On to the rune topic....Runes are being partially re-concepted and right now they are our only hope to add more customization to your skill choices. So my argument is still pretty valid until we see what they actually do for your skills. Now I do have faith in blizzard, but it's definitely something to worry about until we know what they are doing to add it.
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."
Out of all the hundreds of hours spent in D2, and new Barbarians, Amazons and Sorceresses I rolled (my preferred classes), the skill system NEVER, EVER made me think "gosh, I really like how much I can customize my character with this system!"
In D2, it was always a choice from a handful templates per class. Like I'm going to spend weeks playing a character to explore a potentially crappy build all on my own? Then repeat? No. This does not fall within most gamers' definitions of "fun." I'm either going to load up a hacked character offline and test it out, or spend hours sifting through forum posts. (The latter of which is akin wading through raw sewage to find lost jewelry.) The fact that this was the best way for players to go about discovering what good choices they had available speaks LOUDLY about how bad D2's skill system was.
Now take that handful of templates, throw away the PvP centric (carebear hugs!), throw away the ones I didn't have the gear or runewords for (if i hacked gear, what was the point?), and pick among what I knew I'd find fun to play? Honestly, that left me with 2 choices per class.
The minor variances within a templated build brought no sense of meaningful customization to me, and were usually the result of impatience (screw it I'm spending these points!) or a mistake.
Beyond choosing between two templates, I rerolled for the fun of playing through again, and to over-gear new characters, not because I felt like I was exploring any meaningful or enjoyable customization out of the statpoint and skillpoint system.
Good riddance.
PS - I really hated stockpiling points and always felt it meant the system was poorly designed.
and you can complain because now the fact that those skills are the best had nothing to do with how you built or specialized them. It has only to do with the fact that that skill is the best thus making your builds that you might want to play feel blah.
Again, what difference does it make if there's skill points or not on this particular issue? If you had skill points there would still be some skills that are the "best" and people would max them out making other builds you wanted to play with feel blah just the same way.
Because the player didn't choose and there is limited ways to make your build better. Its a case of ok so you want make DH specializing in the "Blank" well ok go ahead and do that but its never going to be better than a DH specialized in the " Blank2" build and there is nothing you can try or do about it. and yes some of the builds are always gonna be weaker. But this system is gonna actully not gonna but has the potential(i think using the world potential) to enable less viable builds and and even fewer good ones.
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."
And remember, it's about VIABLE builds. They don't have to be tip top PVP builds. Afterall, pvp means nothing here. So, it's all about viability to run end game content. I don't think it would be very hard to make a game with customization the extended far enough that it could entertain and still be useful at the most difficult level in terms of content.
No offense (its not personal) I just don't like such naive ignorance against PvP.
Out of all the hundreds of hours spent in D2, and new Barbarians, Amazons and Sorceresses I rolled (my preferred classes), the skill system NEVER, EVER made me think "gosh, I really like how much I can customize my character with this system!"
In D2, it was always a choice from a handful templates per class. Like I'm going to spend weeks playing a character to explore a potentially crappy build all on my own? Then repeat? No. This does not fall within most gamers' definitions of "fun." I'm either going to load up a hacked character offline and test it out, or spend hours sifting through forum posts. (The latter of which is akin wading through raw sewage to find lost jewelry.) The fact that this was the best way for players to go about discovering what good choices they had available speaks LOUDLY about how bad D2's skill system was.
Now take that handful of templates, throw away the PvP centric (carebear hugs!), throw away the ones I didn't have the gear or runewords for (if i hacked gear, what was the point?), and pick among what I knew I'd find fun to play? Honestly, that left me with 2 choices per class.
The minor variances within a templated build brought no sense of meaningful customization to me, and were usually the result of impatience (screw it I'm spending these points!) or a mistake.
Beyond choosing between two templates, I rerolled for the fun of playing through again, and to over-gear new characters, not because I felt like I was exploring any meaningful or enjoyable customization out of the statpoint and skillpoint system.
Good riddance.
PS - I really hated stockpiling points and always felt it meant the system was poorly designed.
U hit the nail on the head, and hence why the new system will totally rock in D3
Essentially it means there won't be the "best" builds, there will be many VIABLE builds, many new builds, that might be good for a particular play style, but not better than others, just different.. and that's really the system that every game should have.
Remember people, there is still a great amount that we do not know about the game. I mean, have any of you considered the effects that gear could give you? Many of you probably are relating to the typical gear augments from the previous games, but that doesn't mean you won't end up seeing something that makes certain skills way better for your particular class. Rhen combine that already upgraded skill a runestone, then toss that skill into a combo of the other 5 skill slots and 3 passive skill slots. Need I mention the effects on skills as you level up and the effects of gems that are placed into socked items?
There's more customization for builds than you think, were just use to making builds based off of a point system, not a gear/rune system. At first I was just as pissed as you guys, buy now that I've looked a bit deeper into it I understand a bit more on how this is going to work. What is a real drag is the AH with RMT.
Remember people, there is still a great amount that we do not know about the game. I mean, have any of you considered the effects that gear could give you? Many of you probably are relating to the typical gear augments from the previous games, but that doesn't mean you won't end up seeing something that makes certain skills way better for your particular class. Rhen combine that already upgraded skill a runestone, then toss that skill into a combo of the other 5 skill slots and 3 passive skill slots. Need I mention the effects on skills as you level up and the effects of gems that are placed into socked items?
There's more customization for builds than you think, were just use to making builds based off of a point system, not a gear/rune system. At first I was just as pissed as you guys, buy now that I've looked a bit deeper into it I understand a bit more on how this is going to work. What is a real drag is the AH with RMT.
I agree. I think until we know all the details about how skills will function, including what Blizz wants to do with Runes, it's far too early to make any broad sweeping comments about skill customization.
Don't entirely agree about the AH, but that's off-topic anyway.
Gamer 1 "o you wanna play an ice mage well the best way to do that is to use Black ice passive hobbler and prolonged exposer" (i just made up some traits).
You spelled "exposure", "exposer" like... psycho flasher. Does this mean the female Wizzy will be doing some flashing in your version of the game? If so, i'll buy yours and not Blizzard's.
Gamer 1 "o you wanna play an ice mage well the best way to do that is to use Black ice passive hobbler and prolonged exposer" (i just made up some traits).
You spelled "exposure", "exposer" like... psycho flasher. Does this mean the female Wizzy will be doing some flashing in your version of the game? If so, i'll buy yours and not Blizzard's.
lol yea thats not the worst typo I've ever let get by.
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've read since the Press released. Looks like most of us forget about the fact that we will have autostat-character. That means the character will get stronger in a way that, perhaps, not as we expected. Therefore we will give our children the skill based on their stat, to maximize their Strength.
With that in mind, to get the "ideal" or "prefer" build for our characters, we might need to replay that char several times, if we lucky.
There were definitely problems with DII's ways, and I agree that by removing skill points, customization is not exactly affected, as skill combinations are still there, and there's the runes that will definitely increase possible builds.
However, what i am concerned about this choice is its affect on the playthrough experience, as well as the player's 'attachment' towards the character. Back a while ago when blizzard announced their level 60 cap, their explanation was to make every level feel significant. And i feel that skill points is a part of this 'significance,' a reward you receive for leveling up. even though just a psychological thing, but it does make you feel more weight on each skill point's distribution, and feel that you are more 'involved' in your character's progression.
Now with the skills scaling to your level or weapon dmg, once you have tried all the skills and selected the 6 skills you want, you are kind of done with it from level 30 (or 24) and beyond, since all you need to do now is to level up, and your skills would be stronger. which i think kind of 'detaches' you from your character and gameplay experience. I know people can say that "well with people following a specific build, skill choices arent really a big part of ongoing experience." well yes, but for one that is caused by DII's old system that we were hoping Blizzard introduce a new mechanism to fix, and second you still get to decide your skill point every level and probably decide on a specific path you would like to follow.
People can approach a build differently, for example you may want to orient or max skill X before skill Y. if you know the area have some high dmg monsters, you may want to put more skills in your defensive skills for now, and catch up your attack skills later on. Or when you play in a team, you may want to focus on certain skills that will compliment other team members depending on their current skill choices. this type of strategic thinking and constant balancing of your character to current needs i say is part of the experience with action RPGs.
There were definitely problems with DII's ways, and I agree that by removing skill points, customization is not exactly affected, as skill combinations are still there, and there's the runes that will definitely increase possible builds.
However, what i am concerned about this choice is its affect on the playthrough experience, as well as the player's 'attachment' towards the character. Back a while ago when blizzard announced their level 60 cap, their explanation was to make every level feel significant. And i feel that skill points is a part of this 'significance,' a reward you receive for leveling up. even though just a psychological thing, but it does make you feel more weight on each skill point's distribution, and feel that you are more 'involved' in your character's progression.
Now with the skills scaling to your level or weapon dmg, once you have tried all the skills and selected the 6 skills you want, you are kind of done with it from level 30 (or 24) and beyond, since all you need to do now is to level up, and your skills would be stronger. which i think kind of 'detaches' you from your character and gameplay experience. I know people can say that "well with people following a specific build, skill choices arent really a big part of ongoing experience." well yes, but for one that is caused by DII's old system that we were hoping Blizzard introduce a new mechanism to fix, and second you still get to decide your skill point every level and probably decide on a specific path you would like to follow.
People can approach a build differently, for example you may want to orient or max skill X before skill Y. if you know the area have some high dmg monsters, you may want to put more skills in your defensive skills for now, and catch up your attack skills later on. Or when you play in a team, you may want to focus on certain skills that will compliment other team members depending on their current skill choices. this type of strategic thinking and constant balancing of your character to current needs i say is part of the experience with action RPGs.
action strategy game maybe but action RPG listen you get all skills and have them leveling on their own with limited customization options (runes are being re-concepted)That is not something you can equate with with any style of RPG and I will take that back when you tell me any single RPG that you considered great that did something like it. Now again we don't know what runes will be bringing to the table right now and I do have alot of faith but it is still dangerous grounds.
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."
Each of these 120 skills got 5 different runes to be put in
120 x 5 = 600 different skills in total
Each of these 600 skills can be upgraded 7 times (7 ranks of runes)
Here we keep the 600 since the upgrade doesn't adjust to how many skills we can use.
Each character got:
600 / 5 = 120 skills each..
With 6 slots available..
that gives us this many combinations:
1x2x3x4x5x6x7x8x9x10x11........x115x116x117x118x119x120 = a hell of a lot of combinations for EACH class..
This hell of a number you then multiply by 5 then you get the total amount of combinations..
ALL of these might not be the highest DPS dealing build, but I would bet my tiny sweet looking ass on, that there's more viable builds then in D2 ..
So there's PLENTY of customization.. "simple" math
Wow hello have you been reading this topic at all its not a fact of how many skills there are its the fact that at level 60 every skill there is maxed stats for every player who gets there.....so blam lvl 60 your awesome at everything you haven't done anything to make your skills that way yet, so at this point the skills are what they are you put on armor that ups damage well there is still only gonna be a best skill that out of all the damage skills you and every other player have maxed that is going to be best suited for the damage modifier and everybody has that skill and has done nothing to make that skill that way this will make cookie cutter builds. It will make less viable builds and more ones that aren't viable. You could use those skills because they look cool but you and every single other player in the game one month into the games release knows that build is nothing compared to blah blah. O but wait we might be able to make one or two more builds that every one has maxed better with the ridiculous amounts of combinations we can make out of our 3 passive abilities now we have a way to make another build that is as good as blah blah build or better....Man I can't wait to see how many builds I can make better with 3 passive abilities. Again I think Blizzard is planing on using runes to help make up for this lack of customization I mean look at the things Jay was saying they'd like to try with runes and how that would effect skills but right now the things he said are not implemented and are being re-designed.
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."
There were definitely problems with DII's ways, and I agree that by removing skill points, customization is not exactly affected, as skill combinations are still there, and there's the runes that will definitely increase possible builds.
However, what i am concerned about this choice is its affect on the playthrough experience, as well as the player's 'attachment' towards the character. Back a while ago when blizzard announced their level 60 cap, their explanation was to make every level feel significant. And i feel that skill points is a part of this 'significance,' a reward you receive for leveling up. even though just a psychological thing, but it does make you feel more weight on each skill point's distribution, and feel that you are more 'involved' in your character's progression.
Now with the skills scaling to your level or weapon dmg, once you have tried all the skills and selected the 6 skills you want, you are kind of done with it from level 30 (or 24) and beyond, since all you need to do now is to level up, and your skills would be stronger. which i think kind of 'detaches' you from your character and gameplay experience. I know people can say that "well with people following a specific build, skill choices arent really a big part of ongoing experience." well yes, but for one that is caused by DII's old system that we were hoping Blizzard introduce a new mechanism to fix, and second you still get to decide your skill point every level and probably decide on a specific path you would like to follow.
People can approach a build differently, for example you may want to orient or max skill X before skill Y. if you know the area have some high dmg monsters, you may want to put more skills in your defensive skills for now, and catch up your attack skills later on. Or when you play in a team, you may want to focus on certain skills that will compliment other team members depending on their current skill choices. this type of strategic thinking and constant balancing of your character to current needs i say is part of the experience with action RPGs.
action strategy game maybe but action RPG listen you get all skills and have them leveling on their own with limited customization options (runes are being re-concepted)That is not something you can equate with with any style of RPG and I will take that back when you tell me any single RPG that you considered great that did something like it. Now again we don't know what runes will be bringing to the table right now and I do have alot of faith but it is still dangerous grounds.
i think you misunderstood me, i meant to say that customization from skill point/selection level is going to be affected, but the "ultimate" level of customization may not, since the runes mechanism is suppose to cover for it. but how well? we dont know.
But i am more concerned about the game play experience without the existence of skill points and balancing your leveling progress. As i thought that was a big part of my experience with any action RPG games.
So in essence if I am interpreting well enough you think the skills as are, will be all balanced enough for there to be enough viable builds where the loot game will offer enough customization to make the skills enjoyable and diverse. where as I think the the fact the all the skills/skilltypes that again everyone will have access to will enable the community to quickly realize the quote un-quote best builds ridiculously(and i wanna stress the word ridiculously) fast and the only choice the player has/had to make skills more effective was only combination of three passives, but what about armor?
Now again about the armor game. My point on that is that if your trying to build a snare /damage class there are going to be points where you have to choose one snare over the other one why because unless the most ridiculous amount of balancing was done there is going to be a better skill(again that everyone who plays that class will have access to and will be able to test very quickly) and the type of modifiers on armor and gear will only effect "skill types" not individual skills so if my modifier effects snare length it effected both of those skills the same way and one is still going to be better. In this action RPG what role did I play in making my build viable I chose three passives (that might only effect skills in the same way as gear modifier but i doubt it) that's it.
Now you said that you don't think people will go into cookie cutter builds that quickly and that's why I'm assuming you have put your faith in the level of balance that blizzard has done of the 92 billion some skill combinations we can have. But if I was mistaken plz correct me cause I wanna know where you're coming from. Maybe you can relate your point in the same hypothetical scenario I put above?
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."
So in essence if I am interpreting well enough you think the skills as are, will be all balanced enough for there to be enough viable builds where the loot game will offer enough customization to make the skills enjoyable and diverse. where as I think the the fact the all the skills/skilltypes that again everyone will have access to will enable the community to quickly realize the quote un-quote best builds ridiculously(and i wanna stress the word ridiculously) fast and the only choice the player has/had to make skills more effective was only combination of three passives, but what about armor?
Once again, if people are able to math out the best builds without skill points "ridiculously" fast, why wouldn't they find the optimum skill point distribution exactly as fast leaving the same limited number of viable (by whatever term you are using for that) builds? Or do you claim that moving skill points away from whatever the "best" build is still makes that new build viable as opposed to swapping a skill from the best build to something that has been mathed out as slightly worse?
Ahh I see what your saying there. What I am saying is how does removing the skill points fix the problem of people dumping points into the "best" skill. So we started noticing that everyone was dumping points into arcane orb and taking them out of arcane missle so we took skills points out and made everything level with you. Translation from my POV we have this skill that is clearly better than the other one so we maxed out both for you so if you like how the one that isn't as good looks you can use it but its not going to be better ever and now as the player you don't have any customization options. part of the game was building chars and finding the best build through the customization game that was there now its not there or the version of it that is, is in the 3 passive options you have (and hopefully whatever system they add onto runes) "they didn't fix the problem that caused the change" they just took player customization options away from us that's all. How quick with the skill point system or any system that in turn changes the numbers would the math smart people figure out the "best" builds compared to the system that is there now where there are only 3 passives and gear to change the numbers in your mind? They wouldn't find the numbers as quickly because they'd have to play the customization game to find all the numbers where as with the current system the skills are scaling with you so very quickly it becomes apparent what the "best" skills based on the numbers are because all the numbers are available to the player very quickly and again there is only 3 passives things that changed or alter the math.
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."
how can you say that there won't be less player customization when they took player skill points out and just gave you everything? The reason they took skills out is because they noticed people would respec and put those points into the "Better" skill listen to the interview. there solution was ok give them everything. does that fix make the one skill more balanced or any less preffered? no taking away the points hasn't changed that all hence why many rebuddles to what i've said are what does it matter if the points aren't there the best is the best still. So how does that fix the issue that people are going to use as said in the interview arcane orb over arcane missle? It doesn't it just gives us everything and makes the math to figure out the best build for how you want to play stupidly easy why because just like you said the math to figure out the 3 passive skills is going to be easy and faster to figure out then when you have some sort of skill point system or any system that changes the numbers with more options and your options dictate what numbers you get to see it changes things.
Build A
You have 30 skills with 92 billion rune variants each of these 30 skills you have 60 (or what ever) points to put into them that make skills more effective as you lvl up. As u level up more and spend points the numbers of what the skills do become avaialable to you. you have barely any clue what more than 6,7, maybe even 8 skills really do when it comes to the math the numbers. You get a feel for the gear and what you need to do to ephasize the role your trying to play.
Build B
You have 30 skills with 92 billion rune variants each of theese 30 skills are available to you to switch out for you 6 active skills. As you lvl up all the ones available to you at that lvl lvl with you. the numbers are right there and it very quickly becomes apparent that the build you wanted to do is obsolete. You have 3 passive skills that you can use to customize things any maybe that will change things a bit you do maybe 2 mins of math and you realize your build isn't that bad and considering you know at this point in the game exactly what every skill does and with in the three options you can make to change it. You start playing the gear game that was available just as much in Build A.
Build A
players get to make choices about there character and make those choices develope and feel more powerful.
Build B
players get every skill then makes chioces on how they want to build there char but it becomes obvious extremely fast what the good skill choices are and everyone knows the best build(s) in 1 month becasue its all right there.
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."
calm down.. your argument is not valid. every class is going to have what some people consider to be the best build, and some will favor another build type. bfd, its going to happen no matter what. just play what you think is fun, or conform to the cookie cutter build.
skill runes will be the big factor in versatility. you may have a skill you use offensively and i may use it defensively. they will look diffrent too, so maybe we dont even know we are using the same skill.. who knows. rather than you putting x amount of skill points in said skill, you get to decide if you want to use it or not, so hey, you dont even have to waste a prereq point. so you want to use it, now you start to experiment with diffrent runes. then you find the rune effect you like, the one that suits YOUR play style. now you work to get the highest rune to augment the skill, rather than putting skill points into said skill.
dont forget that even the most basic skills are said to be viable in endgame. like the bash example used earlier, shit, who knows how powerful bash will be with a level 7 indigo rune and the right gear/weapon set up. might be a one hitter quitter. then you got whirlwind doin some crazy shit because you got that lvl 7 alabaster rune, for the packs and what not... see what im sayin? so your like stompin and stunnin, whirlwindin, and then bashin the shit out of the stragglers. i might not like that, i might wana go in and open with hammer of the ancients, cept it does some wicked crazy shit because i got the gold rune in there, then im double fisted with some axes so i start cleavin and pop berserkers rage.
i got carried away, but chill before you wear out your fingers in august... the game prolly wont be out until december dude.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
When or if I get to Lut Gholein, Im going to find the largest bowl of Narlant weed and smoke til all earthly sense has left my body. -Gheed
If skill points are gone, then class sub-identities will suffer. For example, in D2 you could be a frozen orb sorc, nova sorc, meteor sorc, etc. With this system, you're just a sorc (or, in D3's case, Wizard).
dude did you actually read what was said? I've actually stated several times in this topic that runes are the only hope we have especially with the attunement feature they talked about. So why would you use that as a counter arguement? Try explaining the in validness of the Build A vs Build B thing i just posted not something the topic has already covered. This is a discussion if your going to say someones point is invalid don't do it by proposing an argument that has already been covered as our only hope (as I claim it to be). If you need assitance the last post is about 2 things
A
it is removing player customization
and B
Becasue everything through out the game is available to you and everyone else the best builds will be known in a rediculously(<--- this word is stressed) quick amount time , in comparrison.)
When you play a game like this your suppose to feel like the build you wanna make is getting better and better even if it's not the best. Build B promotes a feeling of wow I like playing blank build but if I use these skills I'm so much better. And the build B vs build A argument both have uses of runes so again can you please read a lil more critically and contribute to the conversation?
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."
TheSkaBoss
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
TheSkaBoss
In D2, it was always a choice from a handful templates per class. Like I'm going to spend weeks playing a character to explore a potentially crappy build all on my own? Then repeat? No. This does not fall within most gamers' definitions of "fun." I'm either going to load up a hacked character offline and test it out, or spend hours sifting through forum posts. (The latter of which is akin wading through raw sewage to find lost jewelry.) The fact that this was the best way for players to go about discovering what good choices they had available speaks LOUDLY about how bad D2's skill system was.
Now take that handful of templates, throw away the PvP centric (carebear hugs!), throw away the ones I didn't have the gear or runewords for (if i hacked gear, what was the point?), and pick among what I knew I'd find fun to play? Honestly, that left me with 2 choices per class.
The minor variances within a templated build brought no sense of meaningful customization to me, and were usually the result of impatience (screw it I'm spending these points!) or a mistake.
Beyond choosing between two templates, I rerolled for the fun of playing through again, and to over-gear new characters, not because I felt like I was exploring any meaningful or enjoyable customization out of the statpoint and skillpoint system.
Good riddance.
PS - I really hated stockpiling points and always felt it meant the system was poorly designed.
Because the player didn't choose and there is limited ways to make your build better. Its a case of ok so you want make DH specializing in the "Blank" well ok go ahead and do that but its never going to be better than a DH specialized in the " Blank2" build and there is nothing you can try or do about it. and yes some of the builds are always gonna be weaker. But this system is gonna actully not gonna but has the potential(i think using the world potential) to enable less viable builds and and even fewer good ones.
TheSkaBoss
No offense (its not personal) I just don't like such naive ignorance against PvP.
I concur.
There's more customization for builds than you think, were just use to making builds based off of a point system, not a gear/rune system. At first I was just as pissed as you guys, buy now that I've looked a bit deeper into it I understand a bit more on how this is going to work. What is a real drag is the AH with RMT.
I agree. I think until we know all the details about how skills will function, including what Blizz wants to do with Runes, it's far too early to make any broad sweeping comments about skill customization.
Don't entirely agree about the AH, but that's off-topic anyway.
You spelled "exposure", "exposer" like... psycho flasher. Does this mean the female Wizzy will be doing some flashing in your version of the game? If so, i'll buy yours and not Blizzard's.
TheSkaBoss
With that in mind, to get the "ideal" or "prefer" build for our characters, we might need to replay that char several times, if we lucky.
However, what i am concerned about this choice is its affect on the playthrough experience, as well as the player's 'attachment' towards the character. Back a while ago when blizzard announced their level 60 cap, their explanation was to make every level feel significant. And i feel that skill points is a part of this 'significance,' a reward you receive for leveling up. even though just a psychological thing, but it does make you feel more weight on each skill point's distribution, and feel that you are more 'involved' in your character's progression.
Now with the skills scaling to your level or weapon dmg, once you have tried all the skills and selected the 6 skills you want, you are kind of done with it from level 30 (or 24) and beyond, since all you need to do now is to level up, and your skills would be stronger. which i think kind of 'detaches' you from your character and gameplay experience. I know people can say that "well with people following a specific build, skill choices arent really a big part of ongoing experience." well yes, but for one that is caused by DII's old system that we were hoping Blizzard introduce a new mechanism to fix, and second you still get to decide your skill point every level and probably decide on a specific path you would like to follow.
People can approach a build differently, for example you may want to orient or max skill X before skill Y. if you know the area have some high dmg monsters, you may want to put more skills in your defensive skills for now, and catch up your attack skills later on. Or when you play in a team, you may want to focus on certain skills that will compliment other team members depending on their current skill choices. this type of strategic thinking and constant balancing of your character to current needs i say is part of the experience with action RPGs.
TheSkaBoss
TheSkaBoss
i think you misunderstood me, i meant to say that customization from skill point/selection level is going to be affected, but the "ultimate" level of customization may not, since the runes mechanism is suppose to cover for it. but how well? we dont know.
But i am more concerned about the game play experience without the existence of skill points and balancing your leveling progress. As i thought that was a big part of my experience with any action RPG games.
Now again about the armor game. My point on that is that if your trying to build a snare /damage class there are going to be points where you have to choose one snare over the other one why because unless the most ridiculous amount of balancing was done there is going to be a better skill(again that everyone who plays that class will have access to and will be able to test very quickly) and the type of modifiers on armor and gear will only effect "skill types" not individual skills so if my modifier effects snare length it effected both of those skills the same way and one is still going to be better. In this action RPG what role did I play in making my build viable I chose three passives (that might only effect skills in the same way as gear modifier but i doubt it) that's it.
Now you said that you don't think people will go into cookie cutter builds that quickly and that's why I'm assuming you have put your faith in the level of balance that blizzard has done of the 92 billion some skill combinations we can have. But if I was mistaken plz correct me cause I wanna know where you're coming from. Maybe you can relate your point in the same hypothetical scenario I put above?
TheSkaBoss
Ahh I see what your saying there. What I am saying is how does removing the skill points fix the problem of people dumping points into the "best" skill. So we started noticing that everyone was dumping points into arcane orb and taking them out of arcane missle so we took skills points out and made everything level with you. Translation from my POV we have this skill that is clearly better than the other one so we maxed out both for you so if you like how the one that isn't as good looks you can use it but its not going to be better ever and now as the player you don't have any customization options. part of the game was building chars and finding the best build through the customization game that was there now its not there or the version of it that is, is in the 3 passive options you have (and hopefully whatever system they add onto runes) "they didn't fix the problem that caused the change" they just took player customization options away from us that's all. How quick with the skill point system or any system that in turn changes the numbers would the math smart people figure out the "best" builds compared to the system that is there now where there are only 3 passives and gear to change the numbers in your mind? They wouldn't find the numbers as quickly because they'd have to play the customization game to find all the numbers where as with the current system the skills are scaling with you so very quickly it becomes apparent what the "best" skills based on the numbers are because all the numbers are available to the player very quickly and again there is only 3 passives things that changed or alter the math.
TheSkaBoss
Build A
You have 30 skills with 92 billion rune variants each of these 30 skills you have 60 (or what ever) points to put into them that make skills more effective as you lvl up. As u level up more and spend points the numbers of what the skills do become avaialable to you. you have barely any clue what more than 6,7, maybe even 8 skills really do when it comes to the math the numbers. You get a feel for the gear and what you need to do to ephasize the role your trying to play.
Build B
You have 30 skills with 92 billion rune variants each of theese 30 skills are available to you to switch out for you 6 active skills. As you lvl up all the ones available to you at that lvl lvl with you. the numbers are right there and it very quickly becomes apparent that the build you wanted to do is obsolete. You have 3 passive skills that you can use to customize things any maybe that will change things a bit you do maybe 2 mins of math and you realize your build isn't that bad and considering you know at this point in the game exactly what every skill does and with in the three options you can make to change it. You start playing the gear game that was available just as much in Build A.
Build A
players get to make choices about there character and make those choices develope and feel more powerful.
Build B
players get every skill then makes chioces on how they want to build there char but it becomes obvious extremely fast what the good skill choices are and everyone knows the best build(s) in 1 month becasue its all right there.
TheSkaBoss
skill runes will be the big factor in versatility. you may have a skill you use offensively and i may use it defensively. they will look diffrent too, so maybe we dont even know we are using the same skill.. who knows. rather than you putting x amount of skill points in said skill, you get to decide if you want to use it or not, so hey, you dont even have to waste a prereq point. so you want to use it, now you start to experiment with diffrent runes. then you find the rune effect you like, the one that suits YOUR play style. now you work to get the highest rune to augment the skill, rather than putting skill points into said skill.
dont forget that even the most basic skills are said to be viable in endgame. like the bash example used earlier, shit, who knows how powerful bash will be with a level 7 indigo rune and the right gear/weapon set up. might be a one hitter quitter. then you got whirlwind doin some crazy shit because you got that lvl 7 alabaster rune, for the packs and what not... see what im sayin? so your like stompin and stunnin, whirlwindin, and then bashin the shit out of the stragglers. i might not like that, i might wana go in and open with hammer of the ancients, cept it does some wicked crazy shit because i got the gold rune in there, then im double fisted with some axes so i start cleavin and pop berserkers rage.
i got carried away, but chill before you wear out your fingers in august... the game prolly wont be out until december dude.
A
it is removing player customization
and B
Becasue everything through out the game is available to you and everyone else the best builds will be known in a rediculously(<--- this word is stressed) quick amount time , in comparrison.)
When you play a game like this your suppose to feel like the build you wanna make is getting better and better even if it's not the best. Build B promotes a feeling of wow I like playing blank build but if I use these skills I'm so much better. And the build B vs build A argument both have uses of runes so again can you please read a lil more critically and contribute to the conversation?
TheSkaBoss