#1 - Nonskill bar spots
Potions, scrolls?, and regular attack take up space on the ever-coveted action bar/mouse. Now, it's known that the game is meant to be played with 6 active skills and overall we are supplied with 7 spots to place things (5 being on the bar, and 2 for the mouse). That only leaves 1 spot that is unused by active skills by has competition from the multiple actions described above.
What's the deal? Are we going to have to make a choice between auto attack (which the demon hunter and wizard seem to be encouraged to use in their passives) and a healing potion? Obviously the healing potion is a valuable asset to have available in dire situations. And does that just leave scrolls out in the dust? Are there any behind-the-scenes plans to address this issue?
What you place into your various skill slots will vary from player to player and build to build. Depending on your skills you can have both left and right mouse button bound to skills (and pressing 'x' will swap your right-mouse with yet another skill button for a total of 3 mouse binds) and if you don’t have the resources to use the skill, then you’ll normal attack instead until you have the necessary resources to use the skill again. There should be space for, at least, a potion. Diablo III isn't designed with potion spamming in mind anyway, so really, you should have plenty of space on your bars for the elements that will be important to your hero's success.
#2 - Respeccing skills on the fly
The current system of being allowed to change your active (and passive?) skills at absolutely any time without any restrictions or limitations is generally deemed by the community as not the greatest of ideas. If we are free to respec whatever, whenever, then in theory we are granted access to all skills and the 6 cap just becomes an illusion. It also severely encourages the use of 3rd party macros for fast-swapping on the run.
We're currently testing a few different solutions, but I don't have anything specific to report on that front just yet. We're okay with players changing their builds while they're out adventuring, but we're not comfortable with players running around with their skill pane open swapping skills during combat. We'd also rather not have a system which forces players to return to town. We’ve tried it, and it feels really bad. Of course, worse comes to worse and if our attempts to curb use in combat fail, it could very well be what we have to resort to.
I personally think they could go with a fix for skill swapping such as adding a cast time or making it not able in combat and ~10 seconds after combat ends or something along those lines. Restricting it to town is a bit extreme.
OH very nice. A Cd im not for at all. being able to change when you want is great.. (however while fighting..ect I agree can be odd)
What I didnt know about was the X -> mouse button skill, thats fantastic.
I was unaware of the X-swap mouse button as well. Even though you're still limited to six skills total, I still prefer using mouse clicks in a game like Diablo over keyboard; so I can have my right click as a Fury generator, and switch to a Fury spender when I get enough fury, and still have left click as basic attack and a potion on the bar.
Upsides: A somewhat tried and true mechanic that emulates games like TF2. If you arent doing good with "X,Y, and Z" set of tools, swap them out and see if you do better with new skills.
I.E: Doing bad with the standard loadout as demoman in TF2, try playing demoknight for a round and see how you do
Downsides: Discourages experimenting somewhat. Some people will suicide solely to change builds, doesn't work in hardcore (lol... at all)
2. Gold fee
Upsides: Basically what's already in WoW, if you want to switch specs you have to pay a fee, the fee gets incrementally bigger; You start with 1 at low levels then gain more as you levelup. You have to buy the extra "swappable" specs, but can swap between the existing ones for free once you've set them. Again, if you want to edit those after you've set them, it costs you.
Downsides: Honestly doesn't sound bad to me, but thats one persons opinion. I guess another downside is if it's 3 skillsets you can swap between, there might be just as much swapping as there already is. Unless i guess it had a long "channeling" time to switch sets. Other downsides might include: It was in WoW? (what does it matter though, if its a good system it's a good system)
3. Set your skillsets before you join a game
Upsides: gives you the much desired "commitment" to skills that feels lacking at the moment
Downsides: It feels like the downsides outweigh the upsides; You'd have to leave a game and rejoin if a game wasn't working. Feels like a dated system, feels like a step backward.
4. Runestones bound to skills - (this requires explanation): The player has a skill he likes, lets take meteor for example. He sockets a nightmare quality obsidian rune into it to make it an ice comet. That rune stays bound to that skill and that skill stays in that slot until he either destroys the rune in it, thus freeing the skillslot or keeps the skill where it is, but overwrites that obsidian rune with a crimson rune, thus modifying the skills. Skills are swappable without a rune, but less powerful.
Upsides: Again, provides commitment to skills that is lacking at the moment, adds value to runes because once you use em, you lose em, and the "impact" of having to destroy or swap runes can be controlled by the droprates on the runes.
Downsides: Again, discourages experimenting (depending how common runes are. This could probably be remedied by making droprates on all runes high in normal difficulty, and tapering off in nightmare and up, as people have had the opportunity to experiment).
5. Skilltrainer in town
Upsides: Go to town, switch skills, go back to dungeon, done!
Downsides: You gotta go to town and break up your game session, and i know blizz wants to pull away from that a bit in D3.
Both chance specs on death and town are not my cup of tea at all. they go against the whole idea of "move forward" and not go back to town. Theres no way they would make you go back to town to switch, when they put all that dev time in the other items to allow you not to go back to town you know?
AS for the X -> mouseclick I'm going to like it for the 7th skill (your weapon/wand).
TL;DR: Skills perform at a less than optimal level, but increase in *power over time-slotted. Marginal effects are seen by players to allow for casual players (not playing much past Nightmare difficulty) to swap like crazy at little expense, while loosely requiring more progressed players (Hell and beyond) to stick to a build in order to have their skills perform at maximum efficiency. Much balance testing would be likely required, as this would mess with end game damage levels pretty significantly.
I personally think they could go with a fix for skill swapping such as adding a cast time or making it not able in combat and ~10 seconds after combat ends or something along those lines. Restricting it to town is a bit extreme.
What I didnt know about was the X -> mouse button skill, thats fantastic.
I was unaware of the X-swap mouse button as well. Even though you're still limited to six skills total, I still prefer using mouse clicks in a game like Diablo over keyboard; so I can have my right click as a Fury generator, and switch to a Fury spender when I get enough fury, and still have left click as basic attack and a potion on the bar.
1. Change specs upon death
Upsides: A somewhat tried and true mechanic that emulates games like TF2. If you arent doing good with "X,Y, and Z" set of tools, swap them out and see if you do better with new skills.
I.E: Doing bad with the standard loadout as demoman in TF2, try playing demoknight for a round and see how you do
Downsides: Discourages experimenting somewhat. Some people will suicide solely to change builds, doesn't work in hardcore (lol... at all)
2. Gold fee
Upsides: Basically what's already in WoW, if you want to switch specs you have to pay a fee, the fee gets incrementally bigger; You start with 1 at low levels then gain more as you levelup. You have to buy the extra "swappable" specs, but can swap between the existing ones for free once you've set them. Again, if you want to edit those after you've set them, it costs you.
Downsides: Honestly doesn't sound bad to me, but thats one persons opinion. I guess another downside is if it's 3 skillsets you can swap between, there might be just as much swapping as there already is. Unless i guess it had a long "channeling" time to switch sets. Other downsides might include: It was in WoW? (what does it matter though, if its a good system it's a good system)
3. Set your skillsets before you join a game
Upsides: gives you the much desired "commitment" to skills that feels lacking at the moment
Downsides: It feels like the downsides outweigh the upsides; You'd have to leave a game and rejoin if a game wasn't working. Feels like a dated system, feels like a step backward.
4. Runestones bound to skills - (this requires explanation): The player has a skill he likes, lets take meteor for example. He sockets a nightmare quality obsidian rune into it to make it an ice comet. That rune stays bound to that skill and that skill stays in that slot until he either destroys the rune in it, thus freeing the skillslot or keeps the skill where it is, but overwrites that obsidian rune with a crimson rune, thus modifying the skills. Skills are swappable without a rune, but less powerful.
Upsides: Again, provides commitment to skills that is lacking at the moment, adds value to runes because once you use em, you lose em, and the "impact" of having to destroy or swap runes can be controlled by the droprates on the runes.
Downsides: Again, discourages experimenting (depending how common runes are. This could probably be remedied by making droprates on all runes high in normal difficulty, and tapering off in nightmare and up, as people have had the opportunity to experiment).
5. Skilltrainer in town
Upsides: Go to town, switch skills, go back to dungeon, done!
Downsides: You gotta go to town and break up your game session, and i know blizz wants to pull away from that a bit in D3.
AS for the X -> mouseclick I'm going to like it for the 7th skill (your weapon/wand).
Main Entry: http://www.diablofans.com/topic/29011-skill-swaping-vote-topic-now-with-more-options/page__view__findpost__p__667220