Diablo III General Discussion - Page 320

I sort of disagree. Diablo 2 is a game that gives off the sense of allowing an exuberant amount of freedom. Unfortunately, that freedom is only a mask since the game itself is limiting. Take for example the attributes; you can place the points where ever you want. But for you to get gear needed to be at least descent, you have to put X amount of points into Y. It gave off the illusion of being free but in reality, you are constrained by gear and the general fact that you can easily gimp your hero. Once you put the points in, there is no turning back and down the line (end game content, which is the important content), you will end up deleting the hero and starting over again. Since there is a glimmer of "right" way.

The same is for the skill system. It gives off the illusion of being free but you are actually restricted, it is more restrictive and linear than the Diablo III system. The reason for this is simple, you do get to choose three choices; good job. Now, you have to put X amount of points in Y skill to get the better skill, otherwise you are weak. Than, you go to the next skill opened up, so on and so forth. You get a choice but you are also forced in the amount of points. If you throw them where ever, than you have completely gimped yourself.

Diablo III allows for more freedom for the skills for one good reason. You are not limited to having X skill to use Y. If you want to use X skill and you are that level, go right ahead. You can mix and swap the skills all you want without being tied down by a very linear system. Right in the beginning, and I mean within the first few levels. The Diablo II game has more freedom in terms of skills. But, the more you level, the more freedom you have, the more skills, and less restraint you have.

The last point I want to make is in regards to the player amount. There are three portions I wish to address. The first is simple, why does it matter how many friends you have that want to play? I can say I X amount of friends, so it should be increased. The two main reasons is this; the animation of the skills will kill the game. I do not know how much of the game you have seen, but with 4 players alone (and especially with the later skills), the screen is nearly covered with skills. If we had 8 players (as an example), you would not even be able to see what you were attacking.

The last point is simply party mechanics. Blizzard really wishes for emphasis to be with parties. Diablo II was a near failure when it came to parties. Most common games you see that had 8 players were Dueling rooms, trading rooms, and Mf runs. The games when people were actually trying to play, the players were either split up or doing entirely different things. There was no need for the players to be together. Even Mf runs were done so for the sake of getting the sweet 8 number, and not the necessity of needing 8 people for dps. Diablo III, because it has less players. There is more emphasis on you the player. Having one person slag behind can be bad, especially with bosses. There is more consequence for not putting in the effort. Especially since the difficulty is easier to balance with the amount of players when there is a maximum of 4. It is easier to make the difficult of the game based on the number of players when there are less to begin with.


Anyway yeah, I disagree with your points. The changes have been made to keep the end game content more entertaining and not relying on mechanics that punish you for dumb mistakes.