DiabloFans

First of all, I have been following the development for quite some time and I am aware of the intents of the developers. I have put a lot of legitimate thought regarding the new skill system, but I feel that the forums are not an adequate place to post my feedback, because my posts get washed to the second page immediately. That being said...

Thank you for taking the time to read my comments below:

The Good
- The new system makes leveling much more exciting
- There are no longer ridiculously huge comparisons that the player has to make
- We get cooler abilities in the early game
- The difficulty now feels appropriate for the first act of normal difficulty

The Bad
- Because the runes that become available are given to us, rather than letting us choose which ones to unlock, the choice is now gone from which skills to use. If I have two abilities, one with a rune and one without, I am essentially forced to use the ability with the rune. A comparison that involves an ability that is more powerful than another is NOT a comparison.
- There is no longer a form of end game progression besides collecting new gear. While this is cool, it is certainly not the same as feeling like you are unlocking new ranks of an ability (even if they are statistically equal).
- There is even LESS build commitment. I know this is intentional, but my choices feel meaningless! A good system should allow the player to experiment freely, but encourage the player to identify a build that they can call theirs.

The Ugly
- The new skill interface is ugly; it is functional, but ugly. The old interface looked so awesome. It had a stained glass window appearance that was aesthetically awesome. You could see ALL the abilities in the game AND what level they became available. Being able to easily see all the abilities and when they become available is a HUGE "Carrot on a stick". It makes people look ahead and get excited about playing.

Suggestions:
- At levels that runes unlock, grant the player a skill point (nothing like D2 skill points). These skill points are used to unlock new rune effects. We should be able to unlock a rune on any ability we have, but we cannot unlock the runes out of order (we must unlock the runes for an ability from left to right) Why? We shouldn't be able to select all of our favorite runes in the first 10 levels, because then there is nothing to look forward to. In addition, I might choose to unlock all my runes on shock pulse to get the last rune which seems most interesting to me. Eventually, a player should be able to unlock all their rune effects.
- Allow the player to save ONLY 2-3 skill builds. Changing the saved builds should cost gold. However, you may also freely use other non-saved builds. The saved builds are simply a convenience and a list of builds that identify "you". (If one wanted to go further, there could be a benefit for using a saved build, like a 5% damage increase). I really feel like this is critical to the game design. The current system makes me feel like a class with a pool of abilities, rather than MY DESIGNED character. At least my saved builds would differentiate me when I show off my character. I don't feel like this is an unreasonable request or a request that moves the game away from the direction it is being taken.
- Make trash white items have a grey name. Useful white items like potions should remain white.
- Redesign the skill interface so that it isn't confusing for "elective mode" and so all abilities can be seen at once. Also, try to reduce the screen real-estate.
- Some sort of end game progression besides gear would be nice to include.