Emberos you're talking to a wall man.This is a whole left-sided brain person vs. a right-sided brain person. You're giving him facts in which he believes are opinions. All you can really do is allow them to play the way that they most enjoy and accept that some people just don't care or understand the math behind video games. We've all run into this in many games. I believe you mentioned you play(ed) WoW so I'm sure you're perfectly aware of this fact.
People had fun in Diablo 2 making characters and figuring out how to spend roughly 100 skill points by allocating them into roughly 30 skill slots (per class), both active and passive. Some builds were serious business and some builds were just goofy builds where people had fun figuring out how to make them viable.
In Diablo 3, people will shift through different combinations of skills that have very little identity. They aren't builds, just combinations. When somebody says they are making a crit barb or an aoe barb or bash barb, you will have absolutely no way of knowing what the hell their build actually is. It's just another combination of skills that does the same crap as the next guy's.
Do all of the math you want. Go ahead. Slobber over a big passionless number that's at the end of an exponent equation. Big whoopidee doo. It's all generic combinations with very little identity. More doesn't mean better. Every Blizzard fan should know that by heart. Nobody gives a crap if your rogue build is different, They only care if your Combat rogue or your sublety rogue rips into flesh better than the other guy... or if you have the skills or rotation down pat to do so. Who would give a crap if your rogue build is skill combination #3450?
After 6+ years of development, we basically have the same situation where every build has the same purpose of killing crap, while having also having every build have less identity. We might as well just go back to Warcraft 2, where every one of our skills could be perfectly balanced, similar to have every unit in WC2 was a mirror matched unit and they did the exact same thing. Outside of making, let's say, an MF run Demon hunter or a PvM Demon Hunter, what else is there?
Diablo 2 Player: I'm leveling a whirlwind barb.
Diablo 3 Player: Cool. Well you see... my barb will have bash and leap and ignore pain and whirlwind and...
Diablo 2 Playter: Um... so that's a whirlwind barb then, right?
Diablo 3 Player: Well, yeah... but not really. There's more to it then that. You have to see my skills to understand how it all works Plus my runes are...
Diablo 2 Player: Sounds complicated and boring. Too long, didn't listen. Brb, pindleskin run.
Diablo 3 Player: Screw you, noobtrash!
Gems, gear sets and followers will have to be more in-depth to compensate. If not, you'll basically just have a maximum of five characters with an extended stash and maybe mule characters for extra storage. Why? Well every character can switch to another characters "build" simply by switching gear, at absolutely no cost. Almost 12 years have past and all we have done was go from a game where we could have multiple builds of each class (example. having a hurricane druid AND a shapeshifter druid) to a game we just have one character of each class (ex. having one druid that can just switch to any build whenever he wants just by switching skills and gear.)
Math does not make a game fun long-term. If it did, all of you guys and gals would be Actuaries in real life having a great time making a good living.
I've been reading on these forums for a while now and I've become so fed up with this argument that I've decided to actually make a post. Correct me if I'm wrong but it appears that you believe having to re-level a toon to respec is more meaningful than just openning your spellbook and swapping out abilities. I can see how this makes sense to some people since each toon's skills are permanent, and therefore each individual has more of a unique identity. (ie. blizzard sorc and meteor sorc).
The fact that you are ignoring though, is that in D2 it took less that 5 hours play time to level a toon to 80. On top of that, and I admit this is merely my opinion, those ~5 hours felt like a necessary but annoying chore that I had to complete before I could have some real fun. As a result, you are actually arguing that an annoying ~5 hours creates a meaningful identity that a toon in D3 will lack. I for one am glad that Blizzard does not share your opinion.
What really gives a toon a unique identity is the gear. I'd be happy to expand on this but I feel like I've already said too much for my first post.
/rant off
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I've been reading on these forums for a while now and I've become so fed up with this argument that I've decided to actually make a post. Correct me if I'm wrong but it appears that you believe having to re-level a toon to respec is more meaningful than just openning your spellbook and swapping out abilities. I can see how this makes sense to some people since each toon's skills are permanent, and therefore each individual has more of a unique identity. (ie. blizzard sorc and meteor sorc).
The fact that you are ignoring though, is that in D2 it took less that 5 hours play time to level a toon to 80. On top of that, and I admit this is merely my opinion, those ~5 hours felt like a necessary but annoying chore that I had to complete before I could have some real fun. As a result, you are actually arguing that an annoying ~5 hours creates a meaningful identity that a toon in D3 will lack. I for one am glad that Blizzard does not share your opinion.
What really gives a toon a unique identity is the gear. I'd be happy to expand on this but I feel like I've already said too much for my first post.
/rant off