Reposting as a topic because it's that darn important.
Ok so is no one worried about the big chunk of customization blizzard took out of skills????????? You can't specialize and feel like your the most powerful wiz or wahtever because there will be only like one or two builds per class that are really the best at destroying things. The only thing that might be able to customize your skills right now is the 3 passive abilities. I.E
Gamer 1 "o you wanna play an ice mage well the best way to do that is to use Black ice passive hobbler and prolonged exposer" (i just made up some traits).
Gamer 2 " That's it? Cool Sounds easy. I can't wait to try out some P.V.P. with this bad boy!"
Gamer 1 " Your gonna loose alot, I wouldn't do that with an icemage you don't do enough damage."
Gamer 2 " ok well can't i just take the points out of prolonged exposure and put it into black ice to make my ice damge a little higher that should even the playing field a bit right?"
Gamer 1 " No dude there is no points to put in passives it is what it is if you wanna do enough damage to last in the arenas you gotta use a disintegrate mage."
Now I realize that an Ice mage is never gonna be as powerful as some more damage specific wizards, but the point is you have three skill to specialize your playstyle as is right now. Do you people realize how limiting that is. I sure as Hell hope that Blizzard is looking for some avenue to give us some skill customization back
(like as much as that rune system Jay was talking about seemed unpolished (probably cause it's only in concepting stages)its like the only hope we have left of having any customization that will make different build types more viable)
Can we get some convo on this please?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Give a man a skill tree, and he will become a Fire Sorc. Give a man 6 skills to choose from, pulling from all three trees, and he becomes a Fire Sorc that likes to shoot lightning to manage the bigger crowds."
They wanted D3 to be different. D2 was just a bunch of cookie cutter builds. They specifically created this game with the intention of having numerous viable builds. While I have no proof of this, I seriously doubt Jay would say this without evidence to back it up from internal testing.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"I want to say something but I'll keep it to myself I guess and leave this useless post behind to make you aware that there WAS something... "
-Equinox
"We're like the downtown of the Diablo related internet lol"
-Winged
You can still specialize, you just need to do it via Skill Runes, which you will have to have drop for you, or buy from the AH. The Skill Runes have ranks and they're stronger at higher levels, so what Skill Runes you choose to apply and what ranks you can afford will act as the customization for you now.
The big upside for Blizzard is that, thanks to the cash AH, they'll make money off people increasing or changing their skill customization.
So effectively your skills WILL have levels, it's just they won't be from points you got for levelling, but rather from drops.
They wanted D3 to be different. D2 was just a bunch of cookie cutter builds. They specifically created this game with the intention of having numerous viable builds. While I have no proof of this, I seriously doubt Jay would say this without evidence to back it up from internal testing.
Umpa, the trouble is, that's never successfully been done. Not by Blizzard, not by BioWare, not by Bethesda, not by Square-Enix, not by anyone.
Dozens and dozens of games have "shot for the moon" and tried to have a wide variety of "viable builds", but in practice it only ends one of two ways:
1) Very small number of "cookie cutter" builds. WITHOUT EXCEPTION, every Blizzard game which has allowed "builds" has ended up this way. WITHOUT EXCEPTION. And virtually every one of them had devs saying "This time we won't just have cookie-cutter builds!" right up until the game was released. Then after the game had been out for a year or two, the devs would be saying "Well, you can't avoid it, can you? Don't blame us!". That was the pattern with D2 and WoW, for example.
2) The game is extremely easy. This is the other option - dozens of builds are viable because the game is so damn easy!
Somehow I don't see Blizzard taking this route.
I mean, can you think of some exceptions? Can you think of some games by anyone that didn't end up with cookie-cutter builds OR being ridiculously easy? There's always going to be a best way to build a character. BioWare oddly enough, probably have come closest, because in ME2 and DA2, it's really hard to say what's totally optimal, but even then, you can certainly pick out half a character's worth of points for skills they MUST have - that's better than WoW, where you might have 1 to 7 points out of 50 that are "optional", but it's not exactly "no cookie-cutter".
And remember, it's about VIABLE builds. They don't have to be tip top PVP builds. Afterall, pvp means nothing here. So, it's all about viability to run end game content. I don't think it would be very hard to make a game with customization the extended far enough that it could entertain and still be useful at the most difficult level in terms of content.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"I want to say something but I'll keep it to myself I guess and leave this useless post behind to make you aware that there WAS something... "
-Equinox
"We're like the downtown of the Diablo related internet lol"
-Winged
They wanted D3 to be different. D2 was just a bunch of cookie cutter builds. They specifically created this game with the intention of having numerous viable builds. While I have no proof of this, I seriously doubt Jay would say this without evidence to back it up from internal testing.
Yea I read the entire interview. And Hello you have only three things that can make your personal build more viable henceforth there is only going to be one or 2 viable builds for pvp and in pve what ever class you want to make is not going as awesome as the one or two perfect builds in terms of slaughtering. I'm going to say again as is right now there is only three things you can do to customize your play style and that is the passive skills. That 3 skills is all you have to customize = less cookie cutter builds and what i mean by less cookie cutter builds is that there are only a couple of builds how is that fun?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Give a man a skill tree, and he will become a Fire Sorc. Give a man 6 skills to choose from, pulling from all three trees, and he becomes a Fire Sorc that likes to shoot lightning to manage the bigger crowds."
I believe along with runes, gear will possibly affect skills as well. In the interview, Jay said that the skills will get stronger each level, and others will get stronger from the influence of certain gear, such as your weapon damage with the skill Bash (barbarian).
When you add that together, it seems that rather than going for the best gear there is to offer for your class, you'll be going for the best gear there is to offer for your build. Really, our builds will be based off of gear now, not our allocation of points in skills and stats.
Obviously, runes will have the greatest effect on skills, and since some runes will be very rare, you'll have to pick and choose which skills get the best runes and which ones don't, along with the restriction of 6 active skill slots and 3 passive skill slots. Builds will be switched around on the same character instead of making for example, 3 different wizards and having to complete the game 3 different times.
The downside to this is that it kills re-playability, so once you make a wizard for example, you'll only have that one wizard unless you really just feel like replaying the game again for story reasons.
Hey I love optimists, I'm just sayin' is all. Blizzard have claimed this before, I do not doubt that they honestly BELIEVE it, I just see no track record of them achieving it.
Given that they've completely re-done how skills work, and the game is probably less than 9 months from release, you will, I hope, allow me to be very doubtful that, at release, there won't be cookie-cutter builds. I think the best we can hope for is that there are TONS of cookie-cutter builds, like in some of the patches in D2.
I mean, wasn't it 1.08 where most classes had 3-6 "viable" builds? If all the classes in this have that many with some "discretionary" skills, I won't be upset. It's certainly better than WoW, which effectively has 30 classes with precisely ONE way to spec each one.
You can still specialize, you just need to do it via Skill Runes, which you will have to have drop for you, or buy from the AH. The Skill Runes have ranks and they're stronger at higher levels, so what Skill Runes you choose to apply and what ranks you can afford will act as the customization for you now.
The big upside for Blizzard is that, thanks to the cash AH, they'll make money off people increasing or changing their skill customization.
So effectively your skills WILL have levels, it's just they won't be from points you got for levelling, but rather from drops.
Yea I hear ya man. This is skills only hope right now. But as is right now runes are being partially re-concepted but I wanna make sure the community thinks about this critically because there should be cause for alarm, I trust blizzard and I hope they have plans to make builds viable but they are human and they can overlook things too.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Give a man a skill tree, and he will become a Fire Sorc. Give a man 6 skills to choose from, pulling from all three trees, and he becomes a Fire Sorc that likes to shoot lightning to manage the bigger crowds."
They wanted D3 to be different. D2 was just a bunch of cookie cutter builds. They specifically created this game with the intention of having numerous viable builds. While I have no proof of this, I seriously doubt Jay would say this without evidence to back it up from internal testing.
Yea I read the entire interview. And Hello you have only three things that can make your personal build more viable henceforth there is only going to be one or 2 viable builds for pvp and in pve what ever class you want to make is not going as awesome as the one or two perfect builds in terms of slaughtering. I'm going to say again as is right now there is only three things you can do to customize your play style and that is the passive skills. That 3 skills is all you have to customize = less cookie cutter builds and what i mean by less cookie cutter builds is that there are only a couple of builds how is that fun?
Am I misunderstanding - are there only 6 active skills/class, PERIOD? Or are there more than 6 active skills/class, but you can only have 6 at once, like in Guild Wars? (It's 8 there but whatever)?
I believe along with runes, gear will possibly affect skills as well. In the interview, Jay said that the skills will get stronger each level, and others will get stronger from the influence of certain gear, such as your weapon damage with the skill Bash (barbarian).
When you add that together, it seems that rather than going for the best gear there is to offer for your class, you'll be going for the best gear there is to offer for your build. Really, our builds will be based off of gear now, not our allocation of points in skills and stats.
Obviously, runes will have the greatest effect on skills, and since some runes will be very rare, you'll have to pick and choose which skills get the best runes and which ones don't, along with the restriction of 6 active skill slots and 3 passive skill slots. Builds will be switched around on the same character instead of making for example, 3 different wizards and having to complete the game 3 different times.
The downside to this is that it kills re-playability, so once you make a wizard for example, you'll only have that one wizard unless you really just feel like replaying the game again for story reasons.
Your 100% right but then why would you use bash if there is another skill that use weapon damage more effectively. Now I know there will be 6 active skills but if everything is based of your gear there is still only going to be a couple viable builds (viable in my definition i'm using means most damaging)and why would you not want to use more powerful abilities?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Give a man a skill tree, and he will become a Fire Sorc. Give a man 6 skills to choose from, pulling from all three trees, and he becomes a Fire Sorc that likes to shoot lightning to manage the bigger crowds."
They wanted D3 to be different. D2 was just a bunch of cookie cutter builds. They specifically created this game with the intention of having numerous viable builds. While I have no proof of this, I seriously doubt Jay would say this without evidence to back it up from internal testing.
Yea I read the entire interview. And Hello you have only three things that can make your personal build more viable henceforth there is only going to be one or 2 viable builds for pvp and in pve what ever class you want to make is not going as awesome as the one or two perfect builds in terms of slaughtering. I'm going to say again as is right now there is only three things you can do to customize your play style and that is the passive skills. That 3 skills is all you have to customize = less cookie cutter builds and what i mean by less cookie cutter builds is that there are only a couple of builds how is that fun?
Am I misunderstanding - are there only 6 active skills/class, PERIOD? Or are there more than 6 active skills/class, but you can only have 6 at once, like in Guild Wars? (It's 8 there but whatever)?
your right there are 6 active skills and you can swap them out when you want. But the point is there are only three choices(passives) you can make as the player to specialize your skill in an attempt to make that build more viable. When you level all skills will level with you or scale with you, that means with out customizing there will be only a couple of builds that are Quote Un-quote "the best"
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Give a man a skill tree, and he will become a Fire Sorc. Give a man 6 skills to choose from, pulling from all three trees, and he becomes a Fire Sorc that likes to shoot lightning to manage the bigger crowds."
your right there are 6 active skills and you can swap them out when you want. But the point is there are only three choices(passives) you can make as the player to specialize your skill in an attempt to make that build more viable. When you level all skills will level with you or scale with you, that means with out customizing there will be only a couple of builds that are Quote Un-quote "the best"
Hmmmmm.
If there are really 6 active SLOTS, each of which could have any of 12-24 different actual SKILLS in, then I don't think agree that it's that limited.
Because you have so many choices:
First off you're choosing which PARTICULAR six skills to be using right now - and EACH of those could have one of five different runes in, making it act quite differently.
That's a TON of choice right there.
Then you've got three passive SLOTS, and presumably a bunch of passive skills to choose from, too? Maybe they can have runes in too?
So to me that looks like there is pretty good customization. It's the same way of doing customization that's been done before, exactly, but if it's true that there are way more active skills than skill-slots, and same with passive, then, no customization is not in ruin, it's really different to how it was.
You can't really complain about "a couple of builds which are quote unquote 'the best'", because that's exactly what D2 had! Maybe it was three, maybe for some classes it hit six at some points, but the fact is, Diablo 2 had a very limited number of "viable builds". So long as Diablo 3 at least MATCHES that, so at least three totally different viable builds/class at release, and hopefully more like six+, then I'll think the customization is fine.
Personally I just like to click things and manually do things. I know its mearly and illusion, since all builds were the same enough to wear gear pump vita, and your main skill. But Ignorance is bliss, and the illusion I had a real choice felt great.
Something I learned about my job in a leadership role: Giving someone the illusion of choice makes them more inclined to help you. So instead of telling someone, "Jim do this now", you say, "Jim do you mind helping me do this right now?" and he will be more inclined to help you and happier about it because you asked and valued his input, even though there was no real choice. Its offtopic but maybe its a cool psych thing to know.
They wanted D3 to be different. D2 was just a bunch of cookie cutter builds. They specifically created this game with the intention of having numerous viable builds. While I have no proof of this, I seriously doubt Jay would say this without evidence to back it up from internal testing.
Every single game out there has cookie cutter builds, D3 will be no different. It's only a matter time till someone finds the optimal rune/skill build and everyone copies it.
Get real, folks, the diablo you all knew is dead, a few years ago i said right here in this forum that D3 had a pretty good chance of being blizzard first bust (i was flamed to death ofc), and what you know, its not even beta and its already looking that way.
your right there are 6 active skills and you can swap them out when you want. But the point is there are only three choices(passives) you can make as the player to specialize your skill in an attempt to make that build more viable. When you level all skills will level with you or scale with you, that means with out customizing there will be only a couple of builds that are Quote Un-quote "the best"
Hmmmmm.
If there are really 6 active SLOTS, each of which could have any of 12-24 different actual SKILLS in, then I don't think agree that it's that limited.
Because you have so many choices:
Yes you have choices of alot of skills but you have almost no choice in specializing those said skills that you want to play with other than the 3 passives. meaning that there will be only a couple of builds from those 24 or whatever skills that are again quote un-quote "the best"
First off you're choosing which PARTICULAR six skills to be using right now - and EACH of those could have one of five different runes in, making it act quite differently.
That's a TON of choice right there.
Then you've got three passive SLOTS, and presumably a bunch of passive skills to choose from, too? Maybe they can have runes in too?
So to me that looks like there is pretty good customization. It's the same way of doing customization that's been done before, exactly, but if it's true that there are way more active skills than skill-slots, and same with passive, then, no customization is not in ruin, it's really different to how it was.
You can't really complain about "a couple of builds which are quote unquote 'the best'", because that's exactly what D2 had! Maybe it was three, maybe for some classes it hit six at some points, but the fact is, Diablo 2 had a very limited number of "viable builds". So long as Diablo 3 at least MATCHES that, so at least three totally different viable builds/class at release, and hopefully more like six+, then I'll think the customization is fine.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Give a man a skill tree, and he will become a Fire Sorc. Give a man 6 skills to choose from, pulling from all three trees, and he becomes a Fire Sorc that likes to shoot lightning to manage the bigger crowds."
Any build will potentially be viable, because there is so much customization.
ANY build will work, cos all skills scale, and all skills have levels from runes, all skills can get boosted with items..
so u have
items,
runes
active skills which all scale with lvl and dmg..
What more do u want from Blizz?
It's the perfect system tbh.
Who wants to have 2-3 builds that are cookie cutter like in D2?
That's boring. removing skill points is the right way to go, cos skill points only serve to underline failure at viable builds.
This logic doesnt make any sense to me, blizzard removes and additional skill, and the option for the player to have the choice of which of their skills they want the stronger, and that removes a flaw in the game? Even if the skill tree was left in the game and people min/maxed the same way it would be the same as the system they are putting in, all it does now is prevent people from making a choice, and only REMOVES additional customability.
your right there are 6 active skills and you can swap them out when you want. But the point is there are only three choices(passives) you can make as the player to specialize your skill in an attempt to make that build more viable. When you level all skills will level with you or scale with you, that means with out customizing there will be only a couple of builds that are Quote Un-quote "the best"
Hmmmmm.
If there are really 6 active SLOTS, each of which could have any of 12-24 different actual SKILLS in, then I don't think agree that it's that limited.
Because you have so many choices:
Yes you have choices of alot of skills but you have almost no choice in specializing those said skills that you want to play with other than the 3 passives. meaning that there will be only a couple of builds from those 24 or whatever skills that are again quote un-quote "the best"
First off you're choosing which PARTICULAR six skills to be using right now - and EACH of those could have one of five different runes in, making it act quite differently.
That's a TON of choice right there.
Then you've got three passive SLOTS, and presumably a bunch of passive skills to choose from, too? Maybe they can have runes in too?
So to me that looks like there is pretty good customization. It's the same way of doing customization that's been done before, exactly, but if it's true that there are way more active skills than skill-slots, and same with passive, then, no customization is not in ruin, it's really different to how it was.
You can't really complain about "a couple of builds which are quote unquote 'the best'", because that's exactly what D2 had! Maybe it was three, maybe for some classes it hit six at some points, but the fact is, Diablo 2 had a very limited number of "viable builds". So long as Diablo 3 at least MATCHES that, so at least three totally different viable builds/class at release, and hopefully more like six+, then I'll think the customization is fine.
and you can complain because now the fact that those skills are the best had nothing to do with how you built or specialized them. It has only to do with the fact that that skill is the best thus making your builds that you might want to play feel blah.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Give a man a skill tree, and he will become a Fire Sorc. Give a man 6 skills to choose from, pulling from all three trees, and he becomes a Fire Sorc that likes to shoot lightning to manage the bigger crowds."
TheSkaBoss
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Ok so is no one worried about the big chunk of customization blizzard took out of skills????????? You can't specialize and feel like your the most powerful wiz or wahtever because there will be only like one or two builds per class that are really the best at destroying things. The only thing that might be able to customize your skills right now is the 3 passive abilities. I.E
Gamer 1 "o you wanna play an ice mage well the best way to do that is to use Black ice passive hobbler and prolonged exposer" (i just made up some traits).
Gamer 2 " That's it? Cool Sounds easy. I can't wait to try out some P.V.P. with this bad boy!"
Gamer 1 " Your gonna loose alot, I wouldn't do that with an icemage you don't do enough damage."
Gamer 2 " ok well can't i just take the points out of prolonged exposure and put it into black ice to make my ice damge a little higher that should even the playing field a bit right?"
Gamer 1 " No dude there is no points to put in passives it is what it is if you wanna do enough damage to last in the arenas you gotta use a disintegrate mage."
Now I realize that an Ice mage is never gonna be as powerful as some more damage specific wizards, but the point is you have three skill to specialize your playstyle as is right now. Do you people realize how limiting that is. I sure as Hell hope that Blizzard is looking for some avenue to give us some skill customization back
(like as much as that rune system Jay was talking about seemed unpolished (probably cause it's only in concepting stages)its like the only hope we have left of having any customization that will make different build types more viable)
Can we get some convo on this please?
TheSkaBoss
They wanted D3 to be different. D2 was just a bunch of cookie cutter builds. They specifically created this game with the intention of having numerous viable builds. While I have no proof of this, I seriously doubt Jay would say this without evidence to back it up from internal testing.
-Equinox
"We're like the downtown of the Diablo related internet lol"
-Winged
The big upside for Blizzard is that, thanks to the cash AH, they'll make money off people increasing or changing their skill customization.
So effectively your skills WILL have levels, it's just they won't be from points you got for levelling, but rather from drops.
Umpa, the trouble is, that's never successfully been done. Not by Blizzard, not by BioWare, not by Bethesda, not by Square-Enix, not by anyone.
Dozens and dozens of games have "shot for the moon" and tried to have a wide variety of "viable builds", but in practice it only ends one of two ways:
1) Very small number of "cookie cutter" builds. WITHOUT EXCEPTION, every Blizzard game which has allowed "builds" has ended up this way. WITHOUT EXCEPTION. And virtually every one of them had devs saying "This time we won't just have cookie-cutter builds!" right up until the game was released. Then after the game had been out for a year or two, the devs would be saying "Well, you can't avoid it, can you? Don't blame us!". That was the pattern with D2 and WoW, for example.
2) The game is extremely easy. This is the other option - dozens of builds are viable because the game is so damn easy!
Somehow I don't see Blizzard taking this route.
I mean, can you think of some exceptions? Can you think of some games by anyone that didn't end up with cookie-cutter builds OR being ridiculously easy? There's always going to be a best way to build a character. BioWare oddly enough, probably have come closest, because in ME2 and DA2, it's really hard to say what's totally optimal, but even then, you can certainly pick out half a character's worth of points for skills they MUST have - that's better than WoW, where you might have 1 to 7 points out of 50 that are "optional", but it's not exactly "no cookie-cutter".
And remember, it's about VIABLE builds. They don't have to be tip top PVP builds. Afterall, pvp means nothing here. So, it's all about viability to run end game content. I don't think it would be very hard to make a game with customization the extended far enough that it could entertain and still be useful at the most difficult level in terms of content.
-Equinox
"We're like the downtown of the Diablo related internet lol"
-Winged
Yea I read the entire interview. And Hello you have only three things that can make your personal build more viable henceforth there is only going to be one or 2 viable builds for pvp and in pve what ever class you want to make is not going as awesome as the one or two perfect builds in terms of slaughtering. I'm going to say again as is right now there is only three things you can do to customize your play style and that is the passive skills. That 3 skills is all you have to customize = less cookie cutter builds and what i mean by less cookie cutter builds is that there are only a couple of builds how is that fun?
TheSkaBoss
When you add that together, it seems that rather than going for the best gear there is to offer for your class, you'll be going for the best gear there is to offer for your build. Really, our builds will be based off of gear now, not our allocation of points in skills and stats.
Obviously, runes will have the greatest effect on skills, and since some runes will be very rare, you'll have to pick and choose which skills get the best runes and which ones don't, along with the restriction of 6 active skill slots and 3 passive skill slots. Builds will be switched around on the same character instead of making for example, 3 different wizards and having to complete the game 3 different times.
The downside to this is that it kills re-playability, so once you make a wizard for example, you'll only have that one wizard unless you really just feel like replaying the game again for story reasons.
Hey I love optimists, I'm just sayin' is all. Blizzard have claimed this before, I do not doubt that they honestly BELIEVE it, I just see no track record of them achieving it.
Given that they've completely re-done how skills work, and the game is probably less than 9 months from release, you will, I hope, allow me to be very doubtful that, at release, there won't be cookie-cutter builds. I think the best we can hope for is that there are TONS of cookie-cutter builds, like in some of the patches in D2.
I mean, wasn't it 1.08 where most classes had 3-6 "viable" builds? If all the classes in this have that many with some "discretionary" skills, I won't be upset. It's certainly better than WoW, which effectively has 30 classes with precisely ONE way to spec each one.
Yea I hear ya man. This is skills only hope right now. But as is right now runes are being partially re-concepted but I wanna make sure the community thinks about this critically because there should be cause for alarm, I trust blizzard and I hope they have plans to make builds viable but they are human and they can overlook things too.
TheSkaBoss
Am I misunderstanding - are there only 6 active skills/class, PERIOD? Or are there more than 6 active skills/class, but you can only have 6 at once, like in Guild Wars? (It's 8 there but whatever)?
Your 100% right but then why would you use bash if there is another skill that use weapon damage more effectively. Now I know there will be 6 active skills but if everything is based of your gear there is still only going to be a couple viable builds (viable in my definition i'm using means most damaging)and why would you not want to use more powerful abilities?
TheSkaBoss
That's wildly out-of-date, though, and doesn't reflect the current build. Oh well, off to re-reading the interview to see if I can understand.
your right there are 6 active skills and you can swap them out when you want. But the point is there are only three choices(passives) you can make as the player to specialize your skill in an attempt to make that build more viable. When you level all skills will level with you or scale with you, that means with out customizing there will be only a couple of builds that are Quote Un-quote "the best"
TheSkaBoss
Hmmmmm.
If there are really 6 active SLOTS, each of which could have any of 12-24 different actual SKILLS in, then I don't think agree that it's that limited.
Because you have so many choices:
First off you're choosing which PARTICULAR six skills to be using right now - and EACH of those could have one of five different runes in, making it act quite differently.
That's a TON of choice right there.
Then you've got three passive SLOTS, and presumably a bunch of passive skills to choose from, too? Maybe they can have runes in too?
So to me that looks like there is pretty good customization. It's the same way of doing customization that's been done before, exactly, but if it's true that there are way more active skills than skill-slots, and same with passive, then, no customization is not in ruin, it's really different to how it was.
You can't really complain about "a couple of builds which are quote unquote 'the best'", because that's exactly what D2 had! Maybe it was three, maybe for some classes it hit six at some points, but the fact is, Diablo 2 had a very limited number of "viable builds". So long as Diablo 3 at least MATCHES that, so at least three totally different viable builds/class at release, and hopefully more like six+, then I'll think the customization is fine.
Something I learned about my job in a leadership role: Giving someone the illusion of choice makes them more inclined to help you. So instead of telling someone, "Jim do this now", you say, "Jim do you mind helping me do this right now?" and he will be more inclined to help you and happier about it because you asked and valued his input, even though there was no real choice. Its offtopic but maybe its a cool psych thing to know.
Every single game out there has cookie cutter builds, D3 will be no different. It's only a matter time till someone finds the optimal rune/skill build and everyone copies it.
TheSkaBoss
This logic doesnt make any sense to me, blizzard removes and additional skill, and the option for the player to have the choice of which of their skills they want the stronger, and that removes a flaw in the game? Even if the skill tree was left in the game and people min/maxed the same way it would be the same as the system they are putting in, all it does now is prevent people from making a choice, and only REMOVES additional customability.
TheSkaBoss