It's simply a matter of balancing individual skills against one another. Have you not noticed yet how abilities of similar categories all tend to hover around the same damage amounts?
Already by pointing out that the game has different categories of spells, doesn't it represent a major difference in balance?
Sure, maybe all AoE abilities will be balanced with each other and all singletarget abilities will be balanced with each other, but an aoe attack will obviously be better at aoe than a singletarget attack.
An AoE-heavy build with 3 AoEs - some of them will have cooldowns as many abilities in D3 has - so you cant just repeatedly use one of them - will presumably, (and imo logically) be better at AoE than a build with 1 or even 0 AoE abilities. Even if the 1/0 AoE build is still viable.
You say an AoE example is ridiculous (and now I just used one again :/) But why? Precisely because you can respec all the time if you need to, Blizzard can hardly make sure that an aoe-heavy build wont be viable for short amounts of time.
This is exactly what a respec cost/cooldown accomplishes. It greatly reduces the likelihood that extremely specialized builds will have an advantage - as they need to have an advantage for just as long as the respec cooldown is, to actually be preferable over your generalized build.
Without a cost/cooldown, if you can just find one single area where your specific specialized AoE-build can run around for a little while, then it doesn't matter if that specialized build is unviable for 99,9% of the game. Exactly because you can respec at any time.
Sorry, I'm going to take the word of the devs over that. I'll come back when you can support this argument beyond, "It's going to be terrible! Why...? Umm....because I say so..."
Just a small correction. I don't think I have ever claimed that this current system will be terrible - not in an "OMG the game is going to be totally un-fun and suck"-way at least. I only claim that the alternative (a respec limitation) would be an improvement.
the problem with commitment is that your asking me to commit to something I have never tried, I can plan a build ahead of time, but I honestly don't know if I'll like it before I try it, which means that either I go on some website and copy some build, or odds are my first build probably sucks and I'll have to make a new character.
That really depends on how the commitment is made.
It could work so there would be totally free specing until your char enters Inferno the first time. So you can level up, gain new skills and runes, try them out, farm some gear in hell while you learn the in's and out's of your character, and then in Inferno, the game requires you to make decisions and live with them (or die), at least for a reasonable time, (because permanent builds just isn't acceptable today - even if it would be the ultimate commitment).
It's a matter of (imo) finding a good tradeoff between 1) convenience, 2) learning experience and 3) sticking with your choices.
Why 15 sec? why not 0 sec? why are this fucking rules in games? i don`t like rules, i want to play a game where i can do whatever i like whenever i like, thank you but no thanks.
I think this video probably gives the best explanation on why they arrived at the system they have now
It is indeed a nice video, Jay seems to be comfortable talking with passion about the game for once
He mostly seems to be explaining how respeccing worked (or rather didn't work well) with skill points and skill trees.
Also note that much of what he talks about there works fundamentally different today. Just the fact that all skills scale with weapons now (rather than just some) is a huge difference from the system he talks about.
Just take "players want to level up to get access to more powerful skills", while the system now (thankfully) got some of your very good and fundamental skills right from the beginning of the game. He mentions how its not like WoW back then, but today it kinda is very much like how WoW gives you spells (which isn't negative in any way).
He is very right that it is positive if people don't feel pressured to go to a website to find builds. People who really want to do so, will probably feel compelled to do it no matter what. It is always easier to find a build than figure one out yourself. Respecs or no respecs.
I understand concerns related to easily swapping skills. But, over the long term I think this is a good idea for two reasons:
1. It means that we are more likely to use more skills. Otherwise we will take the "best" six skills and use them over and over for months/years. Once you find the golden build you will never change.
2. It means that Bliz can create more challenging content and more variety. Allowing players to easily swap skills allows Bliz to create situations where a highly specialized build is necessary if you want to clear the content.
There's clearly two kinds of players interested in this game, I would call them "the newcomers" and "the veterans". Sadly, imo, "the newcomers" are majority and Blizzard will make the game to fit their needs. It could be a really better game, again, imo.
I just can't understand why some people can't see that this situation is exactly analogous to what someone said above: why should we be forced to play a class? why no class respec? Why force me to stick to a class when I`m playing that class for the firts time? I shouldn't have to level all the way to 60 again just to play a different class.
I understand concerns related to easily swapping skills. But, over the long term I think this is a good idea for two reasons:
1. It means that we are more likely to use more skills. Otherwise we will take the "best" six skills and use them over and over for months/years. Once you find the golden build you will never change.
2. It means that Bliz can create more challenging content and more variety. Allowing players to easily swap skills allows Bliz to create situations where a highly specialized build is necessary if you want to clear the content.
Well, lots of people claim there wont be 6 best skills (I feel pretty comfortable that there wont be either).
One or two generalized golden builds probably wont exist in D3. The variations with skill runes really means that too many different generalized builds will perform pretty close to each other (Note: I said generalized builds! As in builds made for completing the whole game without respeccing. Before someone claims I'm contradicting myself from an earlier post).
Regarding 2. Yeah, they can do that. More variety in content-design is probably one thing free-speccing can allow for better than in a system with a commitment requirement.
A similar difficulty however could come from making content which require very well-made generalized builds.
And difficult content for highly specialized builds does sound like less customization to me, as the amount of highly specialized builds to pick from would be smaller (logically follows from the concept of being specialized).
It is the kind of game I personally wouldn't like to see Diablo turn into, but there is nothing wrong with that type of games as such - I have certainly played and enjoyed other games where high specialization was needed for each challenge).
Why force me to stick to a class when I`m playing that class for the firts time? I shouldn't have to level all the way to 60 again just to play a different class. * sigh *
You can't imagine (or maybe you can) how many people ask for exactly that in WoW. At least Blizzard hasn't given in on the demand yet.
What is the difference between 30 seconds and 15 seconds? I personally agree with the decision.
30 seconds is far too long. You have to spend so much time just standing around doing nothing. Once you've made the change, you've basically got to stand around for 20 seconds before you go off exploring. It's just time you're waiting there instead of going and killing stuff. With a 15 second cooldown, by the time you exit the skill window, and start walking (assuming in-between combat), you're only really without the skill for 5 seconds, which is enough. In the heat of battle, 15 seconds is still a long time.
Yes, there might be the possibility of exploitation with a 15 second cooldown (would it be possible to avoid the cooldown of some skills with >20 second cooldown?), but I think the benefits outweigh the costs (and these could be worked around)
If someone doesn't see the problem with skill builds not having any noticeable costs to changing them or "respecing", then there's no use trying to argue with them.
People with that opinion are basically saying that a game, with systems that are more dumbed down then WoW's systems, somehow has more customization than WoW did. At least in WoW you had respec costs.
If anybody is sour about these changes, just realize that the Diablo 3 dev team is just trying to throw something semi-decent together just to get the game out of the door. Just make your peace and realize it needs to be released already. It's been amusing watching them try to reinvent the wheel and also learn basic design lessons over the course of the past 3 years, but the time has come to just get this thing out of the door. The dev team was a bunch of amateurs that didn't have any real game plan going into this and they either don't know what makes a game fun or were unable to understand what fun is.
Seriously, think about this. Let's assume the game and the previous rune systems WERE fun. Are the devs just "fun-deaf" and unable to realize that had something good on their hands? On the flip side, if the game wasn't fun, then we have to assume they are just taking stabs in the dark at this point.
It's hard to stay positive about the game if you think it will get boring fast.
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Some people tell me I'm going to hell. I just let them know that I've already packed my bags!
What I don't understand is how people feel a sense of accomplishment from using a certain kit of skills? The accomplishment is from defeating the hardest enemies you can.
How can people actually want to be rewarded for using the same skills the entire game? What sort of game do these people want to play? This sort of thinking baffles me.
"You don't get any sense of accomplishment if the guy beside you can just copy your build in 15 seconds"
What if the 'guy beside you' copies the skills you are using and still dies just as much or can't seem to down the horde as fast? What is it now? Skill? How horrible.
The idea's of builds are SO diablo 2 era. This is a new game folks, you aren't playing a build you're playing a character that has access to an amazing variety of skills. I'm sure kiddy mode normal or nightmare will allow you to lock in 6 skills and be done with it but when I get to inferno or hardcore I'm going to love the fact that I can use an entire arsenal of abilities.
'You should be rewarded for choosing a limited number of abilities and never changing regardless of what you face, and punished if you want to try something new' is what I'm seeing. How silly, how naive, how limited.
It's ridiculous that in the same breath these people can use the word customization.
"You don't get any sense of accomplishment if the guy beside you can just copy your build in 15 seconds"
What if the 'guy beside you' copies the skills you are using and still dies just as much or can't seem to down the horde as fast? What is it now? Skill? How horrible.
Yeah, I don't understand that line of thought either.
The idea's of builds are SO diablo 2 era. This is a new game folks, you aren't playing a build you're playing a character that has access to an amazing variety of skills. I'm sure kiddy mode normal or nightmare will allow you to lock in 6 skills and be done with it but when I get to inferno or hardcore I'm going to love the fact that I can use an entire arsenal of abilities.
That is where people end up disagreeing mostly. As soon as you end up with "can use an entire arsenal of abilities, then you become 'just a wizard' or 'just a barbarian'.
It's not about having a unique barbarian (not for me at least), its about only having 5 specs (the 5 classes) in the game - as in very very little actual customization.
Customization: To make or alter to individual or personal specifications.
How is switching your skills on the fly not customization? Furthermore, if someone see's your build, likes it, and decides to use it...shouldn't you be FLATTERED?
Build commitment comes down to finding a build you like, and sticking with it. There's really not much sense in forcing people to be hammered into a specific build the entire game. If you're committed you won't change your skill setup even if you see a shiny new build. "I like playing THIS way, so I'm gonna keep this layout." On the flip side you're given enough room for experimentation to move things around if you feel inclined. So now the game caters to many types of players, not just the elite few who want to feel like special snowflakes because they spent hours planning their build. Isn't the build you like a good enough reward?
They're letting you experiment with skills when you get them at say, level 60, and if you don't like them; switch back to a skill you do like. Why punish people for trying something new when they get it? "BUT BUT RESPECS! EXPENSIVE RESPECS!" Yes, because grinding for hours for enough gold to respec at level 60 is a lot of fun (riiiight). Grinding for new loot is fun though, so why not let me do that? Since you know...I'm paying my hard earned money to have fun. Not be punished for wanting to try new skills without spending hours leveling again to get the build I want.
Repetition isn't fun to everyone. Certain types of repetition are especially not fun. You want people to be forced to play the "right" way because thats the way you like it. Well sorry, but because you like something doesn't make it the right way. In this case it's just backwards, archiac design that is being phased out in many forms of RPGs (for better or worse in some cases).
How is switching your skills on the fly not customization? Furthermore, if someone see's your build, likes it, and decides to use it...shouldn't you be FLATTERED?
True. I dont understand the uniqueness argument either. People can copy all they want for all I care. If everyone in the world wanted to use the same 6 skills it would be fine with me (although something would probably be wrong with the game :P).
Switching on the fly is not really customization (imo obviously) because you are not switching which skills you have, just which of them you currently happens to have on your bars. The skills you have (those 125 runed skills in the skill UI) are unchanged = not customized.
Build commitment comes down to finding a build you like, and sticking with it. There's really not much sense in forcing people to be hammered into a specific build the entire game.
But there is sense to it. It is so much easier (and possible) for Blizzard to create a great gaming experience if they know people can't switch all the time. It is much easier to have a huge amount of viable specs if people are forced to not switch between specialized specs all the time (because generalized specs by definition are better balanced than specialized specs - they have to do well in many different areas at the same time, which flattens them out).
--> This is why some people, me included, argues that respec limitations INCREASE customization. Because the amount of very good generalized builds to choose from is likely to be much higher than when you can freespec between specialized builds.
Why punish people for trying something new when they get it? "BUT BUT RESPECS! EXPENSIVE RESPECS!" Yes, because grinding for hours for enough gold to respec at level 60 is a lot of fun (riiiight). Grinding for new loot is fun though, so why not let me do that? Since you know...I'm paying my hard earned money to have fun. Not be punished for wanting to try new skills without spending hours leveling again to get the build I want.
Personally I don't think gold costs is the best respec cost either. Simply because we cant know if gold will hold its value over time. And as you say, having to grind gold if you really badly need to respec would suck hard.
I agree. I'm probably a minority but I actually believe that a skill tree is better than the system currently in place. With the skill tree you hade to make sacrifices and plan your character building all the way. It did not only bring a certain amount of tactics, but it also gave somewhat of a feeling of differentiation. With the new system, you don't really ever have any use of making a new barbarian, for example. Just switch skills, it costs you 15 sec of cool down. I think this more or less removes the whole "role playing" part of Diablo 3. Why not give all the skills from lvl 1 while you're at it.
The current system actually reminds me a lot about Baldur's gate Dark Alliance for the Playstation 2...and I don't mean that in a positive way, even though I had a lot of fun with that game. I think Blizzard has oversimplified Diablo 3 to the limit of it losing the distinct feeling of progression.
I firmly believe that you should not be to change your skills unless you're in town. I wouldn't mind a slightly greater cooldown, 15 seconds seems really low. I would prefer a scaling system actually. Once you lock in your skills after a change, you can't change it again for 15 seconds. The next time you change your skills, the cooldown will double (or whatever if found to be fair) to 30 seconds. If you're changing your build 30+ times inside a game, you're probably trying to game the system.
The one issue I can see is if people are testing out builds this could be annoying. Maybe allow all skill changes on normal difficulty without the scaling cooldown.
Personally, I think it should cost gold as well. Why? Because besides repair, gold won't really be used. We need more uses for gold.
I firmly believe that you should not be to change your skills unless you're in town.
Why? Takes 2 seconds to go back to town. It's a fake hurdle that would simply become a nuisance.
If you want to commit to your build, pretend you can't change abilities. It's not difficult, really. Why does anyone care if other people switch out their skills all the time?
I feel it needs some sort of impact when swaping/setting runes. not to the degree that u cant experiment with the same skill with different runes, just to find the one you want to your playstyle. but not in the degree that you can swap runes for each pack of mobs you are fighting against. i feel that the rune system needs to have a harder way to switch up runes, for it to have the infulence it should have on D3. Wich makes the runes feel "special" for the ones who use them
I agree, but only to a point. What I think would be a really good compromise is something like WoW has with dual spec builds. I would love to see a slightly longer cool-down on switching spells and runes, however there needs to be a quick way to switch between two or three combinations. If they could make a 30-second cast spell that switches "specs" and puts all spells on cooldown for 15-seconds, I think this would solve some of the problems. It would give you the mobility to have a grinding spec and a boss fight spec with easy switching. It would also make switching between every set of mobs a real pain and cause you to come up with a good spec and stay with it.
The precedent is that people usually pick what skills they like and stick to them regardless of being able to change them at will. If you find skills you like and have a balanced build, why would you be changing constantly?
I see where you're coming from Shadout (and thanks for being mature with the reply), but don't really agree that being able to swap skills is really all that bad. Everyone has their opinion on it, and it's clearly a hot issue. So it's kind of a agree to disagree situation.
Honestly I'll be playing either way, no matter what Blizzard do (well, within reason). Not because I'm a blind fanboy, but because from my time in the beta I feel like the most important aspect for me is the gameplay....and man does it play gooood.
I thought I had heard that on higher difficulties you'll only be able to skill swap in town. At least that's something.
It really does ruin customization because the best way to play the game is going to be with switching abilities constantly. You grab aoe, stun spells when your running around, and single target and cooldown spells for bosses. All it requires is to stop for maybe 30 seconds between fights to get a huge advantage. The only real way to get "builds" now is to force skill commitment on yourself, but with the way the game works everyone basically has a pool of the same spell that they can use all the time. Losing your higher skill runes when swapping skills would have been a good buffer to skill switching, but with the recent change thats not even there.
I have no problem with experimentation, or people copying builds, but there has to be some better restriction to skills that makes it so swapping skills isn't your best option for fights. I thought half the fun in making a toon was trying to figure out what set of skills would go together so you could be proficient throughout the game. Maybe some people like the idea of that, but I'm not a fan of such a one dimensional skill pools.
I don't think being able to only swap inside town is a good solution either, because with that or the 15 second cooldown on it the only real price your paying for swapping skills is a few moments of your time. I think a good solution would at least to be allowing free skill experimentation until 30, or the end of normal when you have all your abilities so you can see how you wanna play. But then afterwards put an increasing price on swapping skills, either increasing by your level, or how often you swap. It would stop people from spamming swaps between trash and boss fights, but would still allow for a build change for someone that wants it.
Obviously many people wont switch skills because they don't want to wait, or they want to have their one build. But to me the game feels very hollow when you have to force yourself to play with a build, instead of swapping skills for the advantage.
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Sure, maybe all AoE abilities will be balanced with each other and all singletarget abilities will be balanced with each other, but an aoe attack will obviously be better at aoe than a singletarget attack.
An AoE-heavy build with 3 AoEs - some of them will have cooldowns as many abilities in D3 has - so you cant just repeatedly use one of them - will presumably, (and imo logically) be better at AoE than a build with 1 or even 0 AoE abilities. Even if the 1/0 AoE build is still viable.
You say an AoE example is ridiculous (and now I just used one again :/) But why? Precisely because you can respec all the time if you need to, Blizzard can hardly make sure that an aoe-heavy build wont be viable for short amounts of time.
This is exactly what a respec cost/cooldown accomplishes. It greatly reduces the likelihood that extremely specialized builds will have an advantage - as they need to have an advantage for just as long as the respec cooldown is, to actually be preferable over your generalized build.
Without a cost/cooldown, if you can just find one single area where your specific specialized AoE-build can run around for a little while, then it doesn't matter if that specialized build is unviable for 99,9% of the game. Exactly because you can respec at any time.
Just a small correction. I don't think I have ever claimed that this current system will be terrible - not in an "OMG the game is going to be totally un-fun and suck"-way at least. I only claim that the alternative (a respec limitation) would be an improvement.
It could work so there would be totally free specing until your char enters Inferno the first time. So you can level up, gain new skills and runes, try them out, farm some gear in hell while you learn the in's and out's of your character, and then in Inferno, the game requires you to make decisions and live with them (or die), at least for a reasonable time, (because permanent builds just isn't acceptable today - even if it would be the ultimate commitment).
It's a matter of (imo) finding a good tradeoff between 1) convenience, 2) learning experience and 3) sticking with your choices.
He mostly seems to be explaining how respeccing worked (or rather didn't work well) with skill points and skill trees.
Also note that much of what he talks about there works fundamentally different today. Just the fact that all skills scale with weapons now (rather than just some) is a huge difference from the system he talks about.
Just take "players want to level up to get access to more powerful skills", while the system now (thankfully) got some of your very good and fundamental skills right from the beginning of the game. He mentions how its not like WoW back then, but today it kinda is very much like how WoW gives you spells (which isn't negative in any way).
He is very right that it is positive if people don't feel pressured to go to a website to find builds. People who really want to do so, will probably feel compelled to do it no matter what. It is always easier to find a build than figure one out yourself. Respecs or no respecs.
1. It means that we are more likely to use more skills. Otherwise we will take the "best" six skills and use them over and over for months/years. Once you find the golden build you will never change.
2. It means that Bliz can create more challenging content and more variety. Allowing players to easily swap skills allows Bliz to create situations where a highly specialized build is necessary if you want to clear the content.
I just can't understand why some people can't see that this situation is exactly analogous to what someone said above: why should we be forced to play a class? why no class respec? Why force me to stick to a class when I`m playing that class for the firts time? I shouldn't have to level all the way to 60 again just to play a different class.
* sigh *
One or two generalized golden builds probably wont exist in D3. The variations with skill runes really means that too many different generalized builds will perform pretty close to each other (Note: I said generalized builds! As in builds made for completing the whole game without respeccing. Before someone claims I'm contradicting myself from an earlier post).
Regarding 2. Yeah, they can do that. More variety in content-design is probably one thing free-speccing can allow for better than in a system with a commitment requirement.
A similar difficulty however could come from making content which require very well-made generalized builds.
And difficult content for highly specialized builds does sound like less customization to me, as the amount of highly specialized builds to pick from would be smaller (logically follows from the concept of being specialized).
It is the kind of game I personally wouldn't like to see Diablo turn into, but there is nothing wrong with that type of games as such - I have certainly played and enjoyed other games where high specialization was needed for each challenge).
You can't imagine (or maybe you can) how many people ask for exactly that in WoW. At least Blizzard hasn't given in on the demand yet.
30 seconds is far too long. You have to spend so much time just standing around doing nothing. Once you've made the change, you've basically got to stand around for 20 seconds before you go off exploring. It's just time you're waiting there instead of going and killing stuff. With a 15 second cooldown, by the time you exit the skill window, and start walking (assuming in-between combat), you're only really without the skill for 5 seconds, which is enough. In the heat of battle, 15 seconds is still a long time.
Yes, there might be the possibility of exploitation with a 15 second cooldown (would it be possible to avoid the cooldown of some skills with >20 second cooldown?), but I think the benefits outweigh the costs (and these could be worked around)
People with that opinion are basically saying that a game, with systems that are more dumbed down then WoW's systems, somehow has more customization than WoW did. At least in WoW you had respec costs.
If anybody is sour about these changes, just realize that the Diablo 3 dev team is just trying to throw something semi-decent together just to get the game out of the door. Just make your peace and realize it needs to be released already. It's been amusing watching them try to reinvent the wheel and also learn basic design lessons over the course of the past 3 years, but the time has come to just get this thing out of the door. The dev team was a bunch of amateurs that didn't have any real game plan going into this and they either don't know what makes a game fun or were unable to understand what fun is.
Seriously, think about this. Let's assume the game and the previous rune systems WERE fun. Are the devs just "fun-deaf" and unable to realize that had something good on their hands? On the flip side, if the game wasn't fun, then we have to assume they are just taking stabs in the dark at this point.
It's hard to stay positive about the game if you think it will get boring fast.
How can people actually want to be rewarded for using the same skills the entire game? What sort of game do these people want to play? This sort of thinking baffles me.
"You don't get any sense of accomplishment if the guy beside you can just copy your build in 15 seconds"
What if the 'guy beside you' copies the skills you are using and still dies just as much or can't seem to down the horde as fast? What is it now? Skill? How horrible.
The idea's of builds are SO diablo 2 era. This is a new game folks, you aren't playing a build you're playing a character that has access to an amazing variety of skills. I'm sure kiddy mode normal or nightmare will allow you to lock in 6 skills and be done with it but when I get to inferno or hardcore I'm going to love the fact that I can use an entire arsenal of abilities.
'You should be rewarded for choosing a limited number of abilities and never changing regardless of what you face, and punished if you want to try something new' is what I'm seeing. How silly, how naive, how limited.
It's ridiculous that in the same breath these people can use the word customization.
Wow.
That is where people end up disagreeing mostly. As soon as you end up with "can use an entire arsenal of abilities, then you become 'just a wizard' or 'just a barbarian'.
It's not about having a unique barbarian (not for me at least), its about only having 5 specs (the 5 classes) in the game - as in very very little actual customization.
Because it is. Having access to your full arsenal all the time is not customization. Since you always have access to that full arsenal.
How is switching your skills on the fly not customization? Furthermore, if someone see's your build, likes it, and decides to use it...shouldn't you be FLATTERED?
Build commitment comes down to finding a build you like, and sticking with it. There's really not much sense in forcing people to be hammered into a specific build the entire game. If you're committed you won't change your skill setup even if you see a shiny new build. "I like playing THIS way, so I'm gonna keep this layout." On the flip side you're given enough room for experimentation to move things around if you feel inclined. So now the game caters to many types of players, not just the elite few who want to feel like special snowflakes because they spent hours planning their build. Isn't the build you like a good enough reward?
They're letting you experiment with skills when you get them at say, level 60, and if you don't like them; switch back to a skill you do like. Why punish people for trying something new when they get it? "BUT BUT RESPECS! EXPENSIVE RESPECS!" Yes, because grinding for hours for enough gold to respec at level 60 is a lot of fun (riiiight). Grinding for new loot is fun though, so why not let me do that? Since you know...I'm paying my hard earned money to have fun. Not be punished for wanting to try new skills without spending hours leveling again to get the build I want.
Repetition isn't fun to everyone. Certain types of repetition are especially not fun. You want people to be forced to play the "right" way because thats the way you like it. Well sorry, but because you like something doesn't make it the right way. In this case it's just backwards, archiac design that is being phased out in many forms of RPGs (for better or worse in some cases).
Switching on the fly is not really customization (imo obviously) because you are not switching which skills you have, just which of them you currently happens to have on your bars. The skills you have (those 125 runed skills in the skill UI) are unchanged = not customized.
But there is sense to it. It is so much easier (and possible) for Blizzard to create a great gaming experience if they know people can't switch all the time. It is much easier to have a huge amount of viable specs if people are forced to not switch between specialized specs all the time (because generalized specs by definition are better balanced than specialized specs - they have to do well in many different areas at the same time, which flattens them out).
--> This is why some people, me included, argues that respec limitations INCREASE customization. Because the amount of very good generalized builds to choose from is likely to be much higher than when you can freespec between specialized builds.
Personally I don't think gold costs is the best respec cost either. Simply because we cant know if gold will hold its value over time. And as you say, having to grind gold if you really badly need to respec would suck hard.
The current system actually reminds me a lot about Baldur's gate Dark Alliance for the Playstation 2...and I don't mean that in a positive way, even though I had a lot of fun with that game. I think Blizzard has oversimplified Diablo 3 to the limit of it losing the distinct feeling of progression.
The one issue I can see is if people are testing out builds this could be annoying. Maybe allow all skill changes on normal difficulty without the scaling cooldown.
Personally, I think it should cost gold as well. Why? Because besides repair, gold won't really be used. We need more uses for gold.
Why? Takes 2 seconds to go back to town. It's a fake hurdle that would simply become a nuisance.
If you want to commit to your build, pretend you can't change abilities. It's not difficult, really. Why does anyone care if other people switch out their skills all the time?
I agree, but only to a point. What I think would be a really good compromise is something like WoW has with dual spec builds. I would love to see a slightly longer cool-down on switching spells and runes, however there needs to be a quick way to switch between two or three combinations. If they could make a 30-second cast spell that switches "specs" and puts all spells on cooldown for 15-seconds, I think this would solve some of the problems. It would give you the mobility to have a grinding spec and a boss fight spec with easy switching. It would also make switching between every set of mobs a real pain and cause you to come up with a good spec and stay with it.
Honestly I'll be playing either way, no matter what Blizzard do (well, within reason). Not because I'm a blind fanboy, but because from my time in the beta I feel like the most important aspect for me is the gameplay....and man does it play gooood.
I thought I had heard that on higher difficulties you'll only be able to skill swap in town. At least that's something.
I have no problem with experimentation, or people copying builds, but there has to be some better restriction to skills that makes it so swapping skills isn't your best option for fights. I thought half the fun in making a toon was trying to figure out what set of skills would go together so you could be proficient throughout the game. Maybe some people like the idea of that, but I'm not a fan of such a one dimensional skill pools.
I don't think being able to only swap inside town is a good solution either, because with that or the 15 second cooldown on it the only real price your paying for swapping skills is a few moments of your time. I think a good solution would at least to be allowing free skill experimentation until 30, or the end of normal when you have all your abilities so you can see how you wanna play. But then afterwards put an increasing price on swapping skills, either increasing by your level, or how often you swap. It would stop people from spamming swaps between trash and boss fights, but would still allow for a build change for someone that wants it.
Obviously many people wont switch skills because they don't want to wait, or they want to have their one build. But to me the game feels very hollow when you have to force yourself to play with a build, instead of swapping skills for the advantage.