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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)

I think it is important to emphasize what ScyberDragon said. You can play this game solo just like you could in every other Diablo game and it will be enjoyable. They just know that a majority of the players loved the co-op in the the games and Blizzard has really polished the co-op in turn. They want people to play co-op because they nailed it. They even went as far as to put a mechanic in the game known to us as followers whos' soul purpose is to show a tastes of what your missing if you play solo(holding back negative thoughts on this system...(Grrr singleplayer only)). And that's the way the cookie crumbles.

Hey all! I just want to say I've been lurking this website for many years...I was lurking for quite a while before the old domain (diablo3.com) was sold to Blizzard and Diablofans was created in its wake.

That out of the way, I have to voice my opinion on a game I have waited for for quite some time. Also let me preface by saying I think it's somewhat silly that I can't post in the new community forums for Diablo 3 unless I renew my ancient WoW subscription or buy Starcraft II. I figured the old Diablos would be enough, but I suppose not :(. I do feel that the feedback they are receiving on that forum is not nearly as on point for a true Diablo fan (such as us) since they don't allow owners of just those titles to post.

So, onto the topic at hand! The skill system. This has been an incredibly hot issue for debate since the early days of minor modification to the current complete revamp. Initially, I was excited for the way the game had been built. It seemed to be a polished upgrade from Diablo II, which is what I and many, many others wanted. I shared many of the concerns from each build of the game, from the color choices to the architectural resemblances to World of Warcraft. There is nothing more irritating to me than having a character with weapons that are 4 times their body length and sparkling with enough mystical fire to ignite Yggdrasil. But, overall, I was pleased with how the game was shaping up. I can get past a few graphical dislikes as long as the core gameplay is the same. Unfortunately, that's not what has panned out thusfar. In my opinion, they've all but killed replayability (with the same class), made the game far less immersive, and lost touch with what Diablo is all about.

TL;DR (hehe)

Here are my problems with the current skill system...

• No skill trees
I am not afraid of revolutions in gaming. I have played more than enough games in my day to realize that things you wouldn’t think possible are actually quite fun. However, after milling over the beta footage and various bits of info, it seems silly not to have some sort of point distribution to further the connection between your character and yourself. Customization is so key in a game like this, and user-end customization is something the game cannot choose for you (like loot, runes, armor, and so forth). This is the only thing in the game you can decide, and in a game like this, it needs to be front and center. The way characters were built in Diablo II, while flawed, were still unique. The reason some builds were more prevalent was easily because of the band-aid fixes applied to the game several years after launch. Enigma, Ubers, high-end runewords. The builds that many complained about could have been solved by actual balance. Unfortunately, the Diablo II team was all but nonexistent, and such a feat was impossible.

• Access to all skills
To me, this is a problem. This entirely defeats the replayability of this game. The Sorceress was my favorite class in Diablo II. I had many, (Fire, Lightning, Blizzard, Frozen Orb, Energy, etc.)and each was fun to play in their own way. Nothing really came close to the fun that running Ancient Tunnels, Mephisto, and various other places with your powerful Blizzard that you invested the research and time to build properly. If you have access to all skills of a class and there are no skill points, then all of the skills are intended to be equal. Unfortunately, this means the differentiation of each character is based solely on items, runes, etc. Virtually all user-end decision is eliminated. The REASON why this is a problem (as many will say: "But instead of having 5 sorcs, you can have one that all serve the same purpose!") is that if I wanted a new sorc, I had to work for it. I was excited about having a second high level character that I would have a connection to. With these Wizards being all-in-ones, you aren't dedicated to looking for build-specific gear and tearing the game up with your unique character. Instead, you're just looking for good...gear. Anything will do, if that makes sense.

• Skill swapping with no penalty
This one isn't as important, because no doubt it will be addressed in SOME manner. Right now, any character can change to any skill they've unlocked at any time. Why the developers thought this would be smart is beyond me. Macros can easily be made to have characters press a few keys and be outfitted with the perfect skill set to face the demons ahead. It has been shown numerous times in many beta streams that this is the case. The overall problem with this skill system is that it is inherently flawed. You cannot give someone the freedom of having every skill. It negates the want to build more than one character of the same class. It erases "builds" entirely, and what builds DO exist due to certain items and runes (which is an incredibly watered down way to differentiate players) can be mimicked and easily attained thanks to the accessibility of items to the player (RMAH, personal drops, shared stash). It ruins differentiation between characters.

• Lack of connection with your character
This is one of the most important aspects for me. You hardly look at your character screen because you don't really need to from what I've seen from all the D3 footage. Why would you? Stats are chosen for you, skills are unlocked for you. There doesn't seem to be a real DRAW to pull yourself toward your character. These factors are preventing IMMERSION, which is what video games are all about. A small analogy for you...Resident Evil. 1 and 2 specifically were survival horrors. They were scary. They were difficult, and you could get so screwed that you wasted your goddamned ink ribbons and couldn't save (thus heightening the tension and making you mad, both good things). Resident Evil 4 and 5 were great games, but they weren't quite the same. They took the "horror" out of survival horror by making it a shooting action game. Diablo 3 is doing the same thing to the origins of the series by making it less RPG, more action. No doubt it will be fun, but in the RPG world, this is absolutely unacceptable. You NEED to be tied to your character and not feel like you're playing Gauntlet at an arcade machine.

Some common rebuttals to these complaints of the new skill system:

"If I screwed up in Diablo II, I had to make a new character."

While this was true until respecs arrived, it isn't like it was difficult or "unfun" to make a new character. If you didn't know how to build a character (which is NO different from ANY other game with optimal builds), then you most likely wouldn't care if your blizzard did 80% the damage compared to the guy next to you.

"Runes will provide the customization and differentiation, as well as the setback to swapping skills."

I don't buy into this. I've seen from the datamines, various panels, videos, so forth the general idea behind runes. While this will provide customization, it doesn't seem at this point that it would provide enough to have someone say "Yes, I'm a Hydra Wiz" or "Yes, I'm an Archon Wiz". Why is it so difficult to let the player decide what skills he wants to be powerful?

"The skill system just had players respec their character and dump all the points into the skill they just unlocked."

This is a paraphrased Blizzard quote that we are all very familiar with. This was part of the reasoning that Jay Wilson thought the skill point idea was a bad one, hence the creation of this new (and in my opinion, wrong) system. Respecs are well and good, but they saw when players had the freedom to re-allocate their skill points, they would. Players choosing the most powerful skill is going to happen regardless. When you give them more freedom, they will take whatever skill has the most damaging numbers. So instead of restricting the freedom (respecs) they give total freedom (no skill points). This makes absolutely no sense to me. Sure, everyone gets to try every skill, but here's the problem. Even in a game with all skills available to you, there will still be the most powerful skill or set of skills. What they've done here is stripped what THEY thought was the problem (skill points) instead of wanting to deal with the real demon (constant balance). It makes me think they don't know enough about the series to be able to make these kind of judgment calls. Note: In Diablo II, you have a powerful Charged Boltress or Teeth Necro. You are cool and unique. In Diablo 3, you have a Magic Missile Wizard. You're an outcast and should be ashamed.

"This skill system is awesome! I love not having to make two Wizards, three Barbs, and so forth."

Some people like this new skill system. I'm okay with that. But, that does not mean having a character with every skill possible is a good thing. The only reason you had to make multiple characters of the same class in Diablo II was due to lack of respecs. I don't mind giving some of the punishment for screwing up my skills, but I don't want to give all of it up. Yes I was frustrated when I put 5 points in Shiver Armor way back in the day where they could have been put somewhere else. Does that matter to most people? No. Does it mean you are stuck and can't beat the game and that you have to make a new character? Absolutely not. I believe that the developers of Diablo 3 saw this as a huge obstacle, and instead of solving the problem by removing restriction and punishment, they tipped the scale in the opposite direction. Now the fun of building your character how you want to is just about gone because of how easy it is to change what he/she is. I'm not saying the system in Diablo II was perfect, so I will try and provide what I think would be an optimal system for Diablo 3 below...

Some ideas for improvement...

• Re-introduce skill points at the very least, and give the option to allocate your stats manually.
• Allow the option for respecs.
Put a gold sink on them that becomes more expensive each time you use it OR only allow one per 10 levels gained (or something like that). Not unlimited, but not too many. You have to play with your choices in the game. I think 2 respecs is way more than enough for a player like me, but I figure someone who wants to try a bunch of builds can do it with 5. Possibly make it so where you can run out of respecs and have to make a new character to get more after 5, 10, 20, I don't know. Sometimes harsh restriction is far more rewarding than too much freedom. Even if you think this is harsh, restrictions like this (as in Diablo II) added to longevity and replayability.

• Allow skills to be powered past max level, as in Diablo II.
Items with +to skills or +to all skills were so critical in Diablo II to deciding what kind of items you were seeking. Without these kind of things, what is it we're looking for? + random numbers? +100% armor? These items provide so much more to the game because as a Blizzard Sorc, you KNOW you want Death's Fathom, Snowclash, and so on to provide your Blizzard with that much more "OOMPH". Am I the only one who had that general "awe" at comparing your character to someone else who knew how to do it and is absolutely crushing the Nine Hells under his foot? "I want to do that!" It doesn't seem like that will be possible in D3.


• Reconsider synergies
I realize that synergies were changed to add life to a dying game, but the idea is brilliant. Skills that somehow power your other skills? With how many different iterations of skills there can be thanks to runes, this idea could REALLY take off in Diablo 3.

Bear in mind that I really do like the introduction of runes as skill modifiers. That's awesome. That just adds a huge level of customization to the game. I think they realized that they bit off more than they could chew in balancing, and just got rid of skills to compensate. There HAS to be a way to incorporate this new system with the system of old, and have them work together in harmony. As of right now, it doesn't really make sense to watch a Monk fight a bunch of mobs, change his skill to heal, and then head back into battle. It's awkward, and Blizzard KNOWS they can do better than THAT nonsense.

In closing, I have to say that I really think a modification of the old skill system with some new friendly (but not too friendly) respecs is what this game sorely needs. I can't imagine wanting to keep playing this game for too long after finding my favorite class and beating the game. Diablo II survived and was so much fun for so long because of this skill system and specific items that rewarded you for focusing on building your Blizzard sorc (or whatever character) and taking the time to research how, where, and what. If they keep with this "all skills for every class" nonsense, I think those of us intelligent enough to understand why it isn't fun will move on rather quickly. Quite frankly, that's a lot of us, and that's a lot of future customers lost. It worries me greatly, because what this game was took such a nose dive for me in the last few months that it becomes more and more upsetting the more I learn. I am just one guy, and I don't claim to have all the answers. I hope you guys find some insight from this and hopefully together we might be able to change a few things :). Thanks for reading!

I think the reason for a demo vs a full beta at Gamescom(factoring out beta readiness) would be the issue of length and content. The D3 demo's are very fast and to the point, solidified in their goals and execution. The beta is a place to search for bugs, playability, balance and such. They want people to jump in and get a fun, concise feel of the game where as a beta is more about spending hours upon hours playing through things and variants to see what works and what doesn't. In a setting where people are being filed through in 15min blocks a beta test experience just doesn't add up to much value for time spent.

I'd think of it as a promotional trailer vs showing of a rough cut of a movie.

I dont know why people get so worked up on cooldowns. Cooldowns is not a WOW System, its a game system used by many other games too, and an alternative way to balance the game itself. It is usually better to balance the game with more factors than just configuring the characters resources, and skill dmg output. Obviously some skills are going to be better than others, that's why there are going to be tiers in the game.

Looking at the Barb tier 7 skills for example, these skill look like they should be placed on a cooldown or at least take up 80% of the characters resources. If I had to choose, I rather pick a cooldown so I can use my resources for my other skills. In sum, a more engaging fight with a larger variety of skills used in a battle.

Tentative Tier 7 Barb Skill:

Call of the Ancients—The only summoning skill of the Barbarian, this one allows him to summon the Ancients from Diablo II, who will briefly assist in battle.
* Description: Summons three ancient Barbarians; Talic, Korlic and Madawc, who inflict X% weapon damage. Lasts X seconds.

Earthquake—This stomp causes massive damage to all nearby enemies.
* Description: Shakes the earth violently, causing massive damage to all nearby enemies.

Wrath of the Berserker—This shout grants higher stats and enables the Barbarian to partially break monster immunities.
* Description: Enter a heightened sense of fury, raising several stats (Critical Hit, Attack Speed, Dodge Chance, Movement Speed) for X seconds. Monsters with damage immunities will take X% less damage from the Barbarian’s attacks rather than being immune.

Quote from FelReaver

I wrote this on bnet.

I have nothing against cooldowns, but despite all their talk about pvp not influencing pve, i'm now in doubt.
I think pvp is the reason for the cooldowns. And i wonder what other "pleasant " surprises pvp will bring.

I think the reason for cooldowns is that it allows for extremely OP skills to exist. OP skills are awesome, they make you feel godlike, and that's a design goal Blizzard stated for D3. But how do you balance an unbalanced skill? Put a timer on it.

Whether or not people think that's a cheap way to balance skills, it's a simple and effective way to do it. Those who have a problem with it, I understand. At the end of the day, I want a couple of 1-button nukes. But without a cooldown, I will have to form my entire build around that 1-button nuke, min-maxing for resources needed so I can spam it. Otherwise, my character will be intrinsically weaker than those who have min-maxed. That kicks down the potential viable builds into a D2-like situation. Like it or not, that's a fact.

No stores in my opinion, if you don't work to get something, you don't really appreciate it either.
Seeing as Blizzard aims to use in game gold as the main currency, I doubt there will be much item trading and the need for sites as d2jsp etc. However, goldfarming and gold selling sites will most likely be a fact a few months after release, and unless they find an effective way of eliminating/punishing these offenses, some people will always "cheat" their way to the top, but that's their loss.

I have a few points that came to mind regarding the tp's/pots etc.

Potions I feel are a slow regeneration mechanic that is useful in between battles, but too slow for when in the middle of a battle. In combat healing will be done by Orbs. That just seems like how it will work as of right now.

TP's are an interesting mechanic to toy with though. It seems to me that the major problem was that people would high-tail out of battle if it wasn't going well. to solve this they could make you face the boss (either by letting it chase you or confining you to the arena) and then have the TP be a channeled action. It does not need to be interrupted, although that was a good idea. :Thumbs Up: Imagine channeling a spell while fighting Durial. If you are not doing well already you will die before you make it home! This would certainly prevent people from escaping dire situations weather it was a boss battle or just a normal mob. Notably, this does not require a cool-down or arbitrary location restrictions. Add the 'only the caster' idea and it sounds like a great solution.

As for skipping content, I get the impression that they don't like it, but they are not fundamentally against it either. The way to reduce content skipping that I think they will go for is making the content both interesting and rewarding. Remember Bash posted that there was already a separate mechanic for joining allies in the field one-way so, even without TP's, rushing is possible.

agree 100%. There are a few things we need to think about in terms of balancing TP's. Single player and multiplayer games and translating TP's to be relevant for each. In the diablo 2 single player campaign, what was the role of the TP? Selling items and escaping combat, maybe hiring back your mercenary. In diablo 3, TP's will not need to function like this anymore if we are to believe they won't be usable in combat. I don't think escaping combat is necessarily a bad thing, but should not be instant.

As for being restricted to using TP's out of combat, I'm not sure when our character is ever technically out of combat. If TP's are serving a function that aligns itself with the universe, combat persists throughout the entire game. And I refuse to believe that our lovable game designers are trying to find a way to get us out of the action so that we can take a trip to town. No, channeling a portal sounds much more likely, and much more desirable. TP's actually help the game keep its hellishly fast pace.

It's safe to assume we are not going to have tomes for TP's. I just don't see them coming back. We're going to have to change our belief that TP's are scrolls. I'm almost certain they will not be.

**

Also I wanna give shout outs to the Diablo fight in D2 for attempting to solve the TP problem. If TP's are usable during boss fights, we need to see more of this.

I still don't get people who think there will be less variety than D2. I am just glad that I won't have to go back to looking like a newb when I begin nightmare and hell.

During the 2010 Blizzcon Diablo III Q&A Panel, Blizzard revealed that while players venture through Diablo III's three difficulties settings they will discover 18 unique tiers of armor.


Afterwards, Blizzard responded via their Twitter, clarifying how each item slot has 18 unique tiers.

Recently members of the official forums have started to voice their doubt that the 18 tiers will be enough to last through the entire game. The fear is that 18 tiers will be spread too thin over all normal, nightmare and hell difficulties. Recently Bashiok responded to a thread based on this topic.

By considering what Jay Wilson said in the 2010 Blizzcon Q&A response, and what Bashiok posted, we can gather there were 5 - 8 truly unique tiers of gear per item slot in Diablo 2, each resetting every difficulty back to tier one. A member farther clarified this, and in turn received assurance from Bashiok.

Each tier of gear will have its own unique icon which corresponds with the way it looks on your character. This is also discussed in the Blizzcon Panel at 3:32. Later in the thread, a member links a chart showing 15 different visual tiers of chest armor from Diablo II.

Speaking of the icons, yes each tier looks different. When looking at the characters though, most look almost indistinguishable. Bashiok follows this with examples of unique armor tiers on the Witch Doctor.

For the video of these examples, view 1:42 in the Blizzcon 2010 D3 Crafting Sanctuary Panel 4/4.

Next a member states how 18 tiers may not be enough to share through each act, in each difficulty. Bashiok responds explaining how there are 720 unique armor pieces in the game, not including weapons, or other item slots. Also in the mix are the dozen or so Armor Dyes which can be placed in each item slot to change its color. Bashiok also makes it clear that he is strictly speaking visually, and not about item stat variations.

Lastly, a member writes about how in Diablo II when you venture into a new act, you have a number of new armors available to you. Whereas in Diablo III less new tiers will be offered per act.

It's true in Diablo II, when entering a new act a number of new item tiers become available to you, some unique for that act. The problem is they repeat per difficulty, causing the visual tier to reset when advancing to a higher difficulty. In Diablo III this will not happen, as you progress through the game your character will aesthetically grow more and more impressive alongside your power. The effect is that your character feels more and more "awesome" both in gameplay, and visuals. For more information on Items, or anything else Diablo, be sure to visit our Wiki.