Auction House Online: The Game (Diablo 3) is a MASSIVE decline

in my book a build is a character in it's finished state. buidling up that character is character development and has nothing to do with the term "build", it's just the path to fork out the way. the same goes with respec. you can't just simply deny the fact that a build ain't a build because you can swap the skills and change them. i don't get all that butt hurt against a single word... OMG, cod has builds. cod is an arpg. tH3 w0rLd w!LL eNd riGhT n0w!!11!bohooo.

so that ain't a drastically changed skill?! come on, mr iq above average -.-

 

ITT: My diablo is better than yours.

 

You can call it whatever you want but it's still shit.

 

and a fact is a fact, no matter how often you call it shit.

 

Increasing maximum Discipline by 10 for 5 seconds for sure drastically change this skill.

 

3 are % increase, 1 is bonus atop same effect and only 1 actually changes skill.

 

yeah, selecting the rune with a minimal effect. you are so clever, momma is proud of you... swapping discipline for hatred as an example would destroy your argument, he?

 

I bolded text that you've missed in my post.

_Most of runes_, bro.

 

Anyone writing 10k words on how a game they haven't even played is better than another game is either a Blizzard-paid shill or terminally retarded.

 

thx, but i am not your bro. k, then only some runes drastically change the skill. it's still better than d2's later added synergy system. btw your point was this:

 

You cant choose which stats to increase, in Diablo 2 you could.
You cant choose which path of skills to focus, you get every and each skill. Which you can all use, changing them in second (and being clone of another character always, who will have always same skills at that level).
Runes are also given to you, you dont choose them or earn them, just game gives them to you in fixed manner.


And about hype with runes, most of them just add bonuses (to damage or duration or cooldown or mana cost), this doesnt change skill drastically.
Also you can choose them since you get them all and each of them (even if you dont want some rune).
I think forcing character to "acquire" some knowledge or skills that they dont want - is bad design. I play fire mage, i dont want cold spells to be given to me. They are just cluttering my spell selection. Why the fuck you are forced to get them anyway?

My question:
Would it change game for worse if you could choose which skills to get and which to not?
Freedom of choice, anyone.

 

you already said this a thousand times. diablo was and ever will be a simple arpg. what's your problem again?

 

Fallout 3 sucks.

 

Decreasing amount of choice - further dumbing game down for casuals.

p.s.

I will try to explain.

I am playing now Avernum. I've made some mistakes in building my fighter from start and then later in skill selection - so game is harder for me. But this is consequence of my choice. I dont want magic button to respec into awesome character, since this would make my initial starting choice meaningless.

Why plan and think over options if you can change them in second? D3 removes thinking about choices you make. Why would you if you can correct one you made in next second?

If you choice do not have any consequence (bad or good) - this choice have no weight. There are 0 consequences in new D3. Choices in character build are meaningless.


TL&DR: I want choices in character development in D3. Choices come with consequences. If you dont have consequences for choice - choice have no weight.

 

it's a hack'n slash. those are made for casuals...

ps: you don't have to explain what you already said a thousand times.

 

It doesnt mean it should be more and more dumb, i mean casual friendly, easily accessible, you name it.

D2 wasnt that dumb as D3.

 

for sure it was this dumb and simple, BUT there was an option to make it even dumber. you could pump all your points into energy and play your totally fun and unique char with awesome majestic c&c... look, ima baba with lots of manna manna now bow down, great evil. ima bare knuckel champ!!1

 

So a game has to be smart enough to accommodate all the retards who could not play it in the first place, right? I think you understand D3 target audience better than you think.

 

The only problem is you compare it with some imaginary D2 that had amazing skill choices and depth. Look at http://diablo.wikia.com/wiki/Bow_and_Crossbow_Skills, with the exception of strafe everything there is basically a rune effect. Yet apparently building a new char just to maximize one of those skills was oh so much fun.
Even funnier is how everyone agrees Diablo games are just for simple dumb fun yet some argue it's better for such a game to have "builds" based around using only a couple of skills and require hundreds of hours of play to develop. Screw jumping in game to use a variety of skills for 30 mins while blasting dumb monsters, better grind for 6 hours for that hammerdin that's gonna be oh so much fun when the build is done.

 

we're talking about diablo and not an abstract topic about game design.
there was never a time in the whole series where the development of your character was complex. you've had to be really dumb to make wrong choices. in case of diablo i spent my points blindly and was bored to click through this shit. that has nothing to with the amount of time i played but because it was that simple. now this is gone and i am totally fine with that. so you don't like? who the fuck cares?!

that doesn't mean that i support dumb systems. in fact i hate it when a complex rule system is watered down for accessibility and a bigger audience.

 

That is the point. If it was not useful (lets not call all this "Complex") earlier they should have made it useful and not remove it. But I tire of this argument. it has been made several times already in the same thread.

 

Got both Semper and Syril on my ignore list, who is everyone talking to?

 

for sure it would be a better game and i am all for interesting char development but who the fuck expected that?! there's still enough customization, imo more than in d2.

 

As much as I agree with everything you've said, I think there's another reason why they went the way they did. It has to do with their ambition to have competitive PvP in the game, and their experiences with both WoW PvP and SC2 multiplayer. To make a long story short, SC:BW was a great competitive game, because it focused on providing players with a lot of tools and options, therefore facilitating real strategic development. There is a recorded period of more than two years of Protoss being statistically weak against Zerg at the highest level of play, and it was eventually solved with a strategic breakthrough (aka, a build that allowed Protoss players to do what was previously thought impossible), and not a patch.

Thing is, trying to balance WoW PvP, instead of convincing Blizzard that variety and diversity are indeed the way to go, has made them think that homogenization and streamlining is what they really need. You can look at the history of SC2 patching, and especially their developer blog commenting upon the changes, to see that what they really want, is for the game to be played the way they envisioned it. "This does not work the way we intended it to." is their primary explanation for nearly every change. Instead of focusing on creating a great system, and letting players take advantage of it, they begin with their intended gameplay, and design the system to encourage it. This is a good way to design single-player games with very tight gameplay mechanics, but awful for multiplayer.

And so, in their mind, the simpler D3 character customization is, the easier it'll be to balance for their precious PvP. A skill causing trouble? Just nerf the skill or appropriate rune, it doesn't affect anything else. The skills are so neatly compartmentalized and independent of each other, it's extremely easy to manipulate them for balance reasons.

 

Their stance on PvP has been the same since they announced it and they repeat it once in a while. It will NOT be competitve.
It's really simple, the way D3 is built you have only one option when the game starts being too hard for your char, getting better gear, which for most players would translate into AH (aka $$$$$$$$$$$ for Blizzard). You can't doubt your build, no real gamer would ever doubt his skill so it must be the gear.