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Quote from KargosofUldum

Quote from flawkstawker45

So what your saying is you don't want to role a character in an action RPG game? Choice is suppose to have consequence so yeah you'd rather be like o crap something I can't defeat easily I know back to town switch. At least that's how it sounds in your fire sorc story. Every one came across moments like that you didn't quit playing you continued on and in the next area you flames were destroying everything and the game was still fun. And the illusion you dismiss so lightly is what makes skills feel powerful even if they are not and that is crucial.

Now in terms of internet you misunderstood completely. I'm saying in the skill system there was only 2 ways to know how awesome skills were. You either put points in them and found out or you looked it up online. Now they are all just given to you. Im not a big fan of using walkthroughs or looking online but now I can just see it its right there

You are right your not going to know at face value about the skills and synergies but you'll know it 30 seconds later(exaggeration) after you swapped em out real quick to try.

O the asterik thing was because I know that word can't be correct.

Maybe the solution lay somewhere between our 2 opinions.

Your first sentence is inane. All the choices one will make in Diablo 3 will have consequences, many of which have already been covered in this thread and more that we'll discover when we play. If one comes across immunities in the harder difficulties we'll have the option of switching skills to fit the demand of the situation instead of having to resort to a skill that is lacking in every aspect (i.e. the low level frost spell). Having to do that is no fun and very annoying, frustrating, and takes away from gameplay.

Do you like being able to see it all right there? I can't tell, context is lost to me.

The word you're looking for is disincentive. Close!

Quote from proletaria

So what you're saying is that using diffirent skills is not a choice, but clicking them in a skillbook is?

Quote from theSkaBoss

Quote from flawkstawker45

Yea what you are saying makes tons of sense. And the only argument I can make to that and I made it earlier is that yes you get more options of what skills you can use but it gives you all of them and "bad" skills such as arcane missle will not feel as good or powerful to other skills of the same tier because you have them all and you can very quickly figure out which is best that is player psychology too. When you have everything and know what it does its cool but things out everything you have you immediately realize kinda suck and that gives you no incentive to use them. where as the skill point system gives you the illusion that yes this skill is awesome and it keeps getting better(might be the worst skill in game) and since you aren't good at everything you don't know that it actually sucks and that feels better to a player.

What say you on this?

I say that you are still assuming that Magic Missile sucks, when you don't know that. Let me ask you this, if Magic Missile is low enough cost that you can use it as your left click attack (low enough cost and low enough cooldown that it has little to no effect on your energy drain, but is better than your regular attack) will you do it? At least for a time, I mean. I'm sure many will bail on low-level skills, but some might like having something that can serve as their basic attack and be worth it.

Even if we're competing Magic Missile against the other first tier skills the Wizard has, we're still finding a first tier skill that works with our build. And I have my doubts that people will find one first level skill to be better than the others, and I'll use Diablo II very quickly to describe my point. At the low levels of play, did it really matter whether you used Fire Bolt or Ice Bolt? You went with the one that suited you depending on if you were planning on exploiting the ice or fire tree. Similarly, people will find in this game that the low-level skills they implement into their high-level builds will not necessarily be the "best" but the one they like or the one they think works best with the other skills they use as well. And that becomes the "best" by definition, because in that player's head, it fit.

You can bet that if someone decides to use only high cost skills, they're going to need a skill to help them regenerate their resource more quickly... well, what's the difference? And who can say which route is better? Both players are using 5 skills that take up resource and devoting 1 skill to the attempt to regain some resource. Maybe one does that job better, but one has been attacking non-stop while the other is going to come back with bigger skills sooner. It's the player that will decide the winner, not the use or disuse of lower-level skills. Critical decisions made with the six tools available will determine a build's success, not the tools themselves.

Quote from KargosofUldum

your suppose to be roleing a character not roleing a character that has the same powers as everyone else and just switches based on circumstance

How is that any different than Diablo II?

Quote from KargosofUldum

Yea what you are saying makes tons of sense. And the only argument I can make to that and I made it earlier is that yes you get more options of what skills you can use but it gives you all of them and "bad" skills such as arcane missle will not feel as good or powerful to other skills of the same tier because you have them all and you can very quickly figure out which is best that is player psychology too. When you have everything and know what it does its cool but things out everything you have you immediately realize kinda suck and that gives you no incentive to use them. where as the skill point system gives you the illusion that yes this skill is awesome and it keeps getting better(might be the worst skill in game) and since you aren't good at everything you don't know that it actually sucks and that feels better to a player.

What say you on this?

With the new iteration of all skills being available and leveling with a player's level, gear, and rune choices they're striving to have no "bad" skills. What exactly makes a skill bad? That it does less damage? That it has little to no utility? That it has a cooldown? That it costs more/less resources? TheSkaBoss points this out very clearly and concisely a few posts up, that choices will have to be made on what skills a player utilizes to compliment each other and the playstyle or they're going to get their asses handed to them.

Quote from Krag72

That is assuming that all skill are applicable equally in all situations. We don't yet know enough to say that some other skill is better than Magic Missile (to continue that hypothetical) for doing damage to say a highly mobile boss. Arcane Orb might be too slow, Disintegrate might not build up well (if it still does, I think it did at some point), Electrocute might have too short a range and so on.

Ideally most if not all skills will have different circumstances and play styles under which they shine. *If* we end in a situation where you'll always just gravitate towards some specific skills then Blizzard will have failed balancing them and customization will falter.

Quote from theSkaBoss

Quote from flawkstawker45

why can't I make that claim? Jay him self said they were noticing a trend where people would take points out of a skill to put it it in "better" one. The arcane missle vs arcane orb comment. taking away skills hasn't changed the fact that arcane orb is better than arcane missle other wise why would people have wanted to dump all the points into it. And the new system where you are good at everything promotes you figuring out the sucky skills way to quickly

Because that's how player psychology works. Who said that Arcane Orb was better? Maybe it's stronger, and if I'm not mistaken, I think it may do splash or something along those lines. But it is, by merit of being higher on the tree, more costly. But that doesn't matter in the head of a player. All that matters is "it's stronger, so it deserves the most points." Is that not a fair statement? I think that's what you were getting at too. But what I think Jay Wilson and his crew are getting at is that while it was indeed possible to maximize the capabilities of a move, that meant that you had committed to not using other moves. That meant that while the system "worked" and one might beat the game on all difficulties with that one beefy skill... that's not what the design team wanted. The design team wanted to make a game where you had to creatively use multiple skills together. A tree system limits the number of builds to approximately the number of skills there are available, including rune changes. That's not customization. That's "I'm a Whirlwind Barbarian, but look, I'm totally using my other skills... level 1 leap, level 1 bash, level 1 shout... etc."

In short, then, yes. Arcane Orb is better than Magic Missile. I bet we all agree. I find that likely. What skill will you use when you can't afford Arcane Orb, then? Or will you stop and wait for your energy to regenerate so you can just Orb again? That's the idea. Big moves kill big enemies or big groups. Little moves kill little enemies or little groups. You waste your resources and cooldowns, and you'll get surrounded and taken down fast, and no potions or town portals to save your hide this time.

Quote from Azjenco

Quote from flawkstawker45

why can't I make that claim? Jay him self said they were noticing a trend where people would take points out of a skill to put it it in "better" one. The arcane missle vs arcane orb comment. taking away skills hasn't changed the fact that arcane orb is better than arcane missle other wise why would people have wanted to dump all the points into it. And the new system where you are good at everything promotes you figuring out the sucky skills way to quickly

Actually, the skills still has customization. Each skill actually has 7 skill ranks, and five different ways of being customized. If you haven't guessed it yet, I'm talking about runes. Skill runes are supposed to act as the next level of customization in the game. It's loose, but just as penalizing as before, since you cant control what runes drop, so it has the random element of the Diablo series added to it.
You need to build your actives and passives collectively with the idea that they will function together. It doesn't help your character if you have some melee and then some ranged runes, for example. It might work, but in later acts you'd probably struggle.
And if they go forth with the whole locking runes into skills, then that would really bring it to the next level of decision making. If you lock a level 7 rune onto a skill, then you better be prepared to stick with it.

Quote from proletaria

I'm just dumbfounded by all the garbage that keeps getting posted. Why are people who haven't bothered to read blue posts (or just read a snippet of one) or watch the community vids even bothering to do it?

"Good at everything."
"No customization."
"Game is over at X."
"No replayablitiy."

Seriously, none of those things is even remotely true. It would take an astoundingly incompetent individual to read, watch, and listen to the resources this community has avalible and still draw those conclusions.

Quote from theSkaBoss

I think you are assuming that builds will become obsolete. That's dangerous thinking, because you don't know that. You don't know that at all.

The problem with your claims that people will give up this or that move for stronger ones until everyone has the same build is that it is a flawed claim based on simplified arguments. An earlier example you used was, and I may not have these skill names right, "You can't use a Black Ice wizard in PvP, you need the damage output of a Disintegrate wizard." Well that's an overly simplified argument. Because it's not a Black Ice wizard, it's a Black Ice/Magic Missile/Shock Armor/Disintegrate/Teleport/Arcane Orb wizard. The beauty of the current system is that if there is not a one-skill fix to every battle situation, then every build has inherent weaknesses that can be exploited by someone of the same class with a different skillset. Maybe this Wizard goes for pure mobility and damage output, but this other one sacrifices that same mobility for moves that freeze or slow the enemy. Well now we've got someone who uses easy to aim moves because they're jumping around so much, and someone who plans on keeping you in one spot and doing way more damage. Which one is better, because if their specialties (mobility and immobilizing) are so at odds, there's not a better and worse build, there's just a better and worse player.

Now that no one of our six moves is weak by the time we're level 60, the idea of "better" and "worse" builds fades. Yes, obviously there are high level moves that do high level effects and high level damage. But those moves take up high level resource and have high level cooldowns, and I can see someone who relies on these moves getting steamrolled by a player who uses enough rapidfire moves with small resource cost to basically never stop hitting you.

Reality check: there is just no such thing as a wrong way to play in this new system. I think it was you who said earlier that if everyone's perfect, then no one is. Well, that's true in this case, because if everyone can play their own style and have it be viable in the arena, then no one can inherently be better than the others.

Really, I can't take you arguments very heavily when none of us have played the game yet until you can provide arguments on your side that account for the facts that
A. everyone will be forced to use their entire skill pool (6 skills) to be effective in high level arenas.
B. no one can spam the most powerful moves in the game thanks to cooldowns and smart resource systems.
C. anyone who uses X or Y move as their staple is vulnerable to someone who utilizes in any way a move or fighting style that exploits the weakness of that staple.

Quote from _incarnate_

Quote from flawkstawker45

Yea I think your hitting the nail on the head pretty much but in my opinion choosing what skills your bad/good at is customization and in the respec build while your building your char you don't know how awesome all the other skills until you put points into them so if it is bad it can still be fun. You still make choices that make the build your trying to make, feel awesome with out having to see that well another skill at the same level is 10 times better(or whatever). And respecing its self was a choice that you'd have to spend in game currency on and you don't really know if your going to make another build that is better or worse. I mean eventually after playing the game alot your are gonna start to know. but with how it is now that's all very different. (lol yea my articulation is atrocious at times)

Well most of that is also mitigated in a well balanced system where you don't have such wildly varying strengths of similar skills. Whether or not that can be achieved in D3 -we have no idea.