized build to be trivialized, that's not a problem with the system, that's a problem with how Blizzard balanced their game.
Of course, I never implied that you'll be swapping around every corner, just in those situations when you are given the freedom to do so. Before you encounter a difficult boss, you'll probably take your time to swap skills that best counters it. You don't have a definite build anymore, it's just another game where you need to analyse situations and rather than using your abilities to use your chosen skills effectively, it's more about using your abilities to find the best combination of skills for that particular purpose.
Events such as the jar of souls and the matriarch bones actually wait for you to activate them. This gives you a clear open window to swap appropriately.
Blizzard will balance their game so that any possible combination of skills won't trivialize the bosses, which as a consequence will mean that it will be even more difficult for those using sub-standard skill combinations.
thats called adapting to the situation my friend. the words in green
so the words in white mean the opposite its not bunk to those who like to adapt.