I'm really dissapointed by the changes, but mostly because of the laziness behind it. Their reasoning for making free skill movement at any time was that people would take arcane missle to start, then just switch it to arcane orb. Basically what they did was say the tier one abilities are not good, so instead we will just allow people to switch to high tier abilities for free. Why didn't they try to balance it instead of making arcane orb the clear cut better choice. Why not change arcane orb to be a powerful aoe ability, but keep arcane missle better at nuking down a single target? If anything why not give arcane orb a cooldown? This could even be considered an issue with respeccing if everyone needs to respect to have the best abilities.
As for making skills have a single point to them I cannot see how this in any way benefits the game, it simplifies builds and removes any depth from allocating your skills. You can blame min/maxing but that was apart of what set builds and individuality apart. With this set up if you and another whirlwind barb are the same. But before you could have the same skills, but one could put more emphasis on a buffing shout, where the other could want to have a stonger fear ability. And can anyone here say they would prefer being completely done with skills before lvl 30? Is it really more fun to see a little box pop up allowing you to make a choice every 6 levels for 4 times rather than almost every level?
Runes are the one thing that will keep variety in the builds, but with the changes that they talked about even that is begining to concern me. My once endless excitement for this game has turned to incredible doubt over night, and I really hope blizzard goes back on some of these new ideas.
Exactly, it fixes nothing. Before the low tier skills were used at low level. Now they won't be used at all.
Great frikkin solution!!
No skill points also makes leveling feel less important, something they said was important. Seems like they forgot it.
Good job Blizzard.
As far as we know the low-tier spells could do as much damage as the high tier ones. Except the high tiers are just different/ more awesome? Although everything can become awesome with the runes!
Or, the low tiers use very little resource. Which could be filler spells.
Or, the high tiers are on cooldowns which forces you to use low tier spells which you have made awesome with runes.
I honestly don't see the problem with the new skill system.
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The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn’t...
I read on gamespy that you get a new skill or passive every level. That helps a bit with the lack of motivation to level.
I'm not in the Diablo3 is bad now camp, but the lack of reason to level multiple characters is really sad. I get their reasoning, and I think it is a problem that needed fixing (point hoarding, balance al forth) but this solution kills a HUGE chuck of replayability. You should pick 8 skills, be limited to 6 at a time and have to respect a hUGE cost to switch one skill for another. Then all would be well.
It forces more choice on the player and does away with respec-hell, which they said had been an issue in internal testing.
Yeah, I can definitely understand people complaining about that...
How is there the slightest bit of "choice" if there is no ramification to what you choose? How is it a choice to pick a skill and just decide you don't want it later? How is it a choice if one skill is blatantly better than another? How could can say that this new system offers more choice is completely beyond me.
I'm more frustrated by the removal of the multi points in skills, but having completely free respecing makes the skilling allocation have zero purpose and you might as well click randomly when you get your skill every 6 levels. There needs to be a cost.
"As far as we know the low-tier spells could do as much damage as the high tier ones. Except the high tiers are just different/ more awesome? Although everything can become awesome with the runes!
Or, the low tiers use very little resource. Which could be filler spells.
Or, the high tiers are on cooldowns which forces you to use low tier spells which you have made awesome with runes."
If they had a use everyone wouldn't swap it to the better spell like blizzard said they did.
Because instead of picking 7 skills, you now have to pick 6 - thus thinking more about your skill choice combination.
Choice without dire ramifications is still choice. That you got punished for making the wrong choice in earlier games, doesn't mean you don't have one now.
And I haven't played beta, so I don't know which skills are better than others. Please elaborate.
Regardless if it has some choice it is still less than what existed before, and there was no reason to put it down to one point per skill.
I still don't have to much of an issue with respeccing, it should be doable, but not used to rework your character when ever you are tierd of being a fire wizard and want to be frost. It should be used for changing things like removing all points into 1 of the skills for a decent cost. Or should just cost more as you get to a higher level. There should atleast be a reason to make more then 1 of a each character.
"Jay said that they found employees (in the alpha) dumping all their points into say, Magic Missiles, until they unlocked Arcane Orb. They would then respec, and dump all their points into Arcane Orb, until they unlocked the next tier skill."
This is off the write up from their trip off the first page, if they were taking all the points out of one to put it into another I dont see how it couldnt be better.
Regardless if it has some choice it is still less than what existed before, and there was no reason to put it down to one point per skill.
I still don't have to much of an issue with respeccing, it should be doable, but not used to rework your character when ever you are tierd of being a fire wizard and want to be frost. It should be used for changing things like removing all points into 1 of the skills for a decent cost. Or should just cost more as you get to a higher level. There should atleast be a reason to make more then 1 of a each character.
We don't know all the details or how it will work in reality, so I can't comment on this.
"Jay said that they found employees (in the alpha) dumping all their points into say, Magic Missiles, until they unlocked Arcane Orb. They would then respec, and dump all their points into Arcane Orb, until they unlocked the next tier skill."
This is off the write up from their trip off the first page, if they were taking all the points out of one to put it into another I dont see how it couldnt be better.
Not sure what you mean. But yes, if you enjoy respeccing to upgrade to a new skill, it seems you're better off sticking with D2. Luckily it's still there and isn't changed.
We have an idea of how it will work in reality they said they wanted hot swapping, and that usually means pretty quick and easy.
And as for the second quote I dont see what your trying to say. Because respeccing was VERY limited in D2 even once it was put out. What I'm saying is they didn't balance the skills and to compensate they made it easy to respec out of low level abilities.
Because instead of picking 7 skills, you now have to pick 6 - thus thinking more about your skill choice combination.
Choice without dire ramifications is still choice. That you got punished for making the wrong choice in earlier games, doesn't mean you don't have one now.
And I haven't played beta, so I don't know which skills are better than others. Please elaborate.
No it doesn't make you think more about your combination, it makes you think less.
It also removes builds, it doesn't make more.
With skill points you can choose your skill and then BALANCE your points between them. More points into this, less points into that.
Meaning someone with the same exact skills and runes could have a completely different build because the points would be distributed in another fashion.
Now removing stats points makes sense because there is only one good way to put your points, with skills it's not the case.
Damn I hate how now it seems it's all about "less is more"
well im not against the system and ill tell you why
In d2, my favorite character was a bonemancer , throwing bonespears ,making bone wall etc. All my points were into that. So what does a point do in D2 ? ill just put random numbers. Bone spear rank one do lets say 25-50 damage. You put another point in it, it goes to 35-60. Yay i leveled up , another point in that! 45-70. You see what i mean? Putting point in D2 was only to upgrade the damage of the skill or to pick new one. Now when you level, ALL the abilities go up thus no need of spending point to make them stronger , they already are. You still need to pick 6 abilities you want out of 24. Making a good combo for you and managing them with runes. Before that system, they were doing the same thing, boosting arcane missile, increasing its damage .. cool. Now they got arcane orb, respec and boost its damage thus making arcane missile not worth anymore since it was weak but omg spamming arcane orb is better now! So lets say you did it for the meteor of the wizard in d3. You fight a barb and decide to drop youre 20 point meteor on his head. He leap attack out of it. Now you need to wait for youre cooldown to come back while casting some weak ass magic missile because you didnt put point into it.
Overall its a better system. I like spending point too you know, it make me feel like im getting stronger and that i flesh out my character but the kind of customization there was in d2 was bad and it was the same in d3. Now every spells youll have will all be decent to use.
The only thing i would like to though is that hot swapping would only be in town or restricted for some minutes i dont know. I just dont like this idea. We are going to face diablo, we enter the room and we know he is just up ahead. The monk and the wizard stop saying "sec, ill change some spells for this fight". Then you are here, waiting for people to swap, perhaps even put runes or new runes into them, alting the game. Same goes for respecing into town but some says , hell .. lets try it with those abilities and some will be wait, *town portal to town , respec and then come back*.
i dont hate the idea of swapping spells, it just need to be nicely done.
@blitzer: in d2 people were not really thinking either. Most of the people would go on internet, check out a build and copy it more often the other. Or would simply max out all the abilities that would max the one they were using, no thinking either. Lets take frozen orb. You took everything that could make it more powerful and you would only spam that, its never called that a build, its a single mashing spell that do all the work because you took all the synergy that was linked to it to increase its damage. Like the paladin or any other build, limiting you to only one or 2 spells, constantly doing them. The build? only into the talent that was increasing the potency of the attack.
This is what it remove, less hassle with increasing the damage of a single attack
No it doesn't make you think more about your combination, it makes you think less.
It also removes builds, it doesn't make more.
With skill points you can choose your skill and then BALANCE your points between them. More points into this, less points into that.
Meaning someone with the same exact skills and runes could have a completely different build because the points would be distributed in another fashion.
Now removing stats points makes sense because there is only one good way to put your points, with skills it's not the case.
Damn I hate how now it seems it's all about "less is more"
This really not true from a min/maxing point of view.
Wtf, yes it is. Not all skills are damage skills and not all skills are single-target. It's an action-rpg so play-style can affect your point distribution. You are applying a concept that works more with slow-paced games where hitting is determined by a stats. In D3, it's determined by your mouse, and the way your missiles/skills move.
Now min-maxing happens at skill level, not point level. It's even worse.
No it doesn't make you think more about your combination, it makes you think less.
It also removes builds, it doesn't make more.
With skill points you can choose your skill and then BALANCE your points between them. More points into this, less points into that.
Meaning someone with the same exact skills and runes could have a completely different build because the points would be distributed in another fashion.
Now removing stats points makes sense because there is only one good way to put your points, with skills it's not the case.
Damn I hate how now it seems it's all about "less is more"
This really not true from a min/maxing point of view.
I don't see how it isn't true. Even if you have the same abilities you can min/max different skills, just making more diversity.
Also as for all skills going up as you level instead of continually upgrading them, that is also removing more options from the game, as you are leveling you may choose to have one ability stronger then another until you get to a higher level. I really dislike how blizzard is simplifying the system. Overall I think it would be less fun to just slap in 6 skills anyway.
I hate the entire change. What is there to do after a certain point? After you get your last skill, where is the lvling draw at? Just hearing a ding that doesnt give you anything but a chance at better loot?
I want to do something every level, even if it means dumping points into vitality like everyone else, or plinking 1 more point in a skill. It might be more tedious and not needed, but it gives me satisfaction and rewards, even if superficial.
Now I see myself simply trying to lvl grind to 60 like im playing wow waiting on the real game to start. Hell even in wow you can plink some skill points, and feel like it meant something.
got to agree with destructodave, earning skill points could be called a reward for leveling up each level.
Now with the skills scaling to your level or weapon dmg, once you have tried the skills and selected the skills you want, you are kind of done with it, and would not bother to visit the skills page, since all you need to do now is to level up, and your skills would be stronger. which doesnt seem to be a very comprehensive gaming experience. I know people can say that well with people following a specific build, skill choices arent really a big part of the game. well yes, but you still get to decide your skill point every level and probably decide on a specific path you would like to follow.
People can approach that build differently, for example you may want to orient or max skill X before skill Y. if you know the next act will have some high dmg monsters, you may want to put more skills in your defensive skills for now, and catch up your attack skills later on. that i say is part of the experience with action RPGs.
I keep seeing the argument that runes past level 30 solve the problems brought up in this thread but that still doesnt make sense to me, because it still seems like leveling doesn't have much value. And anyway why not just have both? whyd blizzard have to go out of their way to change the system to something that makes leveling feel pointless, which they said before they didnt want to happen.
Exactly, it fixes nothing. Before the low tier skills were used at low level. Now they won't be used at all.
Great frikkin solution!!
No skill points also makes leveling feel less important, something they said was important. Seems like they forgot it.
Good job Blizzard.
I disagree with you 100%, lower tiered skills are still viable because we don't know what kind of cooldowns skills will have. Lower level skills may be more prevelant in different situations. I think choosing what skills you want will be a huge part of the leveling process yes each individual level may not seem much but we don't know until we play. Last this system creates more builds 2,285,814,795,264 possible builds FOR ONE class.(see a post by Bashiok)
Meh to be honest, I'm starting to decompress now. I don't know for you guys but I'm getting tired of this. I'm pretty sure they have something in store to serve as a reward for leveling. I used to be on the against the skill change side and now I just am neutral to it all.
Rexbo: You seem to be under the false impression that everything else is working like D2.
IT AINT!
In D3 you have resources (That are actually thought out), you say arcane orb is useless. I bet my ass on it that you will need one of the first tier skills lategame in order to not run out of resources very fast. Ofcourse you can probably focus builds on resource regen and use a higher amount of high tier spells, but that will make you lose viability in other areas.
I can't believe you are so narrow minded and blindly compare D2 to D3 like this. When this game is released you will play the game and love it. So just shut up now with your ignorance.
You know what, skill changing on the fly isn't such a bad idea.
I can't say how frustrating it was in Diablo 2 to encounter a lightning and fire immune, while my main spells are fire and lightning. It was stupid and infuriating. I also don't know why people are fighting this change so badly. It sounds like it could work, and what if it does work and it's fun? Isn't it worth waiting for?
And what if it's not fun?
No big loss. I'm really excited to play Diablo 3, but if it's not fun then I'll definitely not continue playing it.
Besides, isn't leveling up reward enough. You grow stronger, can equip better gear, unlock skill slots, unlock skills, gain the chance to get better drops, and your skills improve. In my mind it's still rewards being given, even though it's not points being thrown your way.
In Diablo 1 there wasn't even skills, you only had spells dependent on book drops, and they were the same for each class. Your power was technically randomly generated.
In Diablo 2 skills became differentiated and had purpose behind them. They were still limiting, allowing only so much progression and allowing a lot of room for mistakes. It widened the space between casual and expert play by such a huge margin that to advance you almost needed guides for help.
In Diablo 3 everything revolves around deeper customization. With skills you can fine tune your line up, and then further customize them with runes to fit your play style perfectly. You can further enchant your gear, and you can add sockets, remove gems, upgrade gems, all to your liking. The game is all about fine tuned play and I think this allow Blizzard to really focus on making Nightmare and Hell (and Inferno??) as difficult as possible. Diablo 3 feels more and more like the natural evolution of the Diablo series.
Lastly, what really confuses me is how badly people clamor for respeccing, but they fight free skill placement wholeheartedly. So, some of you really like being penalized to play the way you want. The one is exactly like the other, except respec punishes your choices. If you feel yay respec, nay freeform, then you must really enjoy making life difficult for yourself.
Free skills allows you to explore your character to the best of your capabilities, and diminishes the requirement for strict character builds.
Read what Bashiok said back to the revamped skill system, it all makes perfect sense, and is the right decision and will be the best possible system for us too play, stop trying to judge something you haven't played yet
You know what, skill changing on the fly isn't such a bad idea.
I can't say how frustrating it was in Diablo 2 to encounter a lightning and fire immune, while my main spells are fire and lightning. It was stupid and infuriating.
Which was solved already when the skill system was designed by removing skill trees. Skills were accessible by their tier not by prerequisites so no skill tree forced you to take all fire or all lightning, all damage types were accessible from the get go. This respeccing on the fly was not necessary at all for this reason.
I also don't know why people are fighting this change so badly. It sounds like it could work, and what if it does work and it's fun? Isn't it worth waiting for?
And what if it's not fun?
No big loss. I'm really excited to play Diablo 3, but if it's not fun then I'll definitely not continue playing it.
No big loss? Yeah perhaps for you. While there are thousands of people like me who have spent the last ten years playing D2 and hoped for just as epic gaming experience with D3. If blizzard just says fuck replayability in this way they are saying a big fuck you to every single real Diablo fan (among which I do not include you judging from the above.)
Lastly, what really confuses me is how badly people clamor for respeccing, but they fight free skill placement wholeheartedly. So, some of you really like being penalized to play the way you want. The one is exactly like the other, except respec punishes your choices. If you feel yay respec, nay freeform, then you must really enjoy making life difficult for yourself.
Free skills allows you to explore your character to the best of your capabilities, and diminishes the requirement for strict character builds.
Yes it does diminish the requirement for character builds...which in turn diminishes the need to start the game again after finishing it once with every character. From a model when skill choice was the difference between life and death the game moved towards a model which makes your decision-making in skill choice not matter at all. Add into it the fact that there is next to no punishment for dying and every moron can simply find the right build order through simple trial and error. i.e. playing the game as a thought out process ceases to be rewarding for the dedicated fan and removes all kinds of obstacles from his way while it provides advantages for the noob who doesn't have the first clue how to play the game. As for "enjoying making life difficult for ourselves" there is that little thing called challenge. You know...that stuff that actually makes games fun, maybe you heard about it.
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As for making skills have a single point to them I cannot see how this in any way benefits the game, it simplifies builds and removes any depth from allocating your skills. You can blame min/maxing but that was apart of what set builds and individuality apart. With this set up if you and another whirlwind barb are the same. But before you could have the same skills, but one could put more emphasis on a buffing shout, where the other could want to have a stonger fear ability. And can anyone here say they would prefer being completely done with skills before lvl 30? Is it really more fun to see a little box pop up allowing you to make a choice every 6 levels for 4 times rather than almost every level?
Runes are the one thing that will keep variety in the builds, but with the changes that they talked about even that is begining to concern me. My once endless excitement for this game has turned to incredible doubt over night, and I really hope blizzard goes back on some of these new ideas.
Great frikkin solution!!
No skill points also makes leveling feel less important, something they said was important. Seems like they forgot it.
Good job Blizzard.
As far as we know the low-tier spells could do as much damage as the high tier ones. Except the high tiers are just different/ more awesome? Although everything can become awesome with the runes!
Or, the low tiers use very little resource. Which could be filler spells.
Or, the high tiers are on cooldowns which forces you to use low tier spells which you have made awesome with runes.
I honestly don't see the problem with the new skill system.
I'm not in the Diablo3 is bad now camp, but the lack of reason to level multiple characters is really sad. I get their reasoning, and I think it is a problem that needed fixing (point hoarding, balance al forth) but this solution kills a HUGE chuck of replayability. You should pick 8 skills, be limited to 6 at a time and have to respect a hUGE cost to switch one skill for another. Then all would be well.
How is there the slightest bit of "choice" if there is no ramification to what you choose? How is it a choice to pick a skill and just decide you don't want it later? How is it a choice if one skill is blatantly better than another? How could can say that this new system offers more choice is completely beyond me.
I'm more frustrated by the removal of the multi points in skills, but having completely free respecing makes the skilling allocation have zero purpose and you might as well click randomly when you get your skill every 6 levels. There needs to be a cost.
"As far as we know the low-tier spells could do as much damage as the high tier ones. Except the high tiers are just different/ more awesome? Although everything can become awesome with the runes!
Or, the low tiers use very little resource. Which could be filler spells.
Or, the high tiers are on cooldowns which forces you to use low tier spells which you have made awesome with runes."
If they had a use everyone wouldn't swap it to the better spell like blizzard said they did.
Regardless if it has some choice it is still less than what existed before, and there was no reason to put it down to one point per skill.
I still don't have to much of an issue with respeccing, it should be doable, but not used to rework your character when ever you are tierd of being a fire wizard and want to be frost. It should be used for changing things like removing all points into 1 of the skills for a decent cost. Or should just cost more as you get to a higher level. There should atleast be a reason to make more then 1 of a each character.
"Jay said that they found employees (in the alpha) dumping all their points into say, Magic Missiles, until they unlocked Arcane Orb. They would then respec, and dump all their points into Arcane Orb, until they unlocked the next tier skill."
This is off the write up from their trip off the first page, if they were taking all the points out of one to put it into another I dont see how it couldnt be better.
We have an idea of how it will work in reality they said they wanted hot swapping, and that usually means pretty quick and easy.
And as for the second quote I dont see what your trying to say. Because respeccing was VERY limited in D2 even once it was put out. What I'm saying is they didn't balance the skills and to compensate they made it easy to respec out of low level abilities.
No it doesn't make you think more about your combination, it makes you think less.
It also removes builds, it doesn't make more.
With skill points you can choose your skill and then BALANCE your points between them. More points into this, less points into that.
Meaning someone with the same exact skills and runes could have a completely different build because the points would be distributed in another fashion.
Now removing stats points makes sense because there is only one good way to put your points, with skills it's not the case.
Damn I hate how now it seems it's all about "less is more"
In d2, my favorite character was a bonemancer , throwing bonespears ,making bone wall etc. All my points were into that. So what does a point do in D2 ? ill just put random numbers. Bone spear rank one do lets say 25-50 damage. You put another point in it, it goes to 35-60. Yay i leveled up , another point in that! 45-70. You see what i mean? Putting point in D2 was only to upgrade the damage of the skill or to pick new one. Now when you level, ALL the abilities go up thus no need of spending point to make them stronger , they already are. You still need to pick 6 abilities you want out of 24. Making a good combo for you and managing them with runes. Before that system, they were doing the same thing, boosting arcane missile, increasing its damage .. cool. Now they got arcane orb, respec and boost its damage thus making arcane missile not worth anymore since it was weak but omg spamming arcane orb is better now! So lets say you did it for the meteor of the wizard in d3. You fight a barb and decide to drop youre 20 point meteor on his head. He leap attack out of it. Now you need to wait for youre cooldown to come back while casting some weak ass magic missile because you didnt put point into it.
Overall its a better system. I like spending point too you know, it make me feel like im getting stronger and that i flesh out my character but the kind of customization there was in d2 was bad and it was the same in d3. Now every spells youll have will all be decent to use.
The only thing i would like to though is that hot swapping would only be in town or restricted for some minutes i dont know. I just dont like this idea. We are going to face diablo, we enter the room and we know he is just up ahead. The monk and the wizard stop saying "sec, ill change some spells for this fight". Then you are here, waiting for people to swap, perhaps even put runes or new runes into them, alting the game. Same goes for respecing into town but some says , hell .. lets try it with those abilities and some will be wait, *town portal to town , respec and then come back*.
i dont hate the idea of swapping spells, it just need to be nicely done.
@blitzer: in d2 people were not really thinking either. Most of the people would go on internet, check out a build and copy it more often the other. Or would simply max out all the abilities that would max the one they were using, no thinking either. Lets take frozen orb. You took everything that could make it more powerful and you would only spam that, its never called that a build, its a single mashing spell that do all the work because you took all the synergy that was linked to it to increase its damage. Like the paladin or any other build, limiting you to only one or 2 spells, constantly doing them. The build? only into the talent that was increasing the potency of the attack.
This is what it remove, less hassle with increasing the damage of a single attack
Wtf, yes it is. Not all skills are damage skills and not all skills are single-target. It's an action-rpg so play-style can affect your point distribution. You are applying a concept that works more with slow-paced games where hitting is determined by a stats. In D3, it's determined by your mouse, and the way your missiles/skills move.
Now min-maxing happens at skill level, not point level. It's even worse.
I don't see how it isn't true. Even if you have the same abilities you can min/max different skills, just making more diversity.
Also as for all skills going up as you level instead of continually upgrading them, that is also removing more options from the game, as you are leveling you may choose to have one ability stronger then another until you get to a higher level. I really dislike how blizzard is simplifying the system. Overall I think it would be less fun to just slap in 6 skills anyway.
I want to do something every level, even if it means dumping points into vitality like everyone else, or plinking 1 more point in a skill. It might be more tedious and not needed, but it gives me satisfaction and rewards, even if superficial.
Now I see myself simply trying to lvl grind to 60 like im playing wow waiting on the real game to start. Hell even in wow you can plink some skill points, and feel like it meant something.
Now with the skills scaling to your level or weapon dmg, once you have tried the skills and selected the skills you want, you are kind of done with it, and would not bother to visit the skills page, since all you need to do now is to level up, and your skills would be stronger. which doesnt seem to be a very comprehensive gaming experience. I know people can say that well with people following a specific build, skill choices arent really a big part of the game. well yes, but you still get to decide your skill point every level and probably decide on a specific path you would like to follow.
People can approach that build differently, for example you may want to orient or max skill X before skill Y. if you know the next act will have some high dmg monsters, you may want to put more skills in your defensive skills for now, and catch up your attack skills later on. that i say is part of the experience with action RPGs.
IT AINT!
In D3 you have resources (That are actually thought out), you say arcane orb is useless. I bet my ass on it that you will need one of the first tier skills lategame in order to not run out of resources very fast. Ofcourse you can probably focus builds on resource regen and use a higher amount of high tier spells, but that will make you lose viability in other areas.
I can't believe you are so narrow minded and blindly compare D2 to D3 like this. When this game is released you will play the game and love it. So just shut up now with your ignorance.
I can't say how frustrating it was in Diablo 2 to encounter a lightning and fire immune, while my main spells are fire and lightning. It was stupid and infuriating. I also don't know why people are fighting this change so badly. It sounds like it could work, and what if it does work and it's fun? Isn't it worth waiting for?
And what if it's not fun?
No big loss. I'm really excited to play Diablo 3, but if it's not fun then I'll definitely not continue playing it.
Besides, isn't leveling up reward enough. You grow stronger, can equip better gear, unlock skill slots, unlock skills, gain the chance to get better drops, and your skills improve. In my mind it's still rewards being given, even though it's not points being thrown your way.
In Diablo 1 there wasn't even skills, you only had spells dependent on book drops, and they were the same for each class. Your power was technically randomly generated.
In Diablo 2 skills became differentiated and had purpose behind them. They were still limiting, allowing only so much progression and allowing a lot of room for mistakes. It widened the space between casual and expert play by such a huge margin that to advance you almost needed guides for help.
In Diablo 3 everything revolves around deeper customization. With skills you can fine tune your line up, and then further customize them with runes to fit your play style perfectly. You can further enchant your gear, and you can add sockets, remove gems, upgrade gems, all to your liking. The game is all about fine tuned play and I think this allow Blizzard to really focus on making Nightmare and Hell (and Inferno??) as difficult as possible. Diablo 3 feels more and more like the natural evolution of the Diablo series.
Lastly, what really confuses me is how badly people clamor for respeccing, but they fight free skill placement wholeheartedly. So, some of you really like being penalized to play the way you want. The one is exactly like the other, except respec punishes your choices. If you feel yay respec, nay freeform, then you must really enjoy making life difficult for yourself.
Free skills allows you to explore your character to the best of your capabilities, and diminishes the requirement for strict character builds.
No big loss? Yeah perhaps for you. While there are thousands of people like me who have spent the last ten years playing D2 and hoped for just as epic gaming experience with D3. If blizzard just says fuck replayability in this way they are saying a big fuck you to every single real Diablo fan (among which I do not include you judging from the above.)
Yes it does diminish the requirement for character builds...which in turn diminishes the need to start the game again after finishing it once with every character. From a model when skill choice was the difference between life and death the game moved towards a model which makes your decision-making in skill choice not matter at all. Add into it the fact that there is next to no punishment for dying and every moron can simply find the right build order through simple trial and error. i.e. playing the game as a thought out process ceases to be rewarding for the dedicated fan and removes all kinds of obstacles from his way while it provides advantages for the noob who doesn't have the first clue how to play the game. As for "enjoying making life difficult for ourselves" there is that little thing called challenge. You know...that stuff that actually makes games fun, maybe you heard about it.