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skill swapping is silly and I think 6 skills is plenty (a whole lot more than you ever used in D2)...I don't want to feel obligated to swap skills for max effectiveness (this would be like blizzard continuing to encourage MF gear swapping which they implemented paragon to help eliminate over time)

now going to new acts certainly should stop clearing stacks...that's just plain silly...also they should just remove the timer on the buff and leave it on until you leave your game

also a 5m grace period should keep the buff on you in case of disconnects...if you start a new game or remain disconnected for more than 5m...then clear it

They said feedback has changed since Beta.... there's an obvious reason for this. In beta, you have a more intelligent population, aware of game mechanics and balancing for long-term playability. In the current population, let's just say the bar is lowered.

In the beta it was true diablo fans (I never got a key ) and now that its a widely played game, people dont understand what actually putting hard working into a game is anymore. now 100 hrs they should have everything the game has to offer. Apparently most of them have never played blizzard games before...

Quote from Twipp

This. Problem is that mainstream players are 10-15 year olds.. Generation that wants all and they want it NOW..

No offense but you don't have any idea what you are talking about. You say this because it's a popular sentiment and convenient outlet for blame. You should admit that you don't have any facts relative to the actual demographics of this game and even moreso what those players "want".

i don't care if swapping skills wipes buff or not

i like my builds and i don't change them

In beta players had their skill menu opened the entire time while playing. I think NV should reset or have a npc in town that will allow the switch of a skill at the loss of 1 stack per skill. All in all it's a great time to be a gamer, companies work hard to make their products better and more enjoyable. Now we just need the itemization of armor pieces redone and hopefully some more ranomness of maps. Still happy with all these new changes out of the blue.

Players during beta: "Give us a reason not to swap skills."
Blizzard: "Ok here's NV. It's a buff if you don't swap skills but you're unaffected if you do jump to town and swap skills all the time."
Players during live: "Now let us swap skills."
Blizzard: "If you want to swap skills again, you will lose the ability to get NV."
Players: "No we want full NV all the time and skill swapping."
Blizzard: "... I want a toilet made of gold."

This is ridiculous. They should just start every character at level 60, paragon 100, and allow us to map every skill to hotkeys. Oh and NV is permanent once you get a 5 stack ever and doesn't get wiped for any reason, it stays between games. And if you kill an elite it drops every legendary with max rolls. Oh and followers can be with you in multiplayer games and 1 shot everything and pick up loot for you so you don't even have to click on anything except to move.

No wait, all of this will occur in town at the waypoint so you don't even have to move.

It looks like the hardcore gamer who's willing to give thought to his gameplay is a dying breed indeed.

But regarding NV stack reset, let's ask the proper question: does it matter? Sure, NV stack reset locks you in a build for a session. But then again, if you want to farm efficiently, you're locked in a build, because you don't want to make breaks to mess with your talents (assuming the 1 min cd after skill swap stays). And if you died because you couldn't handle an elite using your current skillset, you don't farm efficiently. So NV stack reset doesn't matter when the game is on farm. You want to stick to a build anyways.

Where it actually matters is progress, and with the new and hard bosses/modes we'll be wiping a lot again. And what happens when you get to a boss/elite you can't kill it with your current skillset? You either skip it before you loose your stacks, or you wipe until you've lost your stacks, and only start changing skills after that because you don't want to loose your rewards (or if you can't skip it you just quit because of the loose-loose situation). Of course, the clever choice is to swap skills as soon as you realize you can't beat the boss with you currents skills. You'll find an efficient, universal build quicker if you forgo the unnecessary wipes and skips. NV reset currently punishes being clever by removing the loot and MF bonus when you start to experiment and fine-tune your build, and it kills a major incentive of defeating a new boss.

Now, just to be clear, I want NV reset to stay. It makes getting fast loot a bit harder (during progress period), and I'm fine with that, because I'm pro, and it's a big advantage to have the endgame inaccessible(or unfeasible) for most of the players. That makes my loot more expensive and I can make more money on RMAH (my only incentive to play this game). But the arguments above are very strong against NV reset on skill swap. I think it's clear that Blizzard has to remove it one day.

Feel free to discuss, but please read carefully what I just wrote and think before you post.

I know this has been brought up before, but perhaps the compromise of swapping one skill drops one stack is the best course of action to allow for some flexibility with a moderate cost involved.

Quote from m4st0d0n

Of course, the clever choice is to swap skills as soon as you realize you can't beat the boss with you currents skills. You'll find an efficient, universal build quicker if you forgo the unnecessary wipes and skips. NV reset currently punishes being clever by removing the loot and MF bonus when you start to experiment and fine-tune your build, and it kills a major incentive of defeating a new boss.

True, but: Without NV-reset, people would just switch their brains off until their character dies to a monster-group and then respecc. It isn't hard to know which skills are better against specific monster-types or amounts (single target vs. group, melee vs. ranged, burst vs. sustain dmg, ...), but it is hard to come up with a build that doesn't suck in any of these situations (now, apart from doing the completely brainless build-copying).

Please do not remove the penalty aspect of NV. I'm all for there being different builds, but choosing skills still ought to have some sort of meaning. NV satisfies this.

Wonder how long that goblin thing took to set up.

I think I have a solution for the skill swapping situation. As of right now, NV seems to be most beneficial towards paragon leveling (let's just ignore the MF portion, it is irrelevant to my upcoming point). Since Paragon leveling becomes more difficult the higher level you get, why not add a gated skill swap system? What I mean by this is, you are allowed a certain number of skill swaps (based on your Paragon level) before your current NV stacks wipe, you can "unlock" skill swaps up until level 100 Paragon, at which point you would be allowed 6 skill swaps.

The NV "problem" is classic politician's logic.

X is a problem. Something must be done.
Y is something.
It must be done.

The discussion of "X being a problem" is completely foregone. Is losing NV stacks a problem at all? Or just a made up problem, that is a symptom of something else.

It's obviously the latter. A symptom of a larger problem. The problem is the loot drop system, which is simply awful.

Quote from aljung

Quote from m4st0d0n

Of course, the clever choice is to swap skills as soon as you realize you can't beat the boss with you currents skills. You'll find an efficient, universal build quicker if you forgo the unnecessary wipes and skips. NV reset currently punishes being clever by removing the loot and MF bonus when you start to experiment and fine-tune your build, and it kills a major incentive of defeating a new boss.

True, but: Without NV-reset, people would just switch their brains off until their character dies to a monster-group and then respecc.

Switching skills while farming is not effective, it'd be a very bad and slow way of farming. NV reset simply prohibits that kind of gameplay, but even without that, most people would realize very soon that they need a constant build to farm effectively.

Quote from aljung

It isn't hard to know which skills are better against specific monster-types or amounts (single target vs. group, melee vs. ranged, burst vs. sustain dmg, ...), but it is hard to come up with a build that doesn't suck in any of these situations (now, apart from doing the completely brainless build-copying).

And that kind of experimenting is punished by the current NV reset system. People want to start with a copied cookie cutter build, instead of developing one for themselves, because with the current system they barely get any loot while experimenting. Of course not all people copy, and some people will always copy. But we're talking about what kind of gameplay is encouraged or discouraged by the game rules, and currently, experimenting is discouraged with the vastly inferior rewards.

Id like it if we just lost 1 stack for each skill/rune we swap, instead of all 5 stacks
Thoughts?

Quote from Frolk

Id like it if we just lost 1 stack for each skill/rune we swap, instead of all 5 stacks
Thoughts?

Seems fair.

I find it curious that if you do swap a skill outside town, that skill incurs a cooldown (which feels like 2mins for all skills, haven't tested) as well as resetting NV stacks. But if you swap skills in town, there is no additional cooldown on the skill. When I'm playing around with a new build, I find this mighty frustrating as I typically make lots of changes in a short period of time, and going back to town each time is a chore.

It seems like they have 2 systems in place to discourage skill swapping. I'd rather they removed the cooldown penalty than the NV stack reset because at least the NV stack reset doesn't render me useless for 2mins while my primary skill is on cooldown and I can't fight back.

I think the NV stacks resetting is probably ok. So you lose some bonus magic find, gold find and experience, so what!? It takes 5 mins to get it back up. Its a mild inconvenience at most. Talk about first-world problems...

I just confirmed with 2 accounts that you dc in combat if your not active now. Seems they stealth nerfed it.