Synergies a No-Show in Diablo III?

[Seth]

Bashiok has recently revealed via the Battle.net forums (viewable as per our Blue Tracker here http://www.diablofans.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18834) that synergies are most likely not going to happen:

Originally Posted by Bashiok

Synergies aren't being planned for nor are they expected.

It's sort of a funny question, because broken down you're essentially asking "Are the skill trees in Diablo III going to be boring and require incentive to spend points in skills no one wants?"

Ideally the answer to that is no. Smiley
There are some other things going on too that make sure synergies even less of a necessity. Clear separation of active and passive skills, respecs, ... and MORE!

I personally felt that synergies fixed more than they broke but, as we all know, Diablo II has had a long history of bad balancing and cookie-cutter builds. Perhaps in light of how Diablo fans reacted to synergies in Diablo II, the Diablo III team is deciding against such an implementation.

This quote actually also led to some speculation by one of our own members here (http://www.diablofans.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18838), DarkMagicc, about the viability of respeccing, if anyone wants to go and check that out.

I'd say we're actually getting a decent flow of updates if you know what to look for. Comments? Ideas? Trolling that I can delete to raise my moderation score?

[skynight]

I guess we might not get synergies this time. I look forward to seeing the completed skill trees

[Lestater]

This is gay. Joking Magistrate, just trying to help your score. =]

But seriously, I hated synergies, I hated the feeling of being forced to get abilities I wouldn't use so that the ones I did use were effective past normal mode, and hated the fact that you had to invest all of your points into these builds in order to get one decent move. So, yeah, I love that they're gone, I wanna be able to use a wide array of abilities, without having to worry about the fact that I'll be weak as shit down the road.

[dunhac82]

I can see both points of view honestly. I mean synergies did give a reason to spend points in otherwise useless skills and give a little boost. Also though, I felt like it was more an afterthought and kind of a quick fix to balance issues. I think that getting rid of them will actually help span out customization and build possibilities by giving us skills that are useful throughout the tree.

In my opinion; I would be much happier to see a system that doesn't have those problems to begin with; where we can select skills because we like them and want to build around them, rather than picking them because they are the "best skills" or as a buffer to the better skills.

[BryanM]

You can already see how they plan to work this: low level skills will be kind of sucky, but a passive skill later on will upgrade it. Such as those skills that add more projectiles to Magic Missile, and Charged Bolt, multiplying their damage an order of magnitude.

In essence, there won't be skills that strictly supersede an earlier one; in this system there wouldn't be a Firebolt and Fireball, simply a Firebolt that would upgrade to have an explosion added to it.

The Amazon's lazy elemental arrow attacks come straight to mind to how little variety we truly had, and how much better things could be.

Also you can kind of wonder if they're going to overhaul Diablo II something like this in the next patch. Hrm.

[LordRayken]

Originally Posted by Magistrate

Comments? Ideas? Trolling that I can delete to raise my moderation score?

I knew it!!!

...

Regardless, I ask, what the hell -is- wrong with cookie cutter builds, Diablo 3 team?

I mean, doesnt every game that has a character that fills certain rolls accept cookie cutter builds? I mean, my priest in WoW isnt going to be shadow if he wants to heal. He'd get the cookie cutter build for the best holy priest talent set.

I feel like Cookie Cutter is just a lame excuse for "optimum character build for what play style you want with this character."

EDIT: Maybe not in all games, though... Just Blizzard ones. Some games Cookie cutter is actually -horrible- I think...

[DesmondTiny]

Yay!!! No more cookie cutter builds time to use the imagination a powerful tool!!

[kefka666333abc123]

Originally Posted by DesmondTiny

Yay!!! No more cookie cutter builds time to use the imagination a powerful tool!!

You really think there wont be cookie cutter builds? Every game with a skill system has that..and with the amount of people that are going to be playing D3 you can be sure they will find the best builds possible quickly

[BryanM]

Originally Posted by LordRayken

Regardless, I ask, what the hell -is- wrong with cookie cutter builds, Diablo 3 team?

That it takes them work to make all these skills so they might as well try to get them all used? It'd be a travesty if no Wizards made use of Acid Cloud.

Besides, Diablo II right now is more a straight jacket than a cookie oven. Playing a sorceress really sucks sometimes; you have a passive mastery skill, an active skill, and usually a booster or two to that skill, so it's often outright impossible to max damage on two skills from two separate trees.

And as a Diablo game, yeah AoE skills will be by far the best outside of boss fights. But it looks like every skill tree so far will have at least one, and sure one of them will always be the best in any given patch by some amount, but the variety of theme and looks is there and and and

.....it'll be another two years until this comes out, won't it? God I'm too old.

[dunhac82]

Well as far as I can gather they are trying to make it all less cookie cutter. As BryanM mentioned; I think the cookie cutter builds in DII came out of meer necessity; some builds are simply impossible to play up to a certain point in the game.

I think what the DIII team seems like they are shooting for is increasing the amount of feasible builds at our disposal. Sure there will be builds that are considered the best, but I think that runes have the potential to really open up the possibilities. Plus, there are systems that we don't know about yet; so throw those into the mix and things might really expand.