Talent Respec
Health GlobesBashiok: There will almost definitely be some sort of system to respec; however, it isn't likely to be as liberal as World of Warcraft. We don't want to lock a player into a system that punishes them for mistakes, experimenting, or lack of knowledge early on in the game. We also don't think a system that allows immediate, complete, and at-a-whim changes to a character spec matches the feel of Diablo. It's likely to be somewhere in between.
That said we still feel like the desire to play the same class again that you may have played before is still a part of the game, and with some ability to respec could potentially require other incentives.
No Tank and Healer Classes?Bashiok: The health globes are actually, in my opinion, really cool. Playing the game and actually seeing what types of strategy they encourage, you can start to see what they add and how they make the combat more interesting.
I'll set the scene. You're a barbarian, you're in the wilderness and after fighting wave after wave of ghouls, skeletons, demons, what have you, you're low on health. You're out of potions, and after using a strategic leap out of the fray you turn around and seismic slam the skeletons charging you. Two of them drop health globes, but the globes dropped behind the skeletons that are still advancing. If they reach you, you're not going to survive. Are you able to leap safely to snag the globes before they can tear into you? Can you throw out another slam and try to remove the remaining enemies? How can you survive? You have a fraction of a second to decide.
The health globes help to create situations just like this, where you're not just sitting there spamming potions, you're using your abilities and strategy to stay alive. Possibly most importantly, you're encouraged to keep fighting, and not just run away.
With random spawns, random drops, and of course the randomness of combat, the health globes add to creating situations that are just more... interesting, and in my opinion, fun.
On the side of potions, they still exist, but they're likely to be on a cooldown of some type. They'll also likely restore health based on a percentage that's relative to your character. They may heal an instant amount, they may be the old over time type system. They're probably going to be filling an emergency-heal role more than anything though. -- post
Random Loot MechanicFan said: They have literally said Diablo 3 will be "first and foremost a cooperative game". Which leads me to believe it's possible they add a talent tree for dedicated healers to one or several classes.
Bashiok: No. Not that classes won't benefit from each other in various ways, Barbarian shouts being good party buffs, etc. but every class is essentially a demon-killing DPS class. We have no intentions to create a tank, or healer, etc. Every class will play their own way, and while some may take direct hits easier than others, it certainly wouldn't define their role within a party. Everyone should be kicking in heads at the same time.
Diablo III having a strong emphasis on cooperative play is really building upon one of the best parts of Diablo II, and that's charging through dungeons with other people. Our focus is on removing the frustrations that existed with grouping, and adding new features that encourage everyone to stick together and fight as a party.
Currently - while in a party each player will see their own drops from each kill.
This could mean that after killing a zombie I see a sword drop, and you may see a shoulder slot item drop. Or I see nothing drop, while you got an axe.
Obviously while in a group you're killing faster, and this could translate to an exponentially increasing number of drops with each additional player in your party. However, it's balanced in such a way that the drop % is pulled back a bit with each additional player (I'm simplifying it, but that's what it boils down to). This keeps it from being almost detrimental to not play with a full party, while still giving a nice increase to the amount of drops if you do.
From this system it seems quite a few people got the impression that you'll never see items drop that you can't use. For instance, a Barbarian will never see a dagger that only a Witch Doctor can use. This isn't true. There is no effect, or at least no currently intended effect, to restrict which items which classes can or can't see for their respective drops. It's still intended that you could see an item that your class can't use. It's easy enough to drop the item, ask if anyone can use it, or just sell it off of course. -- post
Kind of like you were saying rushing would conflict with respeccing, which seems like a good thing.
hahaha, in all seriousness though, there have been blizzard responses on the battle.net forums.
I see how it wouldn't necessarily require harder leveling but my final point is still valid. If you have the ability to respec, any one person could just save up on whatever is required for respeccing, get themselves two sets of gear for two different builds and be able to turn themselves into something else if the situation called for it. I'll use a diablo 2 example.. Say you have a hammerdin full geared and you decide to respec. Then you make yourself into a smiter because of all of the gear you have sitting in your stash for a smiter build. You go in and do your business and then change back into a hammerdin. That ability allows people too much power. The thing I like about Diablo builds is you have to plan for the futures. Save up your points and create your build and if you mess up tough titty.
This could become interesting if that quest were to appear not very often, this could also make an interesting bargain item.
If they decide not to do something like that, then my second choice would be a quest in each difficulties to respecs once.
i would ask blizzard to make all the top level skills to be really effective and useful, that way once a player goes all the way up on skill tree the top skill in that tree should be good enough to play the game to lvl 99.
I agree with your overall idea Phrozen, but indeed there is a need to make it so that the player doesn't become too abusive with respeccing. One thing I found great in D2 was, as someone said, you have to plan your character, I'm not saying we shouldn't get respeccing but what I found awesome in not being able to in D2, was that the player actually earned experience playing his sometimes badly-built character. It was what happened the first time I played it: I had a paladin and I just balanced all stats and chose as many different skills as possible. In fact that character sucked but even through that freaking madness of having a handful of lvl 1 auras and skills I actually managed to beat the game for the first time and it felt awesome, from that point on I figured I had learned quite well to sort myself out with pretty much any given paladin build and especially a badly balanced one, of course it didn't match anyone in PvP but it's a good challange to any experienced player still. Anyway I think we should have respec possibilities in the game, but I hope they make it hard and costly to the player, and I'll comment on some suggestions here:
I agree with you in your first paragraph, I feel like that everytime a new patch comes out... and WotLK is just on the horizon...
Back to the point: your idea is very valid. Maybe they could make a system where you pay per skill? That way you wouldn't kill total respeccing but you could make it so that it becomes extremely unfavorable and costly to the player. The prices could increase as the character levels do so that by lvl 99 for example, you're asked a relatvely large amount of money per skill to be respecced, in your example about 2500g per skill?
Another nice idea, but I disagree with the quest line for lvl 99, maybe you could do so in one of these random events throughout the world? I mean, I can't see the point of respeccing totally at lvl 99 after you've gone so far with your previous spec?
Would make the learning curve of a new character a bit easier, if you misplace skills early on. :cool:
probably diablo 3 will be more difficult than diablo II in leveling your char... so a respec will be understandable.
I still say one respec, use it or lose it, when you first unlock nightmare mode for a character, and again for hell mode. No storing them up. Or maybe even just when unlocking nightmare.
i don't approve of respeccing to try out other builds. respeccing to fix accidental skill assigns or to fix accidentally picking a broken skill should be implemented.
one idea i have about this is that after completing the game at normal difficulty, automatically reset all skill points. then players can fix strategy errors or accidental skill assigns. after that the player doesn't have any resets. that way those players still learning the skill trees can reset if there was any strategic error, but without allowing them to experiment with all skill trees in that class.
one second chance per character seems pretty reasonable from a design standpoint.
And i miss a Heath globe argue.
For me its a total crap.
Whats the difference between fighting for a globe and a pot?
I think the choice of using a lot of pots or fighting for them should be made by the player.
Because imo it will still happen with this globe and the emergence healing potion. I think people will buy a lot of pots and forget about the globes, just like happened with D2.
Players will always find a way to take advantage of the game possibilities, i think thats the idea of all games.
But it is too early to crucify the game for this "Mistakes" and i trust Blizzard, even if the team is completely different from the team who made D2.
I really like your idea. I don’t want to have to make a new char if I accidentally screw up or every time I want a new spec, but likewise I don’t want to be able to respec however many times I want, regardless of how hard it would be to. being able to respec indefinitely (again, regardless of how hard it would be) would only kill replayability
How about this: You pick a skill, and it is engraved to your chars memory after its used 'x' amount of times. Which means the more you use a skill, the harder it will be to respec it. And on the flipside, a skill you might have chosen and used only once can be respecced (char forgets skill as never utilised it) - can apply this logic to real life as well