I really like the streamlining of the stats and skills myself. I was never good at getting the ultimate perfect build anyways, and because I was a necro in D2, gimping myself was really easy to do. I like the new system.
Yeah it's a interesting approach to solve the respec/skill exploration problem. The only thing I am worried about is that every character will essentially be the same. I think one of the great hooks of RPGs is the feeling that you are creating an unique character and that all your choices in character building have meaning and weight.
So as a person who has never really played through the diablo series...
...Is the diablo series basically Gauntlet with significantly more extensive/polished loot, character building, pvp, and (what I assume are) randomly generated dungeons?
Just wondering why out of so many games with similar gameplay, this one is by far the most popular
D2 was so popular because 1) it had a huge player base from day 1 because it came from blizzard 2) it was a sequel to the acclaimed D1 and 3) because it had server side stored characters and loot. That third point is what let it outlast all the competition through the years because no upstart can afford the infrastructure required to have server side character storage, which makes grinding endlessly for loot pointless because you can just get a trainer and get all the best items that way. D1 is highly regarded but it had no online presence for the same reason. The game itself was actually quite poorly received with scores in the 70's from a lot of places that are known to hand out 90's for anything with hype behind it.
I really like the streamlining of the stats and skills myself. I was never good at getting the ultimate perfect build anyways, and because I was a necro in D2, gimping myself was really easy to do. I like the new system.
Yeah it's a interesting approach to solve the respec/skill exploration problem. The only thing I am worried about is that every character will essentially be the same. I think one of the great hooks of RPGs is the feeling that you are creating an unique character and that all your choices in character building have meaning and weight.
Yeah, that's a good point. I'm guessing it's hard for developers to find a perfect balance between customization and making sure players can't break their characters.
So some thoughts on Diablo 3 from someone who really hasn't been following the news:
Battle.net
- Multiplayer only kinda sucks now in retrospect. I wasn't expecting it to be a big issue, but this stress test has shown the weaknesses in having it reliant on Battle.net. I know there's the Auction House et al, but it would have been nice to be able to get a game on while the servers were down.
- Is the save system basically save-always but return to last checkpoint? I can't find any definitive statement and Blizzard should come out to clarify this, because it seems that progress is lost when you get kicked out of the servers.
Graphics
- The environment is beautiful, very much like a water colour painting. It could have been a bit darker, but still, gorgeous enough and should probably hold up well over the years.
- Character models in-game seem to be a bit low rez. Perhaps it's just the armor, but I would have loved more detail and an ability to zoom in to examine the armor art without having to turn to the login screen.
- The character portraits seem.. out of place. Too clean, too sterile for Diablo 3.
Sound
- Nothing much to say except some of the accents seem a bit too heavy, especially the monks. Also, the Ibn journal entries sound very chirpy. Not really meshing with the atmosphere of Diablo 3
Gameplay
- Definitely a Diablo vibe here.
- The pacing is also much better than Diablo 2, since I didn't have to bash things until I hit level 6 or 7 to do a proper build.
- Ultimately I do forsee issues with the variability of builds. One thing good about Diablo 2 was that for each class, you had 3 to 4 core builds with minor variations each, which meant that most people had something different from others, no matter how minor it was. It seems thought that for D3, it should be possible to find an absolutely optimal skill/rune combination for any given area, which might mean that eventually most people will end up running the same stuff for certain areas.
- The new conversation system seems out of place... popup messages appearing on your screen. Kinda breaks the immersion really.
Miscellanous
- They should let us customize the chat fonts. Arial doesn't gel with the rest of the interface.
I'm really liking this. It runs extremely well (all settings on low, and 1152xsomething that is 16x10) on my 2009 macbook pro. Didn't expect to be able to play it on this machine, but I have no problems with it. I'm okay with low quality textures, but honestly the environments still look really clean and well designed. It's def a blizzard game in that regard.
But yeah, gameplay is fun. Only going to level characters up to ~8 or so, to get a feel for them. With that, Witch Doctor feels really underpowered in comparison to my smack EVERYTHING on the screen Monk. But thats what you can expect from a magic vs tank character.
So as a person who has never really played through the diablo series...
...Is the diablo series basically Gauntlet with significantly more extensive/polished loot, character building, pvp, and (what I assume are) randomly generated dungeons?
Just wondering why out of so many games with similar gameplay, this one is by far the most popular
D2 was so popular because 1) it had a huge player base from day 1 because it came from blizzard 2) it was a sequel to the acclaimed D1 and 3) because it had server side stored characters and loot. That third point is what let it outlast all the competition through the years because no upstart can afford the infrastructure required to have server side character storage, which makes grinding endlessly for loot pointless because you can just get a trainer and get all the best items that way. D1 is highly regarded but it had no online presence for the same reason. The game itself was actually quite poorly received with scores in the 70's from a lot of places that are known to hand out 90's for anything with hype behind it.
I don't remember Diablo 1 being poorly received at all
So as a person who has never really played through the diablo series...
...Is the diablo series basically Gauntlet with significantly more extensive/polished loot, character building, pvp, and (what I assume are) randomly generated dungeons?
Just wondering why out of so many games with similar gameplay, this one is by far the most popular
D2 was so popular because 1) it had a huge player base from day 1 because it came from blizzard 2) it was a sequel to the acclaimed D1 and 3) because it had server side stored characters and loot. That third point is what let it outlast all the competition through the years because no upstart can afford the infrastructure required to have server side character storage, which makes grinding endlessly for loot pointless because you can just get a trainer and get all the best items that way. D1 is highly regarded but it had no online presence for the same reason. The game itself was actually quite poorly received with scores in the 70's from a lot of places that are known to hand out 90's for anything with hype behind it.
I don't remember Diablo 1 being poorly received at all
I was referring to D2, but actually, I was wrong on that too. I just checked the scores and the big sites are between 8-8.5, only 7/10 is AVault. Memory has failed me.
There is nothing stopping you from trying whatever builds you want in this game. The idea that you need a "permanent" build in order for your choices to have "weight" is absurd. Choosing a build in D2 and by accident putting a point wrong screwed your entire character. OR maybe the build you thought was great suddenly hits a road block and you need to then scrap that character.
These are BAD design elements. These are the opposite of fun. Perhaps some of you are masochistic and really go for that sort of thing. Great. Wonderful. Amazing. I promise you, that you are a select few. Being able to adjust your build, try new things, being able to actually "put a point" into a new skill you just unlocked to try it without worrying about completely fucking your character, is a GOOD thing. It's progress.
You can do everything you did in D2 with the new system, the only difference is that now it is a system that rewards experimentation instead of punishing it. Oh and instead of an absurd amount of skills to switch through and use you are now limited to 6ish.
I love D2 as much as the next guy, but this absurd attachment to a very clunky and outdated system is ridiculous. Being able to respec and change your build is a very common element in games these days. Remember when they would release a patch that nerfed your amazing build that you found in D2? That sure was fun.
Is it the opposite of fun to have to level up a second character if you want to play a different class? I already went through the game as a Wizard, why should I have to start again from scratch if I want to play a Barbarian now?
If not, why are these two things different?
Look, you're right that a great majority of people prefer to have the option to respec. In fact, I'd say the majority of the people who come in this thread talking about how this new skill system doesn't give your character an identity also agree that having no way to respec at all is bad.
Personally, I would like to find a middle ground. A system where the build you want is something you have to gradually build toward, so that there's some satisfaction of eventually achieving it, but which isn't so inflexible that you would ever need to start over with the same goal in mind.
There is definite progress in this game, but many of us feel like we're also losing something. There's no reason to denigrate it as masochism.
Much has changed since you were last here my friend, 36 of the great errors of Bhaal have already emerged. Now we face, ERROR 37!
I guess at least this stress test must have shown them that they were woefully under prepared for launch day, lets hope they can do some serious upgrading of their servers and bug fixing before that.
So some thoughts on Diablo 3 from someone who really hasn't been following the news:
Battle.net
- Multiplayer only kinda sucks now in retrospect. I wasn't expecting it to be a big issue, but this stress test has shown the weaknesses in having it reliant on Battle.net. I know there's the Auction House et al, but it would have been nice to be able to get a game on while the servers were down.
- Is the save system basically save-always but return to last checkpoint? I can't find any definitive statement and Blizzard should come out to clarify this, because it seems that progress is lost when you get kicked out of the servers.
Graphics
- The environment is beautiful, very much like a water colour painting. It could have been a bit darker, but still, gorgeous enough and should probably hold up well over the years.
- Character models in-game seem to be a bit low rez. Perhaps it's just the armor, but I would have loved more detail and an ability to zoom in to examine the armor art without having to turn to the login screen.
- The character portraits seem.. out of place. Too clean, too sterile for Diablo 3.
Sound
- Nothing much to say except some of the accents seem a bit too heavy, especially the monks. Also, the Ibn journal entries sound very chirpy. Not really meshing with the atmosphere of Diablo 3
Gameplay
- Definitely a Diablo vibe here.
- The pacing is also much better than Diablo 2, since I didn't have to bash things until I hit level 6 or 7 to do a proper build.
- Ultimately I do forsee issues with the variability of builds. One thing good about Diablo 2 was that for each class, you had 3 to 4 core builds with minor variations each, which meant that most people had something different from others, no matter how minor it was. It seems thought that for D3, it should be possible to find an absolutely optimal skill/rune combination for any given area, which might mean that eventually most people will end up running the same stuff for certain areas.
- The new conversation system seems out of place... popup messages appearing on your screen. Kinda breaks the immersion really.
Miscellanous
- They should let us customize the chat fonts. Arial doesn't gel with the rest of the interface.
I really think that within a month or two of launch they will start limiting respecs for just that reason. Require you to have a boss monster sigil or something, and give it a two day cooldown. Respeccing is great, and a fine feature, endless respeccing is not.
The moment someone says, "Now, when your wizard enters the blistering swamps immediately respec out of A and into B" the respec feature is broken.
So ive played through the beta on the WD, and gotten about halfway through it on the monk. I stop to take a look at the achivements and notice the soul jar questline that apparently i missed. what area does that start in?
- Ultimately I do forsee issues with the variability of builds. One thing good about Diablo 2 was that for each class, you had 3 to 4 core builds with minor variations each, which meant that most people had something different from others, no matter how minor it was. It seems thought that for D3, it should be possible to find an absolutely optimal skill/rune combination for any given area, which might mean that eventually most people will end up running the same stuff for certain areas.
What makes you say this?
Lets pretend we have finished the game and now are onto nightmare. As a barbarian, what skills are optimal for going through this part of act 1, now that you are level 30? We've seen the shit out of this beta. I've played it probably 20 full times by this point. If there is any piece of content someone should be able to construct "the perfect build" for, its this one.
How is this respec business any different than Guild Wars? Or any CCG?
Its as if in a CCG tournament you had access to every single card, as much as you want, could change your deck completely every game, and your opponents told you what their decks were in advance. Rather than building an interesting deck for the whole tournament and using some compromise strategy you would min max every single game and your success would be pure luck with the odds skewed hugely in your favor.
Respec, yes. Respec for every zone and mob if you want? No.
This is in no way a sign that they are woefully under prepared. This is part of preparing for launch. I'm pretty sure they're not using all the server capacity they intend to use for launch. They don't want us to have a perfect experience during this stress test. They want to see how the servers handle being pushed to their limit and resolve the problems that arise from that.
People in this thread don't know what /nopickup did?! Heathens!
In D2 /nopickup disabled looting unless you were holding alt. That way you could click around like mad and not accidentally loot all the crap on the ground. They have the toggle for the labels there now, but if you mouse over anything on the ground you still loot it.
This is in no way a sign that they are woefully under prepared. This is part of preparing for launch. I'm pretty sure they're not using all the server capacity they intend to use for launch. They don't want us to have a perfect experience during this stress test. They want to see how the servers handle being pushed to their limit and resolve the problems that arise from that.
Nonsense, while this was indeed a stress test they wanted and expected to pass the stress test with flying colors. Especially at the start. People not being able to log in during the free weekend is not exactly good press for them. If things suddenly become perfect at 5 pm tonight then maybe I'll agree with you that they faked it, but you don't get any information at all with people unable to log in.
The stress test is to see how well the servers run under load. That doesn't mean they will be running ALL the servers. There is a limited number of ppl they want per server, when that fills up they give everyone else the busy signal cuz they don't care that you want to play now... they are just trying to test their servers.
There is nothing stopping you from trying whatever builds you want in this game. The idea that you need a "permanent" build in order for your choices to have "weight" is absurd. Choosing a build in D2 and by accident putting a point wrong screwed your entire character. OR maybe the build you thought was great suddenly hits a road block and you need to then scrap that character.
These are BAD design elements. These are the opposite of fun. Perhaps some of you are masochistic and really go for that sort of thing. Great. Wonderful. Amazing. I promise you, that you are a select few. Being able to adjust your build, try new things, being able to actually "put a point" into a new skill you just unlocked to try it without worrying about completely fucking your character, is a GOOD thing. It's progress.
You can do everything you did in D2 with the new system, the only difference is that now it is a system that rewards experimentation instead of punishing it. Oh and instead of an absurd amount of skills to switch through and use you are now limited to 6ish.
I love D2 as much as the next guy, but this absurd attachment to a very clunky and outdated system is ridiculous. Being able to respec and change your build is a very common element in games these days. Remember when they would release a patch that nerfed your amazing build that you found in D2? That sure was fun.
Is it the opposite of fun to have to level up a second character if you want to play a different class? I already went through the game as a Wizard, why should I have to start again from scratch if I want to play a Barbarian now?
If not, why are these two things different?
Look, you're right that a great majority of people prefer to have the option to respec. In fact, I'd say the majority of the people who come in this thread talking about how this new skill system doesn't give your character an identity also agree that having no way to respec at all is bad.
Personally, I would like to find a middle ground. A system where the build you want is something you have to gradually build toward, so that there's some satisfaction of eventually achieving it, but which isn't so inflexible that you would ever need to start over with the same goal in mind.
There is definite progress in this game, but many of us feel like we're also losing something. There's no reason to denigrate it as masochism.
I was referring specifically to one class type. The difference is that If I roll a barbarian I won't hit some insurmountable wall because I didn't put X amount of points into Y skill, or god forbid, because I DID put X amount of Points into Y skill because I thought that skill was cool but the game decided that I needed certain builds to proceed. In either of those scenarios I'm screwed, I have to restart my barbarian and try again, hopefully this time I go online and look up the appropriate build so I can play the game according to how others think I should.
You are correct in that choosing one class over another locks you in to certain playstyles, that is an flaw within the class system itself and some games have found ways around it, in this case Blizzard decided to stick with a class system but give you more freedom with your class than in D2. If I screw up a Barb build, or it's not working for me for some reason I can try other things, other runes, other skills, to see if I can make it work or not. I can do this without rerolling my character and having to grind up through the exact same content I did before to reach the same spot.
I agree that a middle ground would be fine, but personally I prefer the concept of a more fluid experience where I'm not locked into a build. That is more because I prefer variety and like the idea of being able to change my playstyle on a whim. Maybe one day I feel like exploding enemies from afar on my Wizard, and the next I want to see if I can make a Close Combat Wizard work.
Perhaps masochism was a bit of hyperbole , But I do feel rather strongly about the idea that If I misclick or want to try out a ability because it is fun, that I could break my character. Like when you missed a chest in an RPG that locks you out from finding the best weapon in the game because you didn't happen to check that one spot 15 hours ago and now you can never go back.
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This is in no way a sign that they are woefully under prepared. This is part of preparing for launch. I'm pretty sure they're not using all the server capacity they intend to use for launch. They don't want us to have a perfect experience during this stress test. They want to see how the servers handle being pushed to their limit and resolve the problems that arise from that.
Nonsense, while this was indeed a stress test they wanted and expected to pass the stress test with flying colors. Especially at the start. People not being able to log in during the free weekend is not exactly good press for them. If things suddenly become perfect at 5 pm tonight then maybe I'll agree with you that they faked it, but you don't get any information at all with people unable to log in.
well, you do get some information
you know when the servers break
and knowing this is pretty important for when the actual launch day happens
Played through the beta as a monk and demon hunter. The second time through was together with someone playing barbarian and I got a little bit jealous of the leap.
This is in no way a sign that they are woefully under prepared. This is part of preparing for launch. I'm pretty sure they're not using all the server capacity they intend to use for launch. They don't want us to have a perfect experience during this stress test. They want to see how the servers handle being pushed to their limit and resolve the problems that arise from that.
Nonsense, while this was indeed a stress test they wanted and expected to pass the stress test with flying colors. Especially at the start. People not being able to log in during the free weekend is not exactly good press for them. If things suddenly become perfect at 5 pm tonight then maybe I'll agree with you that they faked it, but you don't get any information at all with people unable to log in.
They wanted and expected to pass with flying colors?
Not only has Blizzard never said either of those things, they almost certainly were completely anticipating a situation where the servers would fail. It's almost like they're running some kind of test to see what they can learn when the servers are purposefully over-stressed.
This is not a "free weekend", or a public demo, or a marketing stunt. It's a no-holds-barred free for all where Blizzard has put a drop of blood in the water in order to incentivize millions of people to DDOS their servers in order to monitor what happens. The buzz-making aspect is somewhat secondary considering this is a game that does not exactly need to be buzzed.
Played through the beta as a monk and demon hunter. The second time through was together with someone playing barbarian and I got a little bit jealous of the leap.
I have a name
But no one would know who I meant anyway if I had wrote CAPITALISM.
I looked up when the wizard gets teleport until level 22. Is 35 yards farther than the range on leap?
Played through the beta as a monk and demon hunter. The second time through was together with someone playing barbarian and I got a little bit jealous of the leap.
I have a name
But no one would know who I meant anyway if I had wrote CAPITALISM.
CAPITALISM the Polar Bear with his Holy Greatsword.
There is nothing stopping you from trying whatever builds you want in this game. The idea that you need a "permanent" build in order for your choices to have "weight" is absurd. Choosing a build in D2 and by accident putting a point wrong screwed your entire character. OR maybe the build you thought was great suddenly hits a road block and you need to then scrap that character.
These are BAD design elements. These are the opposite of fun. Perhaps some of you are masochistic and really go for that sort of thing. Great. Wonderful. Amazing. I promise you, that you are a select few. Being able to adjust your build, try new things, being able to actually "put a point" into a new skill you just unlocked to try it without worrying about completely fucking your character, is a GOOD thing. It's progress.
You can do everything you did in D2 with the new system, the only difference is that now it is a system that rewards experimentation instead of punishing it. Oh and instead of an absurd amount of skills to switch through and use you are now limited to 6ish.
I love D2 as much as the next guy, but this absurd attachment to a very clunky and outdated system is ridiculous. Being able to respec and change your build is a very common element in games these days. Remember when they would release a patch that nerfed your amazing build that you found in D2? That sure was fun.
Is it the opposite of fun to have to level up a second character if you want to play a different class? I already went through the game as a Wizard, why should I have to start again from scratch if I want to play a Barbarian now?
If not, why are these two things different?
Look, you're right that a great majority of people prefer to have the option to respec. In fact, I'd say the majority of the people who come in this thread talking about how this new skill system doesn't give your character an identity also agree that having no way to respec at all is bad.
Personally, I would like to find a middle ground. A system where the build you want is something you have to gradually build toward, so that there's some satisfaction of eventually achieving it, but which isn't so inflexible that you would ever need to start over with the same goal in mind.
There is definite progress in this game, but many of us feel like we're also losing something. There's no reason to denigrate it as masochism.
Yeah. There's a definite middle ground between "No Respecs Ever" and "Free respecs anywhere at any time", including but not limited to: 1 respec per difficulty, respecs for a gold cost, respecs in town only, respecs at nephalem altars only, 1 respec every 10 levels etc. etc. ad infinitum. This system isn't the only one they could have used, but its the one they chose. For what its worth I'm OK with it, but lets not pretend there were no other possibilities and that they didn't try other solutions before getting here.
How is this respec business any different than Guild Wars? Or any CCG?
Its as if in a CCG tournament you had access to every single card, as much as you want, could change your deck completely every game, and your opponents told you what their decks were in advance. Rather than building an interesting deck for the whole tournament and using some compromise strategy you would min max every single game and your success would be pure luck with the odds skewed hugely in your favor.
Respec, yes. Respec for every zone and mob if you want? No.
Dead on. You nailed my fears about infinite respec exactly.
That said, my play experience, and talking to people here, suggests there will be considerable build diversity just because people like different stuff inherently. Just as not everyone in d2 ran a hammerdin when it was flavor of the month, not everyone is gonna skillswap for every mob unless the benefit is enormous. If they don't FUBAR balance people should mostly be able to stick with their preferred builds. Just as in d2. You CAN swap for every mob but there should be no need to, so most people won't. I hope.
This is in no way a sign that they are woefully under prepared. This is part of preparing for launch. I'm pretty sure they're not using all the server capacity they intend to use for launch. They don't want us to have a perfect experience during this stress test. They want to see how the servers handle being pushed to their limit and resolve the problems that arise from that.
Yup. I forsee a fairly smooth launch. I'd actually be disappointed if they fucked this up. They should have a very good idea of how to calculate expected load, and they have the money and personeel to pull off a great launch. Given how smoothly they got it running for Fri night after only a few hrs of trouble, I'm pretty optimistic.
Is anyone else kinda desperate to get in there and mess around with the real-money AH?
I, for one, cannot wait to see what damage I can do in that regard. For the last two months before I quit WoW, I was just logging in to check the AH and pull in money hand-over-fist. Eventually I realized that I wasn't going to ever SPEND any of the gold because I wasn't ever adventuring any more and quit.
I have 3 other games I could be playing right now that were severally interesting. Now all im doing is surfing the net and these forums while trying to log in. Time to go do something constructive like applying fertilizer to the lawn. God know its not getting done after May 15th.
The CCG analogy is partially true, and completely wrong where it counts. You can indeed think of your skill roster something like a deck of cards and you have a large sideboard to swap out as your heart desires.
Thinking that just because the enemy is AI controlled that people will be able to "solve" them by picking perfect skill counters for any given swath of content is incorrect though. The entire end-game experience is balanced around fighting Champion monster packs, which are extra-tough enemies that have randomly generated affixes that create a very dynamic experience that you cannot plan for and will not be the same as the next pack that you fight.
If you are dead set on ruining the game for yourself, I sure suppose it's possible to run away whenever you see a Champion pack (assuming they don't give chase), respec with what you think might be good to fight them (if there even is such a thing), lose your hugely important Nephalem Valor buff, maybe win, and then have to go and respec again when you find another champion pack two minutes later. If someone is constantly cycling through builds to counter whatever monster you might be fighting at that given moment, they aren't power-gaming or showing Blizzard the folly of their ways by beating their system, they're just playing like a moron.
The cooldown on respec'ing a skill is enough of a deterrent for me. Having to stop the action for 30 seconds is a pain, especially with how fast paced hack and slashes are.
(Though the Nephalem Valor buff is great)
Jephery on
}
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
Posts
Yeah it's a interesting approach to solve the respec/skill exploration problem. The only thing I am worried about is that every character will essentially be the same. I think one of the great hooks of RPGs is the feeling that you are creating an unique character and that all your choices in character building have meaning and weight.
D2 was so popular because 1) it had a huge player base from day 1 because it came from blizzard 2) it was a sequel to the acclaimed D1 and 3) because it had server side stored characters and loot. That third point is what let it outlast all the competition through the years because no upstart can afford the infrastructure required to have server side character storage, which makes grinding endlessly for loot pointless because you can just get a trainer and get all the best items that way. D1 is highly regarded but it had no online presence for the same reason. The game itself was actually quite poorly received with scores in the 70's from a lot of places that are known to hand out 90's for anything with hype behind it.
Yeah, that's a good point. I'm guessing it's hard for developers to find a perfect balance between customization and making sure players can't break their characters.
Battle.net
- Multiplayer only kinda sucks now in retrospect. I wasn't expecting it to be a big issue, but this stress test has shown the weaknesses in having it reliant on Battle.net. I know there's the Auction House et al, but it would have been nice to be able to get a game on while the servers were down.
- Is the save system basically save-always but return to last checkpoint? I can't find any definitive statement and Blizzard should come out to clarify this, because it seems that progress is lost when you get kicked out of the servers.
Graphics
- The environment is beautiful, very much like a water colour painting. It could have been a bit darker, but still, gorgeous enough and should probably hold up well over the years.
- Character models in-game seem to be a bit low rez. Perhaps it's just the armor, but I would have loved more detail and an ability to zoom in to examine the armor art without having to turn to the login screen.
- The character portraits seem.. out of place. Too clean, too sterile for Diablo 3.
Sound
- Nothing much to say except some of the accents seem a bit too heavy, especially the monks. Also, the Ibn journal entries sound very chirpy. Not really meshing with the atmosphere of Diablo 3
Gameplay
- Definitely a Diablo vibe here.
- The pacing is also much better than Diablo 2, since I didn't have to bash things until I hit level 6 or 7 to do a proper build.
- Ultimately I do forsee issues with the variability of builds. One thing good about Diablo 2 was that for each class, you had 3 to 4 core builds with minor variations each, which meant that most people had something different from others, no matter how minor it was. It seems thought that for D3, it should be possible to find an absolutely optimal skill/rune combination for any given area, which might mean that eventually most people will end up running the same stuff for certain areas.
- The new conversation system seems out of place... popup messages appearing on your screen. Kinda breaks the immersion really.
Miscellanous
- They should let us customize the chat fonts. Arial doesn't gel with the rest of the interface.
But yeah, gameplay is fun. Only going to level characters up to ~8 or so, to get a feel for them. With that, Witch Doctor feels really underpowered in comparison to my smack EVERYTHING on the screen Monk. But thats what you can expect from a magic vs tank character.
I don't remember Diablo 1 being poorly received at all
I was referring to D2, but actually, I was wrong on that too. I just checked the scores and the big sites are between 8-8.5, only 7/10 is AVault. Memory has failed me.
Is it the opposite of fun to have to level up a second character if you want to play a different class? I already went through the game as a Wizard, why should I have to start again from scratch if I want to play a Barbarian now?
If not, why are these two things different?
Look, you're right that a great majority of people prefer to have the option to respec. In fact, I'd say the majority of the people who come in this thread talking about how this new skill system doesn't give your character an identity also agree that having no way to respec at all is bad.
Personally, I would like to find a middle ground. A system where the build you want is something you have to gradually build toward, so that there's some satisfaction of eventually achieving it, but which isn't so inflexible that you would ever need to start over with the same goal in mind.
There is definite progress in this game, but many of us feel like we're also losing something. There's no reason to denigrate it as masochism.
I guess at least this stress test must have shown them that they were woefully under prepared for launch day, lets hope they can do some serious upgrading of their servers and bug fixing before that.
I really think that within a month or two of launch they will start limiting respecs for just that reason. Require you to have a boss monster sigil or something, and give it a two day cooldown. Respeccing is great, and a fine feature, endless respeccing is not.
The moment someone says, "Now, when your wizard enters the blistering swamps immediately respec out of A and into B" the respec feature is broken.
So ive played through the beta on the WD, and gotten about halfway through it on the monk. I stop to take a look at the achivements and notice the soul jar questline that apparently i missed. what area does that start in?
What makes you say this?
Lets pretend we have finished the game and now are onto nightmare. As a barbarian, what skills are optimal for going through this part of act 1, now that you are level 30? We've seen the shit out of this beta. I've played it probably 20 full times by this point. If there is any piece of content someone should be able to construct "the perfect build" for, its this one.
Its as if in a CCG tournament you had access to every single card, as much as you want, could change your deck completely every game, and your opponents told you what their decks were in advance. Rather than building an interesting deck for the whole tournament and using some compromise strategy you would min max every single game and your success would be pure luck with the odds skewed hugely in your favor.
Respec, yes. Respec for every zone and mob if you want? No.
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In D2 /nopickup disabled looting unless you were holding alt. That way you could click around like mad and not accidentally loot all the crap on the ground. They have the toggle for the labels there now, but if you mouse over anything on the ground you still loot it.
-5s are not 6s
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Nonsense, while this was indeed a stress test they wanted and expected to pass the stress test with flying colors. Especially at the start. People not being able to log in during the free weekend is not exactly good press for them. If things suddenly become perfect at 5 pm tonight then maybe I'll agree with you that they faked it, but you don't get any information at all with people unable to log in.
I was referring specifically to one class type. The difference is that If I roll a barbarian I won't hit some insurmountable wall because I didn't put X amount of points into Y skill, or god forbid, because I DID put X amount of Points into Y skill because I thought that skill was cool but the game decided that I needed certain builds to proceed. In either of those scenarios I'm screwed, I have to restart my barbarian and try again, hopefully this time I go online and look up the appropriate build so I can play the game according to how others think I should.
You are correct in that choosing one class over another locks you in to certain playstyles, that is an flaw within the class system itself and some games have found ways around it, in this case Blizzard decided to stick with a class system but give you more freedom with your class than in D2. If I screw up a Barb build, or it's not working for me for some reason I can try other things, other runes, other skills, to see if I can make it work or not. I can do this without rerolling my character and having to grind up through the exact same content I did before to reach the same spot.
I agree that a middle ground would be fine, but personally I prefer the concept of a more fluid experience where I'm not locked into a build. That is more because I prefer variety and like the idea of being able to change my playstyle on a whim. Maybe one day I feel like exploding enemies from afar on my Wizard, and the next I want to see if I can make a Close Combat Wizard work.
Perhaps masochism was a bit of hyperbole
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well, you do get some information
you know when the servers break
and knowing this is pretty important for when the actual launch day happens
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They wanted and expected to pass with flying colors?
Not only has Blizzard never said either of those things, they almost certainly were completely anticipating a situation where the servers would fail. It's almost like they're running some kind of test to see what they can learn when the servers are purposefully over-stressed.
This is not a "free weekend", or a public demo, or a marketing stunt. It's a no-holds-barred free for all where Blizzard has put a drop of blood in the water in order to incentivize millions of people to DDOS their servers in order to monitor what happens. The buzz-making aspect is somewhat secondary considering this is a game that does not exactly need to be buzzed.
But no one would know who I meant anyway if I had wrote CAPITALISM.
I looked up when the wizard gets teleport until level 22. Is 35 yards farther than the range on leap?
CAPITALISM the Polar Bear with his Holy Greatsword.
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Your sig is oddly appropriate. :P
Yeah. There's a definite middle ground between "No Respecs Ever" and "Free respecs anywhere at any time", including but not limited to: 1 respec per difficulty, respecs for a gold cost, respecs in town only, respecs at nephalem altars only, 1 respec every 10 levels etc. etc. ad infinitum. This system isn't the only one they could have used, but its the one they chose. For what its worth I'm OK with it, but lets not pretend there were no other possibilities and that they didn't try other solutions before getting here.
Dead on. You nailed my fears about infinite respec exactly.
That said, my play experience, and talking to people here, suggests there will be considerable build diversity just because people like different stuff inherently. Just as not everyone in d2 ran a hammerdin when it was flavor of the month, not everyone is gonna skillswap for every mob unless the benefit is enormous. If they don't FUBAR balance people should mostly be able to stick with their preferred builds. Just as in d2. You CAN swap for every mob but there should be no need to, so most people won't. I hope.
Yup. I forsee a fairly smooth launch. I'd actually be disappointed if they fucked this up. They should have a very good idea of how to calculate expected load, and they have the money and personeel to pull off a great launch. Given how smoothly they got it running for Fri night after only a few hrs of trouble, I'm pretty optimistic.
I, for one, cannot wait to see what damage I can do in that regard. For the last two months before I quit WoW, I was just logging in to check the AH and pull in money hand-over-fist. Eventually I realized that I wasn't going to ever SPEND any of the gold because I wasn't ever adventuring any more and quit.
I want to see if I can do that in D3, as well. =3
Thinking that just because the enemy is AI controlled that people will be able to "solve" them by picking perfect skill counters for any given swath of content is incorrect though. The entire end-game experience is balanced around fighting Champion monster packs, which are extra-tough enemies that have randomly generated affixes that create a very dynamic experience that you cannot plan for and will not be the same as the next pack that you fight.
If you are dead set on ruining the game for yourself, I sure suppose it's possible to run away whenever you see a Champion pack (assuming they don't give chase), respec with what you think might be good to fight them (if there even is such a thing), lose your hugely important Nephalem Valor buff, maybe win, and then have to go and respec again when you find another champion pack two minutes later. If someone is constantly cycling through builds to counter whatever monster you might be fighting at that given moment, they aren't power-gaming or showing Blizzard the folly of their ways by beating their system, they're just playing like a moron.
For those interested
(Though the Nephalem Valor buff is great)
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".