On August 16 2013 03:08 Jisall wrote: The problem with diablo was that they dumbed down the skill builds.
In diablo 2 you had to plan out carefully your skill builds, in D3 there is no mechanic like that.
You build one of each class, instead of one of each class build, then they added paragon levels which only encourages people to build 1 of each class. Totally went the wrong way.
They didnt dumb it down, they removed boring tedium. Instead of going to a skill calculator online and putting in your plan there you just pick your abilities. Same end result without the fiddling of putting 1 point into skills you wont ever use.
Instead of using a hacked 99 singleplayer character template to test a build, you just pick your skills and try it out.
Instead of getting enough strength to carry gear, dex to block, then rest into vit, it just does it automatically.
It isnt dumbed down, it is less tedious.
It's extremely dumbed down. You can debate whether that's good or bad, but the skill system is beyond simplistic. Guild Wars has a skill slot system as well, and it's far more complex and far more customizable.
And games like Borderlands still have the skill tree, don't have dumb 1 point "required" skills, and have instant respecs.
Diablo 3's skill system is probably the most simplistic and least versatile of any game in the genre from recent years.
How is it dumbed down and how is it not versatile? What can you do in other games that you cant do in D3?
Well, let's use Guild Wars for the example. First there's the Secondary-Class system, so your character is combining skills from every single class...but the equipment and Attribute system means that a Warrior/Monk is not the same as a Monk/Warrior.
Skills are notably different. Yes, there's some overlap in mechanics, but the uniqueness of the stronger spells means that you can have dozens of builds that play completely differently from each other. Imagine if there were dozens of builds for a single class that were as unique as WW/Tornado - that's more or less what Guild Wars had.
Changing up your skill bar is just as instantaneous...just go to town and change it.
And that's not even considering the team play mechanics. When you have 8 skill bars interacting with each other, each group can have entirely different functionality.
More or less, if you're going to go towards a skill-slot system instead of a skill-tree, then you need to have a lot of unique builds that make you want to play around with your skill bars. Diablo 3's skills are largely homogeneous, where most of the difference is in damage % numbers and AoE.
On August 16 2013 03:08 Jisall wrote: The problem with diablo was that they dumbed down the skill builds.
In diablo 2 you had to plan out carefully your skill builds, in D3 there is no mechanic like that.
You build one of each class, instead of one of each class build, then they added paragon levels which only encourages people to build 1 of each class. Totally went the wrong way.
They didnt dumb it down, they removed boring tedium. Instead of going to a skill calculator online and putting in your plan there you just pick your abilities. Same end result without the fiddling of putting 1 point into skills you wont ever use.
Instead of using a hacked 99 singleplayer character template to test a build, you just pick your skills and try it out.
Instead of getting enough strength to carry gear, dex to block, then rest into vit, it just does it automatically.
It isnt dumbed down, it is less tedious.
It's extremely dumbed down. You can debate whether that's good or bad, but the skill system is beyond simplistic. Guild Wars has a skill slot system as well, and it's far more complex and far more customizable.
And games like Borderlands still have the skill tree, don't have dumb 1 point "required" skills, and have instant respecs.
Diablo 3's skill system is probably the most simplistic and least versatile of any game in the genre from recent years.
How is it dumbed down and how is it not versatile? What can you do in other games that you cant do in D3?
On August 16 2013 03:08 Jisall wrote: The problem with diablo was that they dumbed down the skill builds.
In diablo 2 you had to plan out carefully your skill builds, in D3 there is no mechanic like that.
You build one of each class, instead of one of each class build, then they added paragon levels which only encourages people to build 1 of each class. Totally went the wrong way.
They didnt dumb it down, they removed boring tedium. Instead of going to a skill calculator online and putting in your plan there you just pick your abilities. Same end result without the fiddling of putting 1 point into skills you wont ever use.
Instead of using a hacked 99 singleplayer character template to test a build, you just pick your skills and try it out.
Instead of getting enough strength to carry gear, dex to block, then rest into vit, it just does it automatically.
It isnt dumbed down, it is less tedious.
Apologetic morons like you are why we can't have nice things anymore. Keep lapping it up.
What? I am sorry that I enjoyed a game?
To people saying that D3 is dumbed down and there is no versatility, can you explain the throw barbs or melee DH? If it is so simplistic and dumbed down and terrible, how is it that these are viable builds that are polar opposites of what the class normally does?
>How is it dumbed down and how is it not versatile? What can you do in other games that you cant do in D3?
You can choose which skills you want to use. You can use more than 6 skills (actually 4 and 2 of a very limited selection).
Diablo 3 has removed any kind of choice from the player in order to "streamline" to experience. Every time you level up, you have absolutely no say in what you are going to receive.
Blizzard advertized the rune system as a way to customize your spells to your liking, where no one rune would be more powerful then the rests (they failed at that, but that's not the point). So why do they assign you skills and runes at set level intervals instead of letting you choose which skills you want to unlock? What if I play a demon hunter and I want to use nether tentacles throughout the game? Nope, you can't. You only unlock that at level 58, so if you're not interested in running Inferno (which is supposedly "not for everyone"), you won't have much use for that skill. I once created a 2nd demon hunter after D3 was already heavily patched, but the game was just so boring and tedious, you were stuck with only 1 good skill for some 20 levels, and it was the same exact skill you used to beat the game with the first character, so why even play if you can't get a different experience in your second playtrough? Even the items I got where 99% the same, so what if that item had 3 str more and 2 dex less, it's still the exact same boring ass item. I didn't once find a legendary item, not that it would be any good anyway.
--------------------
And to the guy who said Blizzard will improve items. This is currently not really possible. What Blizzard needs to do first is completely rework the Stat point system. Currently, only 2 out of 4 stats are interessting for any given character, the other 2 are completely worthless. What the need to do is change the effects of status points so that every class benefits equallfy from every status point. You then favor one or 2 stats depending on what build you want to go with. And legendaries need to be much less random.
On August 16 2013 03:08 Jisall wrote: The problem with diablo was that they dumbed down the skill builds.
In diablo 2 you had to plan out carefully your skill builds, in D3 there is no mechanic like that.
You build one of each class, instead of one of each class build, then they added paragon levels which only encourages people to build 1 of each class. Totally went the wrong way.
They didnt dumb it down, they removed boring tedium. Instead of going to a skill calculator online and putting in your plan there you just pick your abilities. Same end result without the fiddling of putting 1 point into skills you wont ever use.
Instead of using a hacked 99 singleplayer character template to test a build, you just pick your skills and try it out.
Instead of getting enough strength to carry gear, dex to block, then rest into vit, it just does it automatically.
It isnt dumbed down, it is less tedious.
It's extremely dumbed down. You can debate whether that's good or bad, but the skill system is beyond simplistic. Guild Wars has a skill slot system as well, and it's far more complex and far more customizable.
And games like Borderlands still have the skill tree, don't have dumb 1 point "required" skills, and have instant respecs.
Diablo 3's skill system is probably the most simplistic and least versatile of any game in the genre from recent years.
How is it dumbed down and how is it not versatile? What can you do in other games that you cant do in D3?
Well, let's use Guild Wars for the example. First there's the Secondary-Class system, so your character is combining skills from every single class...but the equipment and Attribute system means that a Warrior/Monk is not the same as a Monk/Warrior.
Skills are notably different. Yes, there's some overlap in mechanics, but the uniqueness of the stronger spells means that you can have dozens of builds that play completely differently from each other. Imagine if there were dozens of builds for a single class that were as unique as WW/Tornado - that's more or less what Guild Wars had.
Changing up your skill bar is just as instantaneous...just go to town and change it.
And that's not even considering the team play mechanics. When you have 8 skill bars interacting with each other, each group can have entirely different functionality.
More or less, if you're going to go towards a skill-slot system instead of a skill-tree, then you need to have a lot of unique builds that make you want to play around with your skill bars. Diablo 3's skills are largely homogeneous, where most of the difference is in damage % numbers and AoE.
A "secondary-class system" is entirely different than a skill system, that is like comparing apples to oranges.
Let us look at some barb builds: WW (which has had tons of changes since the original WW barb) Weapon throw HotA Tanky (for group play) Slam barb Charge barb
Each of these builds has a good chunk of unique setups depending on your playstyle and gear level (so each of these 6 has a dozen common differences, they are only named that because of the focus from the primarily used ability). And each of these has different focus in item choices. In reality, there seems to be more viable different builds in D3 than there seems to be in D2.
On August 16 2013 03:08 Jisall wrote: The problem with diablo was that they dumbed down the skill builds.
In diablo 2 you had to plan out carefully your skill builds, in D3 there is no mechanic like that.
You build one of each class, instead of one of each class build, then they added paragon levels which only encourages people to build 1 of each class. Totally went the wrong way.
They didnt dumb it down, they removed boring tedium. Instead of going to a skill calculator online and putting in your plan there you just pick your abilities. Same end result without the fiddling of putting 1 point into skills you wont ever use.
Instead of using a hacked 99 singleplayer character template to test a build, you just pick your skills and try it out.
Instead of getting enough strength to carry gear, dex to block, then rest into vit, it just does it automatically.
It isnt dumbed down, it is less tedious.
It's extremely dumbed down. You can debate whether that's good or bad, but the skill system is beyond simplistic. Guild Wars has a skill slot system as well, and it's far more complex and far more customizable.
And games like Borderlands still have the skill tree, don't have dumb 1 point "required" skills, and have instant respecs.
Diablo 3's skill system is probably the most simplistic and least versatile of any game in the genre from recent years.
How is it dumbed down and how is it not versatile? What can you do in other games that you cant do in D3?
Well, let's use Guild Wars for the example. First there's the Secondary-Class system, so your character is combining skills from every single class...but the equipment and Attribute system means that a Warrior/Monk is not the same as a Monk/Warrior.
Skills are notably different. Yes, there's some overlap in mechanics, but the uniqueness of the stronger spells means that you can have dozens of builds that play completely differently from each other. Imagine if there were dozens of builds for a single class that were as unique as WW/Tornado - that's more or less what Guild Wars had.
Changing up your skill bar is just as instantaneous...just go to town and change it.
And that's not even considering the team play mechanics. When you have 8 skill bars interacting with each other, each group can have entirely different functionality.
More or less, if you're going to go towards a skill-slot system instead of a skill-tree, then you need to have a lot of unique builds that make you want to play around with your skill bars. Diablo 3's skills are largely homogeneous, where most of the difference is in damage % numbers and AoE.
A "secondary-class system" is entirely different than a skill system, that is like comparing apples to oranges.
Let us look at some barb builds: WW (which has had tons of changes since the original WW barb) Weapon throw HotA Tanky (for group play) Slam barb Charge barb
Each of these builds has a good chunk of unique setups depending on your playstyle and gear level (so each of these 6 has a dozen common differences, they are only named that because of the focus from the primarily used ability). And each of these has different focus in item choices. In reality, there seems to be more viable different builds in D3 than there seems to be in D2.
HotA, Tanky, Slam and Charge barbs all play the same, more or less - you left click until you can right click and you right click as much as possible, and all of them involve the exact same movement and positioning. Weapon Throw is only different because it's from a range. As I said, most of the skill difference comes down to a different AoE sizes and different damage %.
And that same archetype defines most other classes as well. Zombie Dogs, CM/WW and WW/Tornado are really the only ones that have a unique feel and play in a unique way.
Guild Wars had builds that spiked down single enemies, builds that did AoE DoT with slows, builds that herded everything into a ball and blew them up instantly, builds that relied on making your own army, builds that kept an entire mob locked down. And of course you have the Healer/Support type roles, but that's kind of irrelevant to the D3 discussion.
And that's ignoring the running builds, the farming builds, and the PvP builds. Hell, there was a fairly infamous team PvP build that involved running some of the worst skills in the game and passing negative status effects between your entire team, and it worked extremely well...now that was creative skill interaction.
On August 16 2013 03:08 Jisall wrote: The problem with diablo was that they dumbed down the skill builds.
In diablo 2 you had to plan out carefully your skill builds, in D3 there is no mechanic like that.
You build one of each class, instead of one of each class build, then they added paragon levels which only encourages people to build 1 of each class. Totally went the wrong way.
They didnt dumb it down, they removed boring tedium. Instead of going to a skill calculator online and putting in your plan there you just pick your abilities. Same end result without the fiddling of putting 1 point into skills you wont ever use.
Instead of using a hacked 99 singleplayer character template to test a build, you just pick your skills and try it out.
Instead of getting enough strength to carry gear, dex to block, then rest into vit, it just does it automatically.
It isnt dumbed down, it is less tedious.
It's extremely dumbed down. You can debate whether that's good or bad, but the skill system is beyond simplistic. Guild Wars has a skill slot system as well, and it's far more complex and far more customizable.
And games like Borderlands still have the skill tree, don't have dumb 1 point "required" skills, and have instant respecs.
Diablo 3's skill system is probably the most simplistic and least versatile of any game in the genre from recent years.
How is it dumbed down and how is it not versatile? What can you do in other games that you cant do in D3?
Well, let's use Guild Wars for the example. First there's the Secondary-Class system, so your character is combining skills from every single class...but the equipment and Attribute system means that a Warrior/Monk is not the same as a Monk/Warrior.
Skills are notably different. Yes, there's some overlap in mechanics, but the uniqueness of the stronger spells means that you can have dozens of builds that play completely differently from each other. Imagine if there were dozens of builds for a single class that were as unique as WW/Tornado - that's more or less what Guild Wars had.
Changing up your skill bar is just as instantaneous...just go to town and change it.
And that's not even considering the team play mechanics. When you have 8 skill bars interacting with each other, each group can have entirely different functionality.
More or less, if you're going to go towards a skill-slot system instead of a skill-tree, then you need to have a lot of unique builds that make you want to play around with your skill bars. Diablo 3's skills are largely homogeneous, where most of the difference is in damage % numbers and AoE.
A "secondary-class system" is entirely different than a skill system, that is like comparing apples to oranges.
Let us look at some barb builds: WW (which has had tons of changes since the original WW barb) Weapon throw HotA Tanky (for group play) Slam barb Charge barb
Each of these builds has a good chunk of unique setups depending on your playstyle and gear level (so each of these 6 has a dozen common differences, they are only named that because of the focus from the primarily used ability). And each of these has different focus in item choices. In reality, there seems to be more viable different builds in D3 than there seems to be in D2.
HotA, Tanky, Slam and Charge barbs all play the same, more or less - you left click until you can right click and you right click as much as possible, and all of them involve the exact same movement and positioning. Weapon Throw is only different because it's from a range. As I said, most of the skill difference comes down to a different AoE sizes and different damage %.
And that same archetype defines most other classes as well. Zombie Dogs, CM/WW and WW/Tornado are really the only ones that have a unique feel and play in a unique way.
Guild Wars had builds that spiked down single enemies, builds that did AoE DoT with slows, builds that herded everything into a ball and blew them up instantly, builds that relied on making your own army, builds that kept an entire mob locked down. And of course you have the Healer/Support type roles, but that's kind of irrelevant to the D3 discussion.
And that's ignoring the running builds, the farming builds, and the PvP builds. Hell, there was a fairly infamous team PvP build that involved running some of the worst skills in the game and passing negative status effects between your entire team, and it worked extremely well...now that was creative skill interaction.
You refer to these different builds, but do you play them differently? Or is it mostly hitting a few buttons?
I mean, HotA is single target, tanky is group play only (and doesnt play the same at all to any other build), slam is similar to HotA but with a different way to position yourself and better against groups, charge is different too in that you try to make it so that it always has 0 cooldown so linking between mob groups is fun, etc. How you play it is different, even if you are only hitting a few buttons.
They feel different to me, why they feel the same to you I dont really know.
His point is that just about all D3 skills are "hit X number of badguys for Y amount of damage." Your interaction with enemies is extremely limited, non-strategic, and therefore repetitive. Any of the skills that have some kind of crowd-control are useless compared to straight damage or straight defense. There aren't any viable skill shots, there is nothing that even requires reflexes really. The fact that enemies have no semblance of intelligence makes matters worse.
On August 16 2013 04:42 Yacobs wrote: His point is that just about all D3 skills are "hit X number of badguys for Y amount of damage." Your interaction with enemies is extremely limited, non-strategic, and therefore repetitive. Any of the skills that have some kind of crowd-control are useless compared to straight damage or straight defense. There aren't any viable skill shots, there is nothing that even requires reflexes really. The fact that enemies have no semblance of intelligence makes matters worse.
On August 16 2013 03:08 Jisall wrote: The problem with diablo was that they dumbed down the skill builds.
In diablo 2 you had to plan out carefully your skill builds, in D3 there is no mechanic like that.
You build one of each class, instead of one of each class build, then they added paragon levels which only encourages people to build 1 of each class. Totally went the wrong way.
They didnt dumb it down, they removed boring tedium. Instead of going to a skill calculator online and putting in your plan there you just pick your abilities. Same end result without the fiddling of putting 1 point into skills you wont ever use.
Instead of using a hacked 99 singleplayer character template to test a build, you just pick your skills and try it out.
Instead of getting enough strength to carry gear, dex to block, then rest into vit, it just does it automatically.
It isnt dumbed down, it is less tedious.
It's extremely dumbed down. You can debate whether that's good or bad, but the skill system is beyond simplistic. Guild Wars has a skill slot system as well, and it's far more complex and far more customizable.
And games like Borderlands still have the skill tree, don't have dumb 1 point "required" skills, and have instant respecs.
Diablo 3's skill system is probably the most simplistic and least versatile of any game in the genre from recent years.
How is it dumbed down and how is it not versatile? What can you do in other games that you cant do in D3?
Well, let's use Guild Wars for the example. First there's the Secondary-Class system, so your character is combining skills from every single class...but the equipment and Attribute system means that a Warrior/Monk is not the same as a Monk/Warrior.
Skills are notably different. Yes, there's some overlap in mechanics, but the uniqueness of the stronger spells means that you can have dozens of builds that play completely differently from each other. Imagine if there were dozens of builds for a single class that were as unique as WW/Tornado - that's more or less what Guild Wars had.
Changing up your skill bar is just as instantaneous...just go to town and change it.
And that's not even considering the team play mechanics. When you have 8 skill bars interacting with each other, each group can have entirely different functionality.
More or less, if you're going to go towards a skill-slot system instead of a skill-tree, then you need to have a lot of unique builds that make you want to play around with your skill bars. Diablo 3's skills are largely homogeneous, where most of the difference is in damage % numbers and AoE.
A "secondary-class system" is entirely different than a skill system, that is like comparing apples to oranges.
Let us look at some barb builds: WW (which has had tons of changes since the original WW barb) Weapon throw HotA Tanky (for group play) Slam barb Charge barb
Each of these builds has a good chunk of unique setups depending on your playstyle and gear level (so each of these 6 has a dozen common differences, they are only named that because of the focus from the primarily used ability). And each of these has different focus in item choices. In reality, there seems to be more viable different builds in D3 than there seems to be in D2.
HotA, Tanky, Slam and Charge barbs all play the same, more or less - you left click until you can right click and you right click as much as possible, and all of them involve the exact same movement and positioning. Weapon Throw is only different because it's from a range. As I said, most of the skill difference comes down to a different AoE sizes and different damage %.
And that same archetype defines most other classes as well. Zombie Dogs, CM/WW and WW/Tornado are really the only ones that have a unique feel and play in a unique way.
Guild Wars had builds that spiked down single enemies, builds that did AoE DoT with slows, builds that herded everything into a ball and blew them up instantly, builds that relied on making your own army, builds that kept an entire mob locked down. And of course you have the Healer/Support type roles, but that's kind of irrelevant to the D3 discussion.
And that's ignoring the running builds, the farming builds, and the PvP builds. Hell, there was a fairly infamous team PvP build that involved running some of the worst skills in the game and passing negative status effects between your entire team, and it worked extremely well...now that was creative skill interaction.
You refer to these different builds, but do you play them differently? Or is it mostly hitting a few buttons?
I mean, HotA is single target, tanky is group play only (and doesnt play the same at all to any other build), slam is similar to HotA but with a different way to position yourself and better against groups, charge is different too in that you try to make it so that it always has 0 cooldown so linking between mob groups is fun, etc. How you play it is different, even if you are only hitting a few buttons.
They feel different to me, why they feel the same to you I dont really know.
I guess a good comparison is comparing an Assault Rifle and a Shotgun in an FPS. Yes, they're different in that they have different ranges, damage, spray, etc. but in the end the basic feel is the same - you're still just pointing and clicking to kill.
With Guild War's skill system, there certainly were generic builds, but the best ones involved specific mob control and positioning and the skill sets were about comboing abilities and effects, not just spamming what you have off cooldown or draining your resources on your biggest attack.
On August 16 2013 04:42 Yacobs wrote: His point is that just about all D3 skills are "hit X number of badguys for Y amount of damage." Your interaction with enemies is extremely limited, non-strategic, and therefore repetitive. Any of the skills that have some kind of crowd-control are useless compared to straight damage or straight defense. There aren't any viable skill shots, there is nothing that even requires reflexes really. The fact that enemies have no semblance of intelligence makes matters worse.
So... youre telling me it is like D2?
Like Diablo 2, except the PvP community is almost non-existent, abilities are less spammable (so you "feel" weaker), and even then you don't have the off-the-wall builds like Werebear Assassins.
More or less, Diablo 3 basically tried to distill the skill system far too much, and took out too much of the fun stuff.
On August 16 2013 03:08 Jisall wrote: The problem with diablo was that they dumbed down the skill builds.
In diablo 2 you had to plan out carefully your skill builds, in D3 there is no mechanic like that.
You build one of each class, instead of one of each class build, then they added paragon levels which only encourages people to build 1 of each class. Totally went the wrong way.
They didnt dumb it down, they removed boring tedium. Instead of going to a skill calculator online and putting in your plan there you just pick your abilities. Same end result without the fiddling of putting 1 point into skills you wont ever use.
Instead of using a hacked 99 singleplayer character template to test a build, you just pick your skills and try it out.
Instead of getting enough strength to carry gear, dex to block, then rest into vit, it just does it automatically.
It isnt dumbed down, it is less tedious.
It's extremely dumbed down. You can debate whether that's good or bad, but the skill system is beyond simplistic. Guild Wars has a skill slot system as well, and it's far more complex and far more customizable.
And games like Borderlands still have the skill tree, don't have dumb 1 point "required" skills, and have instant respecs.
Diablo 3's skill system is probably the most simplistic and least versatile of any game in the genre from recent years.
How is it dumbed down and how is it not versatile? What can you do in other games that you cant do in D3?
Well, let's use Guild Wars for the example. First there's the Secondary-Class system, so your character is combining skills from every single class...but the equipment and Attribute system means that a Warrior/Monk is not the same as a Monk/Warrior.
Skills are notably different. Yes, there's some overlap in mechanics, but the uniqueness of the stronger spells means that you can have dozens of builds that play completely differently from each other. Imagine if there were dozens of builds for a single class that were as unique as WW/Tornado - that's more or less what Guild Wars had.
Changing up your skill bar is just as instantaneous...just go to town and change it.
And that's not even considering the team play mechanics. When you have 8 skill bars interacting with each other, each group can have entirely different functionality.
More or less, if you're going to go towards a skill-slot system instead of a skill-tree, then you need to have a lot of unique builds that make you want to play around with your skill bars. Diablo 3's skills are largely homogeneous, where most of the difference is in damage % numbers and AoE.
A "secondary-class system" is entirely different than a skill system, that is like comparing apples to oranges.
Let us look at some barb builds: WW (which has had tons of changes since the original WW barb) Weapon throw HotA Tanky (for group play) Slam barb Charge barb
Each of these builds has a good chunk of unique setups depending on your playstyle and gear level (so each of these 6 has a dozen common differences, they are only named that because of the focus from the primarily used ability). And each of these has different focus in item choices. In reality, there seems to be more viable different builds in D3 than there seems to be in D2.
HotA, Tanky, Slam and Charge barbs all play the same, more or less - you left click until you can right click and you right click as much as possible, and all of them involve the exact same movement and positioning. Weapon Throw is only different because it's from a range. As I said, most of the skill difference comes down to a different AoE sizes and different damage %.
And that same archetype defines most other classes as well. Zombie Dogs, CM/WW and WW/Tornado are really the only ones that have a unique feel and play in a unique way.
Guild Wars had builds that spiked down single enemies, builds that did AoE DoT with slows, builds that herded everything into a ball and blew them up instantly, builds that relied on making your own army, builds that kept an entire mob locked down. And of course you have the Healer/Support type roles, but that's kind of irrelevant to the D3 discussion.
And that's ignoring the running builds, the farming builds, and the PvP builds. Hell, there was a fairly infamous team PvP build that involved running some of the worst skills in the game and passing negative status effects between your entire team, and it worked extremely well...now that was creative skill interaction.
You refer to these different builds, but do you play them differently? Or is it mostly hitting a few buttons?
I mean, HotA is single target, tanky is group play only (and doesnt play the same at all to any other build), slam is similar to HotA but with a different way to position yourself and better against groups, charge is different too in that you try to make it so that it always has 0 cooldown so linking between mob groups is fun, etc. How you play it is different, even if you are only hitting a few buttons.
They feel different to me, why they feel the same to you I dont really know.
I guess a good comparison is comparing an Assault Rifle and a Shotgun in an FPS. Yes, they're different in that they have different ranges, damage, spray, etc. but in the end the basic feel is the same - you're still just pointing and clicking to kill.
With Guild War's skill system, there certainly were generic builds, but the best ones involved specific mob control and positioning and the skill sets were about comboing abilities and effects, not just spamming what you have off cooldown or draining your resources on your biggest attack.
Would mob control be a good thing in an action RPG vs a "MMO"RPG? That isnt very "diabloesque", and people were generally complaining (originally) that their characters didnt feel powerful enough. Original inferno had mob control being key, and people hated it.
Can't really say if D3 is good or not, don't think an expansion will change that either. All of my friends and me quit D3 after a couple of weeks play. We all loved D2, some of us loved D1 more. And we all loved the games for pretty much different reasons.
Still D3 did not succeed in keeping anyone of us playing for more than a couple of weeks. The D3 expansion will be hard to sell.
I'm not even sure this announcement is about an expansion tbh.
On August 16 2013 03:08 Jisall wrote: The problem with diablo was that they dumbed down the skill builds.
In diablo 2 you had to plan out carefully your skill builds, in D3 there is no mechanic like that.
You build one of each class, instead of one of each class build, then they added paragon levels which only encourages people to build 1 of each class. Totally went the wrong way.
They didnt dumb it down, they removed boring tedium. Instead of going to a skill calculator online and putting in your plan there you just pick your abilities. Same end result without the fiddling of putting 1 point into skills you wont ever use.
Instead of using a hacked 99 singleplayer character template to test a build, you just pick your skills and try it out.
Instead of getting enough strength to carry gear, dex to block, then rest into vit, it just does it automatically.
It isnt dumbed down, it is less tedious.
It's extremely dumbed down. You can debate whether that's good or bad, but the skill system is beyond simplistic. Guild Wars has a skill slot system as well, and it's far more complex and far more customizable.
And games like Borderlands still have the skill tree, don't have dumb 1 point "required" skills, and have instant respecs.
Diablo 3's skill system is probably the most simplistic and least versatile of any game in the genre from recent years.
How is it dumbed down and how is it not versatile? What can you do in other games that you cant do in D3?
Well, let's use Guild Wars for the example. First there's the Secondary-Class system, so your character is combining skills from every single class...but the equipment and Attribute system means that a Warrior/Monk is not the same as a Monk/Warrior.
Skills are notably different. Yes, there's some overlap in mechanics, but the uniqueness of the stronger spells means that you can have dozens of builds that play completely differently from each other. Imagine if there were dozens of builds for a single class that were as unique as WW/Tornado - that's more or less what Guild Wars had.
Changing up your skill bar is just as instantaneous...just go to town and change it.
And that's not even considering the team play mechanics. When you have 8 skill bars interacting with each other, each group can have entirely different functionality.
More or less, if you're going to go towards a skill-slot system instead of a skill-tree, then you need to have a lot of unique builds that make you want to play around with your skill bars. Diablo 3's skills are largely homogeneous, where most of the difference is in damage % numbers and AoE.
A "secondary-class system" is entirely different than a skill system, that is like comparing apples to oranges.
Let us look at some barb builds: WW (which has had tons of changes since the original WW barb) Weapon throw HotA Tanky (for group play) Slam barb Charge barb
Each of these builds has a good chunk of unique setups depending on your playstyle and gear level (so each of these 6 has a dozen common differences, they are only named that because of the focus from the primarily used ability). And each of these has different focus in item choices. In reality, there seems to be more viable different builds in D3 than there seems to be in D2.
HotA, Tanky, Slam and Charge barbs all play the same, more or less - you left click until you can right click and you right click as much as possible, and all of them involve the exact same movement and positioning. Weapon Throw is only different because it's from a range. As I said, most of the skill difference comes down to a different AoE sizes and different damage %.
And that same archetype defines most other classes as well. Zombie Dogs, CM/WW and WW/Tornado are really the only ones that have a unique feel and play in a unique way.
Guild Wars had builds that spiked down single enemies, builds that did AoE DoT with slows, builds that herded everything into a ball and blew them up instantly, builds that relied on making your own army, builds that kept an entire mob locked down. And of course you have the Healer/Support type roles, but that's kind of irrelevant to the D3 discussion.
And that's ignoring the running builds, the farming builds, and the PvP builds. Hell, there was a fairly infamous team PvP build that involved running some of the worst skills in the game and passing negative status effects between your entire team, and it worked extremely well...now that was creative skill interaction.
You refer to these different builds, but do you play them differently? Or is it mostly hitting a few buttons?
I mean, HotA is single target, tanky is group play only (and doesnt play the same at all to any other build), slam is similar to HotA but with a different way to position yourself and better against groups, charge is different too in that you try to make it so that it always has 0 cooldown so linking between mob groups is fun, etc. How you play it is different, even if you are only hitting a few buttons.
They feel different to me, why they feel the same to you I dont really know.
I guess a good comparison is comparing an Assault Rifle and a Shotgun in an FPS. Yes, they're different in that they have different ranges, damage, spray, etc. but in the end the basic feel is the same - you're still just pointing and clicking to kill.
With Guild War's skill system, there certainly were generic builds, but the best ones involved specific mob control and positioning and the skill sets were about comboing abilities and effects, not just spamming what you have off cooldown or draining your resources on your biggest attack.
Would mob control be a good thing in an action RPG vs a "MMO"RPG? That isnt very "diabloesque", and people were generally complaining (originally) that their characters didnt feel powerful enough. Original inferno had mob control being key, and people hated it.
Mob control as in careful positioning and herding. Not MMORPG style where a tank runs in and uses an aggro-skill. I guess a good comparison is what Javazons tended to do with Lightning Fury builds...sure, you could kill a few enemies at a time, or you could take little time and make an entire mob of 40 explode at once.
On August 16 2013 03:14 TheRabidDeer wrote: [quote] They didnt dumb it down, they removed boring tedium. Instead of going to a skill calculator online and putting in your plan there you just pick your abilities. Same end result without the fiddling of putting 1 point into skills you wont ever use.
Instead of using a hacked 99 singleplayer character template to test a build, you just pick your skills and try it out.
Instead of getting enough strength to carry gear, dex to block, then rest into vit, it just does it automatically.
It isnt dumbed down, it is less tedious.
It's extremely dumbed down. You can debate whether that's good or bad, but the skill system is beyond simplistic. Guild Wars has a skill slot system as well, and it's far more complex and far more customizable.
And games like Borderlands still have the skill tree, don't have dumb 1 point "required" skills, and have instant respecs.
Diablo 3's skill system is probably the most simplistic and least versatile of any game in the genre from recent years.
How is it dumbed down and how is it not versatile? What can you do in other games that you cant do in D3?
Well, let's use Guild Wars for the example. First there's the Secondary-Class system, so your character is combining skills from every single class...but the equipment and Attribute system means that a Warrior/Monk is not the same as a Monk/Warrior.
Skills are notably different. Yes, there's some overlap in mechanics, but the uniqueness of the stronger spells means that you can have dozens of builds that play completely differently from each other. Imagine if there were dozens of builds for a single class that were as unique as WW/Tornado - that's more or less what Guild Wars had.
Changing up your skill bar is just as instantaneous...just go to town and change it.
And that's not even considering the team play mechanics. When you have 8 skill bars interacting with each other, each group can have entirely different functionality.
More or less, if you're going to go towards a skill-slot system instead of a skill-tree, then you need to have a lot of unique builds that make you want to play around with your skill bars. Diablo 3's skills are largely homogeneous, where most of the difference is in damage % numbers and AoE.
A "secondary-class system" is entirely different than a skill system, that is like comparing apples to oranges.
Let us look at some barb builds: WW (which has had tons of changes since the original WW barb) Weapon throw HotA Tanky (for group play) Slam barb Charge barb
Each of these builds has a good chunk of unique setups depending on your playstyle and gear level (so each of these 6 has a dozen common differences, they are only named that because of the focus from the primarily used ability). And each of these has different focus in item choices. In reality, there seems to be more viable different builds in D3 than there seems to be in D2.
HotA, Tanky, Slam and Charge barbs all play the same, more or less - you left click until you can right click and you right click as much as possible, and all of them involve the exact same movement and positioning. Weapon Throw is only different because it's from a range. As I said, most of the skill difference comes down to a different AoE sizes and different damage %.
And that same archetype defines most other classes as well. Zombie Dogs, CM/WW and WW/Tornado are really the only ones that have a unique feel and play in a unique way.
Guild Wars had builds that spiked down single enemies, builds that did AoE DoT with slows, builds that herded everything into a ball and blew them up instantly, builds that relied on making your own army, builds that kept an entire mob locked down. And of course you have the Healer/Support type roles, but that's kind of irrelevant to the D3 discussion.
And that's ignoring the running builds, the farming builds, and the PvP builds. Hell, there was a fairly infamous team PvP build that involved running some of the worst skills in the game and passing negative status effects between your entire team, and it worked extremely well...now that was creative skill interaction.
You refer to these different builds, but do you play them differently? Or is it mostly hitting a few buttons?
I mean, HotA is single target, tanky is group play only (and doesnt play the same at all to any other build), slam is similar to HotA but with a different way to position yourself and better against groups, charge is different too in that you try to make it so that it always has 0 cooldown so linking between mob groups is fun, etc. How you play it is different, even if you are only hitting a few buttons.
They feel different to me, why they feel the same to you I dont really know.
I guess a good comparison is comparing an Assault Rifle and a Shotgun in an FPS. Yes, they're different in that they have different ranges, damage, spray, etc. but in the end the basic feel is the same - you're still just pointing and clicking to kill.
With Guild War's skill system, there certainly were generic builds, but the best ones involved specific mob control and positioning and the skill sets were about comboing abilities and effects, not just spamming what you have off cooldown or draining your resources on your biggest attack.
Would mob control be a good thing in an action RPG vs a "MMO"RPG? That isnt very "diabloesque", and people were generally complaining (originally) that their characters didnt feel powerful enough. Original inferno had mob control being key, and people hated it.
Mob control as in careful positioning and herding. Not MMORPG style where a tank runs in and uses an aggro-skill. I guess a good comparison is what Javazons tended to do with Lightning Fury builds...sure, you could kill a few enemies at a time, or you could take little time and make an entire mob of 40 explode at once.
On August 16 2013 03:20 WolfintheSheep wrote: [quote] It's extremely dumbed down. You can debate whether that's good or bad, but the skill system is beyond simplistic. Guild Wars has a skill slot system as well, and it's far more complex and far more customizable.
And games like Borderlands still have the skill tree, don't have dumb 1 point "required" skills, and have instant respecs.
Diablo 3's skill system is probably the most simplistic and least versatile of any game in the genre from recent years.
How is it dumbed down and how is it not versatile? What can you do in other games that you cant do in D3?
Well, let's use Guild Wars for the example. First there's the Secondary-Class system, so your character is combining skills from every single class...but the equipment and Attribute system means that a Warrior/Monk is not the same as a Monk/Warrior.
Skills are notably different. Yes, there's some overlap in mechanics, but the uniqueness of the stronger spells means that you can have dozens of builds that play completely differently from each other. Imagine if there were dozens of builds for a single class that were as unique as WW/Tornado - that's more or less what Guild Wars had.
Changing up your skill bar is just as instantaneous...just go to town and change it.
And that's not even considering the team play mechanics. When you have 8 skill bars interacting with each other, each group can have entirely different functionality.
More or less, if you're going to go towards a skill-slot system instead of a skill-tree, then you need to have a lot of unique builds that make you want to play around with your skill bars. Diablo 3's skills are largely homogeneous, where most of the difference is in damage % numbers and AoE.
A "secondary-class system" is entirely different than a skill system, that is like comparing apples to oranges.
Let us look at some barb builds: WW (which has had tons of changes since the original WW barb) Weapon throw HotA Tanky (for group play) Slam barb Charge barb
Each of these builds has a good chunk of unique setups depending on your playstyle and gear level (so each of these 6 has a dozen common differences, they are only named that because of the focus from the primarily used ability). And each of these has different focus in item choices. In reality, there seems to be more viable different builds in D3 than there seems to be in D2.
HotA, Tanky, Slam and Charge barbs all play the same, more or less - you left click until you can right click and you right click as much as possible, and all of them involve the exact same movement and positioning. Weapon Throw is only different because it's from a range. As I said, most of the skill difference comes down to a different AoE sizes and different damage %.
And that same archetype defines most other classes as well. Zombie Dogs, CM/WW and WW/Tornado are really the only ones that have a unique feel and play in a unique way.
Guild Wars had builds that spiked down single enemies, builds that did AoE DoT with slows, builds that herded everything into a ball and blew them up instantly, builds that relied on making your own army, builds that kept an entire mob locked down. And of course you have the Healer/Support type roles, but that's kind of irrelevant to the D3 discussion.
And that's ignoring the running builds, the farming builds, and the PvP builds. Hell, there was a fairly infamous team PvP build that involved running some of the worst skills in the game and passing negative status effects between your entire team, and it worked extremely well...now that was creative skill interaction.
You refer to these different builds, but do you play them differently? Or is it mostly hitting a few buttons?
I mean, HotA is single target, tanky is group play only (and doesnt play the same at all to any other build), slam is similar to HotA but with a different way to position yourself and better against groups, charge is different too in that you try to make it so that it always has 0 cooldown so linking between mob groups is fun, etc. How you play it is different, even if you are only hitting a few buttons.
They feel different to me, why they feel the same to you I dont really know.
I guess a good comparison is comparing an Assault Rifle and a Shotgun in an FPS. Yes, they're different in that they have different ranges, damage, spray, etc. but in the end the basic feel is the same - you're still just pointing and clicking to kill.
With Guild War's skill system, there certainly were generic builds, but the best ones involved specific mob control and positioning and the skill sets were about comboing abilities and effects, not just spamming what you have off cooldown or draining your resources on your biggest attack.
Would mob control be a good thing in an action RPG vs a "MMO"RPG? That isnt very "diabloesque", and people were generally complaining (originally) that their characters didnt feel powerful enough. Original inferno had mob control being key, and people hated it.
Mob control as in careful positioning and herding. Not MMORPG style where a tank runs in and uses an aggro-skill. I guess a good comparison is what Javazons tended to do with Lightning Fury builds...sure, you could kill a few enemies at a time, or you could take little time and make an entire mob of 40 explode at once.
Have you played since the monster density patch?
Yes, and my complaint isn't about the number of enemies that die.
As I said, most of the builds feel exactly the same. If I have to play a limited skill-slot system, I want some real variety between builds. CM/WW and WW/Tornado felt cool because they relied on interesting interaction between a few skills and very different play styles. If every single class had 10 builds that relied on similar combinations (and not just Critical Mass with Meteors, Critical Mass with Frost Nova, etc), I think it would have been good.
The main problem for me is they totaly destroyed the sorc.. it was the most played class in d2 , and i hate to play it in d3 ...i just dont like all those cooldown spells... and most of the passive spells are useless... and the most stupid thing of d3 is that armor and resist does exactly the same thing....this is beyond stupid.
The main problem for me is they called the game Diablo and gave it the aRPG tag. It's a game where a spellcaster that actually casts spells can optimize his damage by using a 2-handed Axe that has increased attack speed. (this is an example, expand this concept to get the full picture)
I mean...
I'd be all for it if it was called 'Monster Smashers, the amazing action filled monster hunting item finding game' and had all kinds of wacky chars and enemies and the impossible was possible. They could even bring a spaceship class hurling nukes and have the damage numbers show up the same as the bow-using archer and I wouldn't bat an eyelid. But they named it Diablo3 so me and many others expected certain things.
It's still Blizzard so the various announcements will still be interesting but I'm not getting my hopes up at this point.
On August 16 2013 05:44 Taguchi wrote: The main problem for me is they called the game Diablo and gave it the aRPG tag. It's a game where a spellcaster that actually casts spells can optimize his damage by using a 2-handed Axe that has increased attack speed. (this is an example, expand this concept to get the full picture)
I mean...
I'd be all for it if it was called 'Monster Smashers, the amazing action filled monster hunting item finding game' and had all kinds of wacky chars and enemies and the impossible was possible. They could even bring a spaceship class hurling nukes and have the damage numbers show up the same as the bow-using archer and I wouldn't bat an eyelid. But they named it Diablo3 so me and many others expected certain things.
It's still Blizzard so the various announcements will still be interesting but I'm not getting my hopes up at this point.
I agree, I was confused when Diablo 3 was all about getting loots and killing monsters too. I was expecting a game where I would kill loots and hunt monsters.
I'm done with Blizzard fucking shit up from my childhood.
I remain curious to see what they have instore. Diablo 2 was ok, probably got the same number of hours out of it as Diablo 3. I actually hope they bring gamepad support to the PC version, since certain builds would probably work well with it.
On August 16 2013 05:44 Taguchi wrote: The main problem for me is they called the game Diablo and gave it the aRPG tag. It's a game where a spellcaster that actually casts spells can optimize his damage by using a 2-handed Axe that has increased attack speed. (this is an example, expand this concept to get the full picture)
I mean...
I'd be all for it if it was called 'Monster Smashers, the amazing action filled monster hunting item finding game' and had all kinds of wacky chars and enemies and the impossible was possible. They could even bring a spaceship class hurling nukes and have the damage numbers show up the same as the bow-using archer and I wouldn't bat an eyelid. But they named it Diablo3 so me and many others expected certain things.
It's still Blizzard so the various announcements will still be interesting but I'm not getting my hopes up at this point.
I agree, I was confused when Diablo 3 was all about getting loots and killing monsters too. I was expecting a game where I would kill loots and hunt monsters.
I'm done with Blizzard fucking shit up from my childhood.
I remain curious to see what they have instore. Diablo 2 was ok, probably got the same number of hours out of it as Diablo 3. I actually hope they bring gamepad support to the PC version, since certain builds would probably work well with it.
The sarcasm is strong in this one. Too bad it's a swing and a miss. If you think D2 was devoid of any intricacies, you never really played it. D3 now, you'd be right on the mark, there's barely anything 3 minutes of googling won't solve.
Diablo 3 expansion pack that completely removes the auction house and instead forces players to seek out people to trade items and barter with, thus removing the element of "whatever drops I don't care about, maybe I'll get something I can sell on the auction house so I can afford whatever I want off there" and instead refocusing the game on "you find the bloody items while killing monsters", which is what it should have been from release.
EPT
