Their explanation leans back on the "it's not Diablo II" argument which has been touted since the game's announcement back in 2008:
Official Blizzard Quote:
We've been playing the game, we know what skill points were causing, and it was not interesting and unique builds. It was not meaningful customization. It was maxing out a couple skills, and that's it. It was Diablo II. What we have now actually forces people to make interesting choices, to craft interesting builds based on very strict limitations.
But the Diablo III team wants the latest game in the series to go beyond, as they see it, another shortcoming they saw in Diablo II's skill system. Bashiok says that "one common mistake people are making is thinking all the class skills are straight damaging attack skills... There's no variety because you just pick the most powerful six, and you're done."
Their latest iteration of the skill system essentially splits what would have been called passive and active skills in Diablo II into two exactly that: passive and active skills. Where passive skills are invested in separately and contribute to your character's brawn in secret, regular skills are the ones you will use to blast your enemies into gooey bits, as well as zip around the screen at lightning speeds and issue combo attacks. Not all of these skills are straight damage dealers. Some of them allow resource regeneration or life steal, which adds another level of tactical flare to your combat experience.
Whereas in the past you would have used skill points (awarded at each level-up) to augment the power of your favorite skills (or the potency of synergies), the new skill system in Diablo III scales your skills based on your level. In addition, runestones, including their numerous tiers, affect the look, feel, and effects of your skills. Beyond them, gear directly affects your battle potency. Bashiok laid out a Diablo II scenario for demonstration:
Official Blizzard Quote:
The base problem with skill points is that we found they simply put too much incentive toward pumping up one or two skills. If we wanted to balance the game it means we'd have to let someone be able to essentially beat the game with that build since it's the most obvious. You're not going to put a few points here, a few there, you're going to go the D2 route, horde points, and dump them all into a core skill or two. It really limited builds since points always went toward specific types of attacks that scaled well with additional points, and we're not going to keep systems that are stifling (viable) build potential and (meaningful) character customization.
So, removing functionality encourages customization? While many would argue the case of stat point removal for Diablo III, this might not be exactly the same thing. Regardless, this solution does directly address the "one or two skills" scenario (Diablo II cookie-cutter builds, anyone?), so maybe it is a big step in the right direction.
Interestingly enough, the removal of skill point allotment indirectly addresses yet another controversial topic: respeccing. Many have argued that allowing for respeccing caters to a "softer" gaming audience and drains the game of an element of challenge (just take a look through a 2008 article's responses). Without skill points, there's no longer any need for respeccing. Whether or not this appeases more hardcore players is another question entirely.
Force had some excellent one-on-one time with Jay Wilson to get the full story straight from the Diablo man, himself. Wilson talked about everything leading up to the latest decision, including observations from alpha testing and conclusions drawn from prior strategy scenarios in the older games.
But does all this wishy-washy skill softness mean something more than encouraging more diverse builds? As a user on the Battle.net board asked, "Do you come upon a particularly nasty group that this other skill would just be perfect for, so you hang back, grab that skill, then destroy the group?"
Bashiok did not shoot the idea down entirely:
Official Blizzard Quote:
You're far more likely to see a player sticking with a build and working to become better at it than constantly swapping around. That's not a rule, it's player psychology so there's going to be a wide range of variables, but it's what we have found to be true not only for Diablo III, but a lot of the games out there with similar free-swapping of builds.
The removal of skill points seems like a step away from the spirit of the franchise, instilled in us with Diablo II. It will restrict cookie-cutter and low-skill-count builds to an extent, and it indirectly removes the need for a controversial respeccing system. But it is a far cry different from the original games and many "Diablo clones," possibly alienating parts of an otherwise eager audience.
I really like this idea, I think it is similar to mine above, where I proposed a 4-total-skill-point system, whereas yours is six, and slightly more flexible. I hope the devs read this and consider refining something along these lines and seeing how it plays.
Why not just change the name of the game now because it's certainly not part of the true Diablo franchise.
I do agree with that people will not make new characters, you will play each character and then you can make them whatever you build you want; therefore, eliminating the need to make new characters. Since you would have already played though the game with all five characters, more than likely you will know the story like the back of your hand, so there would be no reason to replay a new character for that unless you just wanted to. On the flipside, this eliminates the painful and boring process of rushing a new character and grinding until your eyes bleed to try out a new build like it was in D2. So, I guess there are upsides and downsides. But I know I wont make a duplicate character when I know there is no point...
I agree with your argument about replayability, even you getting a little exaggerated. I don't think the game will be very easy, nor short, I just think that people will get to lvl 60 (or high lvls close to that), switch some skills and that's it. No early game replay, no mid game replay, only end game replay. They will get bored quicker.
Or at least this is what it seems that will happen with the current information we got.
I also never liked respecing in any game. It is only good if you plan to make only one character, and then save gameplay. It is much more fun to do another character. Respecing is normally fine to correct wrong choices, but not to try a whole new build.
Yes, you got my point and I agree with you. There is no point to make another character, so why would people do it?
D1 and D2 were never story-driven in the way they did replayability, nightmare and hell modes just illustrate that. I just started newer characters to play without rushing and it felt great, just for killing monsters with another build in all phases of the game, getting a lot of levels, always getting stronger and so on.
I really hope D3 bring replaybility back, even if different than it was in D2, beacause, at least for now, with the grasp I have of the game, I think the replayability is going to be lower.
1- Replaying every phases of the game. The early, mid and end games are fairly different in gaming experience, and each build feels different in each phase.
2- Because they won't have to. That is a little tricky, but people doesn't play a game thinking "What should I do to have the best experience?", they just play it. And if they don't have to play the game again with another build, they will never know how much they are missing.
3- As many times as he wants. Diablo pratically invented the replaybility with the builds and recurring-story difficulties.
4- The different difficulties are different experiences. That is sure replaybility, but it is lower than D3 predecessors.
I think that what summarizes my opinion is that Respecing were everytime meant to correct the player's mistakes when doing the build, thus preventing the "punishing" way skill worked in D2, but never meant to swap builds around.
The funny thing is this system doesn't really change much from the previous. There are only 2 things you lose in the new skill system, neither of which impact "customization" of your character in any way.
The first is, at it's most basic level, the ability to make your character weaker in choosen areas. WIth the old system you basically had to decide which skills you wanted "strong" and then distribute a few points around the rest of the other skills. So, in essence, you choose which skills you wanted to have that would "SUCK" so you could have one or two really good skills.
The second is you loose some of the level-to-level variability between similar classes using the same skills as you. Basically, with the old system it was possible for 2 characters to have a certain skill and have one player use that skill more strongly then the other (because they dumped more points into it at different levels). Obviously the other character would be stronger in another skill, but assuming both characters are of equal level and class, they both have the same relative strength (character level).
But this only seems to matter in those few cases where you're partied up with somone of the same level and class and who has chosen the same skills as you. It's just a way to temporarily flex your e-peen because you have a skill that's "slightly" better then others. The "advantage" is false anyway, since you're not really competing with other characters.
The new system fulfills the same purpose in that, you get to choose the skills you "want" to use and then fill in the blanks with others. It's just that the other skills won't "suck" because you failed to choose to put points into them.
The customization of a character isn't determined by the strength of the skills they choose (skill points were only good for that), but by the skills they choose to actually use.
People who don't like this system really, actually, have a problem with the idea of respeccing, because now it's an inherent part of the skill system, instead of an optional one.
Nothing is stopping me, maybe the feeling that I am doing something irrelevant just because I feel like it, but I would do that anyway.
I'm not talking about myself, I'm talking about the general experience people should have with the game. (And with that, the numbers of players that will do the same)
The replaybility is directed on the focus of Diablo, killing monsters and getting drops. Early game drops, mid game drops and eng game drops killing the same phase games monsters. Not rushing, rushing is a failure of D1 and D2.
I see what you are saying and to a certain extent I agree with you. But I think this is where Hardcore mode comes into play. There will be a point to make new characters if you last one just died. The only frustrating thing about Hardcore though is dieing because of latency/connection issues, but hey if you play Hardcore, that's a risk you need to accept.
1. Not rushing. Playing again, doing quests again, all the way it should be. Just not paying much attention to the story.
2. Yes, that's exactly what I am saying.
3. The difference is that they won't. Just that. They will play, get to higher levels, swap some skills and stop playing. Unless some few that know it is fun to replay the whole game.
4. I don't know. I expect Nightmare and Hell to be the same kind of replayability as D2 and D1. But there is not replayability with the same characters, thus, lower.
I never said D3 will be worse the D2. I think it will be great, improve a lot in everything else, but as of today, I think the replayability will be lower.
For the skill change though im all for. D2 point system was soooo dumb. Even other Action RPG that copied the formula did it better... well of course they did since diablo 2 was the first to do it, they improved the base idea. So yeah, you go and do lets say a necromancer focused on bonespear. So you take almost all bone talent, each point in a talent give you lets say , bone spear 1 give you (exemple) 10-20 dmg , you level and get a point yay! you dumb it into bonespear again for 20-30dmg yay! so until bonespear is not 20, you wont stop dumping point into it... I CANT WAIT FOR THE NEXT LEVEL!! IM SO PUMPED UP TO LEVEL!!! (sarcasm) it was cool back in time but now with what it is on the market, it would be pretty weak. Now lets say you play a wizard in D3. You have maxed out Meteor and Arcane Orb. So you go around, droppping a single meteor on someone who move and it miss... now you have to wait on the cooldown to use youre single good attack. You do an arcane orb, wait for the small cooldown, use it again, use it again, oh! meteor is up, you do a meteor, use arcane orb again until meteor is back. That is a 2 skill build. Now instead of having to put point into making 2 attack powerful, all of you attacks will be. So you will drop youre meteor again but now you can teleport in the middle of the pool of monsters and desintegrate them, teleport again, go slash a caster , meteor is up you drop it again. A big boss appear you send youre multi magic missile attack etc. You wont fear using other attack because they will be powerful too, so youll use 4 to 6 skills instead of 1 or 2.
so yeah, im all for it, it will be really nice
edit : Skill Points Removal Fuels Game Controversy .... hmm its perhaps a bit too much like title, ill correct it
RMT addition fuels game controversy ... there we go
I'm very happy with the skill point changes, in d2 it was always the same, get prerequisite, put points in this ability for twenty levels, and now put my next twenty levels in my other ability. Most of the time if felt like filler, I feel this a a nice fresh approach.
With the "auto stat distribution" at level up I think this is a chance you might actually feel some power increase at each level; unlike D2 I normally didn't notice much difference unless I finally got the gear upgrade.
I'm very happy with the new theoretical rune approach. Current version = yay I'm uber in my first week... now what? The new approach will allow for more longevity and an opportunity to try some of the other rune abilities I would normally not try. People also seem to be unsettled at the idea that this will be a waste of a rune, but it could enhance one of your other abilities... maybe not your focused skills but I don't think any rune will be a waste.
This would likely be great for early to mid game, end game may be a pain with the greyed out feature but if you actually find the proper abilities and stats you want it will be that much more fulfilling, i.e. if you found a zod every 2 hours of game playing in d2 = flooded market and everyone would be bored in a month. I remember the first time I found a Ber for the first time, I was buzzing for days.
I can understand people's frustration on the unknown rune type, the only two cents I could offer would be keep the rune colors visible but make the "more sought after" runes less likely to drop to compensate. I'm also loving the random stats, adds more flavor for the trade community.
Yes, rushing was a failure. Yes, the old skill system had terrible problems. The fun part of replaying is not rushing, it is doing it all over again with another build.
pointless characteristics? atm all they got out was fabulous and give me so much joy that i will play D3 this year and will be the best action rpg ever. I dont know where you see pointless stuff.
balancing skills, i tought the video would have made it crystal clear, the point system is a fail. You will still be able to do builds, instead of having 2 powerfuls spells that you spam, all of them will be. In D2 when you put a point in a skill, what did it do? 10-20 dmg to 20-30 dmg. Yeah... so you would max that skill so at the end it would be lets say 120-130dmg. Now it will be 120-130 dmg but the first skill you got too.
There will be plenty of build to do with the passive, gearing and rune system
First, this suits my playstyle very well, because I don't like constantly grinding characters (read: powerlevel) up to max level just to try a new build. I like having a couple of bad-ass characters and tweaking them.
Second, this allows us to very easily react to patches, post-release skill balancing, and new content.
Third, I am very compelled by Jay's argument about how people tend to play. This is psychology. Humans have a natural tendency to min-max. But what about this skill system prevents you from min-maxing? Whether you min-max by pressing a "+" button, or do it by matching skills with runes and gear and passives, you're going to be able to have single skill-centric builds if you want to. The only thing this does is make the process more fun and flexible for all gamers, not just the hardcore elite.
Fourth, to people who worry this will affect replay value: I understand that some people like to just constantly level up new chars to try new builds. I think that player base is in a distinct minority when compared with the breadth of potential D3 players. Everyone who pays $50 to play this game deserves to have fun, after all, that's what a game is for.
But more importantly, if the only thing left to do once you max a character is start from scratch and build a new character, that itself indicative of very low replay value! What I mean is, end-game replay value. In a game like this, end game is a critical component of replay value.
Be honest. You're gonna rush new characters to max level just for a respec. You're not re-playing the game because leveling is fun, you're replaying because you want another buff end-game character with a different build. Now you don't have to powerlevel any more, you can swap skills while enjoying a (hopefully) more replayable end-game.
I am excited that Blizzard seems to think there will be tons to do once you're level capped, because why else would they restrict character limits and focus their design on tweaking?
Fifth, if people are saying that "not enough core stat knobs to twist" means you won't be able to build EXACTLY the character you want, I strongly disagree. You can still build precisely the character you want, there are TONS of knobs (folks from the UK are prolly laughing right now). The only difference is, you don't have to crunch CORE STAT numbers. You still have to crunch a LOT of numbers, just not core stat stuff.
Sixth, and finally, it's pretty undeniable that by preventing core stat/skill manipulation, Blizzard is limiting extreme min-maxing. This is good for the game. Why? Because base skill manipulation is very complicated as a practice. While this suits the hardcore gamer, it makes the game as a whole suffer, because everyone who doesn't like core skill number crunching will feel compelled to copycat the extreme min-max builds in order to be viable. Remove that facility, and all gamers will find their own genius and create a much wider variety of viable builds.
All those observations aside, I do sympathize with people who find the lack of core stat/skill options upsetting.
Overall very well put, I agree with your view points, I think the only part to add to the final comment is people may focus on particular stat boosting from their equipment perform their number crunching on certain caps and returning values, once determined of course.
even though I NEVER sign into these forums/comments to respond, I actually felt compelled to do so today.
no skillpoints= more fun, more builds
having every ability scale with level/gear is great. I hated being forced to rev up certain skills just because they were the IWIN button OR revving up certain skills that I never used w/ points in D2 after the synergy patch just to maximize the few spells I did use
that's not customization. that is forcing the character to spend points in various areas and promoting cookie cutter builds.
I think people are missing the big picture... THIS IS NOT D2!!
& the RUNE system will offer tons of custom builds and choices in char creation.
Anyway, BLIZZ keep up the good work.
This game is def going to be well-polished as BLIZZ is not making the mistake of creating a cookie-cutter ARPG w/ cookie-cutter features and is still implementing elements that retain the Diablo feel and ultimately enhance gameplay/fun.
Time for change people. get over it. and posters who are concerned, quit the fear mongering. it's all for the better.
1. I believe roger is talking about incentive, as with the new system, there is less incentive to create a new character with a different focus. Since your original character have already been built, quests done, geared up, and can change its skills (which are maxed) easily. Even though a lot of us, like to create new character and play for the experience. there are many constraints in life, and if there's less incentive for gamers to do it, then people would rather not do it at all.
2. Fighting monsters is a major part of D3, but why do we fight monsters, to level up, to find items. And it is this progression of your character that is the key to these games.
Customization debate aside, The following is what i posted in another post earlier:
"...what i am concerned about this choice is its affect on the playthrough experience, as well as the player's 'attachment' towards the character. Back a while ago when blizzard announced their level 60 cap, their explanation was to make every level feel significant. And i feel that skill points is a part of this 'significance,' a reward you receive for leveling up. even though just a psychological thing, but it does make you feel more weight on each skill point's distribution, and feel that you are more 'involved' in your character's progression.
Now with the skills scaling to your level or weapon dmg, once you have tried all the skills and selected the 6 skills you want, you are kind of done with it from level 30 (or 24) and beyond, since all you need to do now is to level up, and your skills would be stronger. which i think kind of 'detaches' you from your character and gameplay experience. I know people can say that "well with people following a specific build, skill choices arent really a big part of ongoing experience." well yes, but for one that is caused by DII's old system that we were hoping Blizzard introduce a new mechanism to fix, and second 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 a build differently, for example you may want to orient or max skill X before skill Y. if you know the area 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. Or when you play in a team, you may want to focus on certain skills that will compliment other team members depending on their current skill choices. this type of strategic thinking and constant balancing of your character to current needs i say is part of the experience with action RPGs."