In the end, I just think that Blizzard wants each player to be defined by the player rather than the tree. Give a man a skill tree, and he will become a Fire Sorc. Give a man 6 skills to choose from, pulling from all three trees, and he becomes a Fire Sorc that likes to shoot lightning to manage the bigger crowds. Or a Fire Sorc that likes to freeze stuff before he does his heavy-hitting fire moves. And frankly, in a group of 100, there might be 20 or so players who like to freeze stuff and then hurl fireballs too. But that's better than the alternative, where maybe 50 players are all Fire Sorcs, and that's the end of that story, you know what I mean? I think there are valid concerns out there about how this is all going to play out, but I don't see how anyone could disagree that the new system is Blizzard's gift to people who want to play the game and be different from everybody else if they so choose.
I need to start making a list of things we agree on so I know what we're discussing.
LOL that statement is the best statement I've ever read lol. You just made my night.
Can I take a quote from that for my signature?
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"Give a man a skill tree, and he will become a Fire Sorc. Give a man 6 skills to choose from, pulling from all three trees, and he becomes a Fire Sorc that likes to shoot lightning to manage the bigger crowds."
I feel like that was a great opportunity to lock this thread. =/
It truly was but then again you never read the whole thread anyway.
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"Give a man a skill tree, and he will become a Fire Sorc. Give a man 6 skills to choose from, pulling from all three trees, and he becomes a Fire Sorc that likes to shoot lightning to manage the bigger crowds."
I don't understand why people say that fact that you don't feel the need to look at a guide good is a positive attribute. I feel like Jay Wilson uses this as a cop-out instead of realizing that maybe it's easy to use because its so over simplified you cannot make a mistake.
I also still think that the reason they made these changes was a quick way out of balancing, instead of saying everyone is taking arcane orb over arcane missle maybe we should make arcane missle more attractive, they just say "OK lets just make it easier to respec to skip this ability".
I'm not sure if this new system will be good as I havent played the game, but it sounds like it will make the game really shallow when making each character.
The goal of this skill system the way I understand is simply: easy to get into and learn (Just choose skills you want swap out later, what have you) Now they constantly reiterate that it will be hard to master, which I think will be completely true. Sure you can choose whatever skills you want but its going to take some know how, experience and skill to figure out what best combinations are to make a very efficient fire sorc or frenzy barb, ect. Not only do you have to choose just the right skills and traits you also are going to have to figure out which runes will be best for such a build. On top of those decisions it will probably be very likely that the gear you choose is going to affect the efficiency of your build. This is where casual and hardcore gaming splits. Yes there will be the cliche builds, fire wizard, cold/ice wizard, frenzy barb, whatever. However it will take the more than casual gamer to make a crazy build work and viable for the whole game.
I don't understand why people say that fact that you don't feel the need to look at a guide good is a positive attribute. I feel like Jay Wilson uses this as a cop-out instead of realizing that maybe it's easy to use because its so over simplified you cannot make a mistake.
I also still think that the reason they made these changes was a quick way out of balancing, instead of saying everyone is taking arcane orb over arcane missle maybe we should make arcane missle more attractive, they just say "OK lets just make it easier to respec to skip this ability".
I'm not sure if this new system will be good as I havent played the game, but it sounds like it will make the game really shallow when making each character.
The point is it's no more shallow then the other systems when it comes to the depth it gives characters. If anything it provides more depth to your character then the other systems because now you have more meaningful options. If you think this system is going to make shallow characters then you have to think the same thing about the old system - period.
I don't understand why people say that fact that you don't feel the need to look at a guide good is a positive attribute. I feel like Jay Wilson uses this as a cop-out instead of realizing that maybe it's easy to use because its so over simplified you cannot make a mistake.
I'm pretty sure you can still make mistakes such as use the wrong skills in the wrong combinations. As I went over with flawk, theres more to choice than clicking a button in a skill tree once every level.
I also still think that the reason they made these changes was a quick way out of balancing, instead of saying everyone is taking arcane orb over arcane missle maybe we should make arcane missle more attractive, they just say "OK lets just make it easier to respec to skip this ability".
I'm not sure if this new system will be good as I havent played the game, but it sounds like it will make the game really shallow when making each character.
I think you completely missed what Jay meant, since you're paraphrasing his story. He said if you were a newb and stuck points in your t1 skill, you used it because it was marginally better than whatever new skill you got at 6 or whatever. He wasn't saying "we made this one spell OP, gotta remove skills for it lolol!" The commentary was about player choice. How you technically only got to "choose" whatever had skill points invested in it and everything else was hardly worth looking at. Whereas if you were "smart" (d2) and hoarded skills for good things later on, you used whatever until you got to uber-spell and then you reverted to 2-button faceroll.
I don't understand why people say that fact that you don't feel the need to look at a guide good is a positive attribute. I feel like Jay Wilson uses this as a cop-out instead of realizing that maybe it's easy to use because its so over simplified you cannot make a mistake.
I'm pretty sure you can still make mistakes such as use the wrong skills in the wrong combinations. As I went over with flawk, theres more to choice than clicking a button in a skill tree once every level.
I also still think that the reason they made these changes was a quick way out of balancing, instead of saying everyone is taking arcane orb over arcane missle maybe we should make arcane missle more attractive, they just say "OK lets just make it easier to respec to skip this ability".
I'm not sure if this new system will be good as I havent played the game, but it sounds like it will make the game really shallow when making each character.
I think you completely missed what Jay meant, since you're paraphrasing his story. He said if you were a newb and stuck points in your t1 skill, you used it because it was marginally better than whatever new skill you got at 6 or whatever. He wasn't saying "we made this one spell OP, gotta remove skills for it lolol!" The commentary was about player choice. How you technically only got to "choose" whatever had skill points invested in it and everything else was hardly worth looking at. Whereas if you were "smart" (d2) and hoarded skills for good things later on, you used whatever until you got to uber-spell and then you reverted to 2-button faceroll.
pretty sure you can still use the wrong skill lol whats the consequence of using the wrong skill none ...o wait sorry I meant go back to town and switch out. And as I went over with you having the option to be bad at something is choice and clicking a skill tree gave you the option to be bad at something and you had to live with it and again In action rpg any rpg you should be roleing a char an individual who makes choices with consequences. But truth is we fight tooth and nail about this because you really don't care if it looses that rpg element. (my side as always coming from if they don't add some system to add the mystery back to build options)
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Give a man a skill tree, and he will become a Fire Sorc. Give a man 6 skills to choose from, pulling from all three trees, and he becomes a Fire Sorc that likes to shoot lightning to manage the bigger crowds."
I personally won't mind this new skill system IF they do it right and have skills adjusted to MULTIPLE player gear. So bash may be dependent on how powerful your shield's defense is while Disentegrate could be dependent on how powerful your gloves are, and so on... as long as they vary the dependencies it could be a pretty cool idea. But something tells me they won't and Jay wilson's image of Diablo looking like Jay will fail
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Blizzard used to care about releasing Diablo III, then they all took an arrow in the knee...
Ummm, flawkstawker45, think about it this way for a moment.
Blizzard intend runes to be the new form of customization for the game.
Old system: You unlock Arcane Orb, so you take all your point out of Magic Missile and throw it in there. Now, you get a rune that would split you Magic Missile into two projectiles. Arcane Orb already has a stun rune in, so you don't want to put anything else in there. However, you took all your points out of Magic Missile, making it obsolete. It does so little damage that you may as well just sell the rune and stick with spamming Arcane Orb.
New system: You unlock Arcane Orb, equip it, and give it your stun rune. It is now your main attack. You then pickup a rune to split Magic Missile, which you figure would be an excellent, low-cost multi enemy attack skill, so you assign it to your right mouse button.
You see, just because the skills weren't limited by points, you gained an option to use your more of your skills. Whereas the points system actually limits your choices, sort of by inadvertently forcing you to dump it in specific, strong, spamable skills. And this is just a basic example of two skills. Later on you will have six skills and your runes will improve them by seven levels. Yes, that's right, skills can be improved by up to 7 levels by using your runes.
This is where the options play in and this is why Diablo 3 will have so many more choices than Diablo 2.
I don't think there's necessarily such a thing as a bad or wrong skill. Either it's a bad/wrong skill ONLY in relation to the other five you picked, or it's a skill used badly/incorrectly. I shall maintain this view until I see otherwise in actual gameplay.
I don't think there's necessarily such a thing as a bad or wrong skill. Either it's a bad/wrong skill ONLY in relation to the other five you picked, or it's a skill used badly/incorrectly. I shall maintain this view until I see otherwise in actual gameplay.
Yep I think that's the intention and if they are all balanced well there won't be a tendency for people to pick the same set of skills all the time.
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Can I take a quote from that for my signature?
TheSkaBoss
It truly was but then again you never read the whole thread anyway.
TheSkaBoss
I sense bitterness about being proven unequivocally wrong, but I did enjoy the rhetorical duel.
Come to think of it, you should PM me some more of this stuff so I can stay amused at work tomorrow.
I also still think that the reason they made these changes was a quick way out of balancing, instead of saying everyone is taking arcane orb over arcane missle maybe we should make arcane missle more attractive, they just say "OK lets just make it easier to respec to skip this ability".
I'm not sure if this new system will be good as I havent played the game, but it sounds like it will make the game really shallow when making each character.
The point is it's no more shallow then the other systems when it comes to the depth it gives characters. If anything it provides more depth to your character then the other systems because now you have more meaningful options. If you think this system is going to make shallow characters then you have to think the same thing about the old system - period.
I'm pretty sure you can still make mistakes such as use the wrong skills in the wrong combinations. As I went over with flawk, theres more to choice than clicking a button in a skill tree once every level.
I think you completely missed what Jay meant, since you're paraphrasing his story. He said if you were a newb and stuck points in your t1 skill, you used it because it was marginally better than whatever new skill you got at 6 or whatever. He wasn't saying "we made this one spell OP, gotta remove skills for it lolol!" The commentary was about player choice. How you technically only got to "choose" whatever had skill points invested in it and everything else was hardly worth looking at. Whereas if you were "smart" (d2) and hoarded skills for good things later on, you used whatever until you got to uber-spell and then you reverted to 2-button faceroll.
pretty sure you can still use the wrong skill lol whats the consequence of using the wrong skill none ...o wait sorry I meant go back to town and switch out. And as I went over with you having the option to be bad at something is choice and clicking a skill tree gave you the option to be bad at something and you had to live with it and again In action rpg any rpg you should be roleing a char an individual who makes choices with consequences. But truth is we fight tooth and nail about this because you really don't care if it looses that rpg element. (my side as always coming from if they don't add some system to add the mystery back to build options)
TheSkaBoss
Blizzard intend runes to be the new form of customization for the game.
Old system: You unlock Arcane Orb, so you take all your point out of Magic Missile and throw it in there. Now, you get a rune that would split you Magic Missile into two projectiles. Arcane Orb already has a stun rune in, so you don't want to put anything else in there. However, you took all your points out of Magic Missile, making it obsolete. It does so little damage that you may as well just sell the rune and stick with spamming Arcane Orb.
New system: You unlock Arcane Orb, equip it, and give it your stun rune. It is now your main attack. You then pickup a rune to split Magic Missile, which you figure would be an excellent, low-cost multi enemy attack skill, so you assign it to your right mouse button.
You see, just because the skills weren't limited by points, you gained an option to use your more of your skills. Whereas the points system actually limits your choices, sort of by inadvertently forcing you to dump it in specific, strong, spamable skills. And this is just a basic example of two skills. Later on you will have six skills and your runes will improve them by seven levels. Yes, that's right, skills can be improved by up to 7 levels by using your runes.
This is where the options play in and this is why Diablo 3 will have so many more choices than Diablo 2.
Yep I think that's the intention and if they are all balanced well there won't be a tendency for people to pick the same set of skills all the time.