Was anyone else really put off by the automatic stat placement in Diablo 3? The GB guys said that they were all for simplicity and that's what Diablo is all about but i don't think they really get it... Making things simplistic doesn't mean removing player input and customization. The number one reason me and my friends kept going back to the game was they way you could try different things and experiment with character builds. Sure, in the end everyone were well aware of "Hammerdins" being the most destructive build, but nothing stopped you from trying something else and maybe come up with different strategies. In my opinion, they should put more effort towards making the classes more balanced and therefore giving the player more viable choices instead of removing it all together and going with a more WoW-ish approach.

I'm still going to buy the game and most likely enjoy it, but it still kinda bums me out to see some of the changes they've made.

Anyway, what do you guys think?

(Also sorry for grammatical errors and such. English is not my first language!)

From what I can tell, they changed all the things I've hated about the Diablo series. Also, Diablo was already idiot friendly. Click untill the monster dies. So no, I don't think it'll be too simplified.

And I love the new skill tree idea. It's why I love Bastion so much. just try what you want to try, we won't stop you.

I think people should start trusting developers.

Yep I agree with you, not only that skills also just unlock based on your level, so basically you get ALL skills without any choice being involved, from what Roarie said during the quick look it seems you'll be able to kinda sorta specialize on skills with runes, but it's not the same thing.
 
Well, there's nothing that can be done really, dumbing down is a mainstay of current "AAA" game development.
 
edit: when diablo 4 comes out in  20 years they'll make so you just click locations on a overworld map where your quests are, then you instantly appear there and the next second a message pops up saying "quest done", then you click on the town icon to get your next quest, also for loot they will make it so you just click a button that drops a random item in front of you, and there will also be a level up button.
 
And people will be totally ok with it saying things like "oh thank god, I never really liked the whole playing the game aspect of Diablo games"

@Mr_Skeleton said:

I think people should start trusting developers.

Well, some developers. Blizzard, absolutely. Maybe not Capcom or Nintendo right now.

I never understand why people want to input skillpoints, you either do them a way that's useful or purposefully not, there's no customisation. If you have a wizard and you don't put your stats into the magic skill then you're just intentionally fucking up, why do that?

@TooWalrus: Obviously but it's ridiculous that every time Vavlve, Blizzard, Bioware, Bethesda and other make a sequel people assume they ruined everything.

@CaLe said:

There is no need to allocate skillpoints with the way the ability and rune system works. NO NEED AT ALL.

Pretty much this - afaik you get around 20 skills, pick 7 and modify them with one of the 5 runes.

Edit - @ModerateViolence said:

I never understand why people want to input skillpoints, you either do them a way that's useful or purposefully not, there's no customisation. If you have a wizard and you don't put your stats into the magic skill then you're just intentionally fucking up, why do that?

This pretty much ties into why skill points result in shitty systems - They are usually convoluted, or the result of spending points into specific attributes are not explained well enough. Or it could be that due to the balancing, attributes have break points that are completely unclear (had this in a lot of games with haste.) On top of it all though they aren't really a great reward, a new skill is pretty neat while +2 STR is pretty boring.

@Adamsons said:

@CaLe said:

There is no need to allocate skillpoints with the way the ability and rune system works. NO NEED AT ALL.

Pretty much this - afaik you get around 20 skills, pick 7 and modify them with one of the 5 runes.

B-but I won't be inconviniently locked out of other possible builds! The nerve! Giving us more freedom!

The only thing people can be outraged about, is that there is no allocating character points, but since that was rather pointless, who cares.

It does look extremely dumbed down. It still looks like a ton of fun and I can't wait to play, but it's definitely simplified.

Yeah because Diablo II was such a complex game.

@ModerateViolence said:

I never understand why people want to input skillpoints, you either do them a way that's useful or purposefully not, there's no customisation. If you have a wizard and you don't put your stats into the magic skill then you're just intentionally fucking up, why do that?

This is a complaint a lot of people have been using on Guild Wars 2 as well, as the skill bar now limits the majority of skills you take depending on your weapon.

But in much the same way, people only ever used specific builds. There was no point in taking certain skills, because they weren't useful enough. The change makes things "simpler" as you can't take bad skills and completely screw up your character, but it's not exactly removing customisation or player choice, because that was never really there to begin with.. unless you were a really bad player.

@BulletproofMonk said:

Yeah because Diablo II was such a complex game.

Someone clearly never got to Hell difficulty.

@seanfoster said:

It does look extremely dumbed down. It still looks like a ton of fun and I can't wait to play, but it's definitely simplified.

let not make out that Diablo was some complicated, cerebral, challenge. you just clicked on things to kill them and collected loot. you can't really dumb that down a great deal.

Just go and watch some footage of the beta, everyone here has summed up why it is now better.

http://www.youtube.com/user/ForceSC2strategy#p/c/5C2F514ECED855CA/0/5AOp-YyECcA

@WitchHunter_Z said:

@BulletproofMonk said:

Yeah because Diablo II was such a complex game.

Someone clearly never got to Hell difficulty.

I did, and I'll go on record as saying this change will affect nothing.

@jetsetwillie: The cerebral aspect of Diablo wasn't the combat itself, it was the building of the character. You could beat Normal throwing skills around anywhere, but Hell [and to a lesser extent Nightmare] required your build to maximise certain skills and synergies. If you got sloppy with skill or stat point allocation, you'd stand absolutely no chance. Hell, most of the characters I built had over a dozen unallocated skill points until I hit 25-30 because spending them before then would fuck me over later on.

you can't really dumb that down a great deal.

DIablo 2 might not have been complicated in terms of gameplay, but there was certainly a meta game with planning what skills and items to use to maximize effectiveness. So people saying it was click until monster dies are selling it far too short.

Anyways, I am putting my trust in Blizzard that they are making changes for the better. The rune system seems to have some promise so I will withhold any further judgements until I actually play it for real.

@TwoLines said:

From what I can tell, they changed all the things I've hated about the Diablo series. Also, Diablo was already idiot friendly. Click untill the monster dies. So no, I don't think it'll be too simplified.

And I love the new skill tree idea. It's why I love Bastion so much. just try what you want to try, we won't stop you.

The thing is that every character of the same level is identical now, something that wasn't the deal in Diablo 2. In that sense it's more like WoW where a mage is a mage and the only customization you have are the talents. In the Diablo, characters were more differentiated by their stats and your barbarian would never really be the same as someone elses, for better or for worse.

@Mr_Skeleton said:

I think people should start trusting developers.

I do love Blizzard more than any other dev out there (More than Valve even!!!) but jumping in to WoW again made me slightly worried... As a fan of WoW pre Wrath of the Lich King, everything seems too easy and dumbed down.

I just don't want the same thing with Diablo 2.

I hope the game turns out great though and that there's some depth to the customization.

@M1M1C said:

Just go and watch some footage of the beta, everyone here has summed up why it is now better.

http://www.youtube.com/user/ForceSC2strategy#p/c/5C2F514ECED855CA/0/5AOp-YyECcA

This sums up the rune system pretty well.

Just imagine you have 100 skills and you can bring 7.

Good news is you won't have to play to find out whether or not all of these design decisions turn out to be utter shit until "Early 2012" (6-9 months from now I bet har har). I don't even care anymore. See you all in Torchlight II.

@WitchHunter_Z said:

@BulletproofMonk said:

Yeah because Diablo II was such a complex game.

Someone clearly never got to Hell difficulty.

I did, and completed it several times. It's not that hard.

I think they should change Diablo 3 and put in a first person mode...

But ability points didn't matter in D2. If you wanted a character that was at all decent, you mostly followed the formula of - Do I have enough Strength to equip my gear? Yes. Do I have enough Dex to equip my gear? Yes. Am I a mana shield sorcerer? No. Ok, it goes into Stamina then because everything else is useless. That was the illusion of choice. If you can choose to eat a rotten apple or a fresh apple, you still have a choice, one of them is just the right answer and the other one is the wrong one though, so why have the choice at all?

Also, people keep selling skills short. Do you get every skill for a class? Yes. Do you get to have all of those skills as usable at all times? No. That's the choice. The choice is no longer "You can have these, but then you can't have these, and if you have those, but also have that, then everything sucks, but if you take only that and that, and limit yourself to only those two things, then you'll be good, but if you don't do that, then you suck" it's much more of a strategic choice of "What skills do I need for what situations, and how do I want to modify those skills to best suit my needs." Just because you're not penalized for your decision making doesn't mean the decision making is no longer there.

@Mr_Skeleton said:

I think people should start trusting developers.

Ooooo! Succinct and so very true!

Seeing the perspective as a hardcore Diablo II player - They've made a lot of stupid changes in this one. Changes and balance that doesn't need to be in a Diablo game. But Activision-Blizzard has been simplifing everything latetly so they can cater towards more players, so this isn't a shocker.

Excel spreadsheets ain't cool anymore, yo.

With that said, they've added depth with regards to limiting your number of skills and adding in their immensely variable rune system. Looking at a page of numbers and trying to min-max those numbers is 'tres boring' in comparison to modifying your vomit frogs to explode into a giant fire-mess of explosions on expiration.

@RE_Player92 said:

I think they should change Diablo 3 and put in a first person mode...

Pretty sure a group tried that with Hellgate London.

It bombed.

@Mr_Skeleton said:

I think people should start trusting developers.

I think developers should start trusting people as well. I was put off by the simplicity.

I'm sure those who don't mind would like to tell me and others like me to "fuck off", but that's ok. I'll go and fuck off.

@Mr_Skeleton said:

I think people should start trusting developers.

I think developers should start trusting people as well.

wah wah wah

@kingzetta said:

wah wah wah

pretty much my sentiments

@FateOfNever: You're quite right, but now it will be - "I have 112 strength more than i ever need. Why couldn't i just put the rest in vitality again? Oh right... Because of the balance and the competetive nature of this age of games. Everyone needs to be the same."

For me, i like to have at least the option to make a sorceress completely needed on mana and energy shield. That's what's great about Diablo 2. To make crazy and exclusive characters, even if it's "useless".

@Adamsons said:

@RE_Player92 said:

I think they should change Diablo 3 and put in a first person mode...

Pretty sure a group tried that with Hellgate London.

It bombed.

Yeah Hellgate London was shit. Anyway my original comment was inspired by this awful article on Gamespy from the editior in chief discussing Diablo 3 in the first person. Following that article a lot of people pointed out the concept and the execution of the article was poor. This made Bennett Ring, the editior and chief of Gamespy, to go on twitter and NeoGaf to post more idiotic comments. Finally Jeff Green came in to save the day, dude is seriously awesome, and posted this on NeoGaf in response.

You should read all of it, you'll get a good laugh and it will once again confirm that Jeff Green is awesome.

@FritzDude said:

@FateOfNever: You're quite right, but now it will be - "I have 112 strength more than i ever need. Why couldn't i just put the rest in vitality again? Oh right... Because of the balance and the competetive nature of this age of games. Everyone needs to be the same."

For me, i like to have at least the option to make a sorceress completely needed on mana and energy shield. That's what's great about Diablo 2. To make crazy and exclusive characters, even if it's "useless".

why not just keep playing D2 then. clearly Blizzard though this was the right direction to take D3. but it wont please everyone, nothing ever will.

@Adamsons said:

@CaLe said:

There is no need to allocate skillpoints with the way the ability and rune system works. NO NEED AT ALL.

Pretty much this - afaik you get around 20 skills, pick 7 and modify them with one of the 5 runes.

B-but I won't be inconviniently locked out of other possible builds! The nerve! Giving us more freedom!

The only thing people can be outraged about, is that there is no allocating character points, but since that was rather pointless, who cares.

@FateOfNever said:

That was the illusion of choice. If you can choose to eat a rotten apple or a fresh apple, you still have a choice, one of them is just the right answer and the other one is the wrong one though, so why have the choice at all?

This.

While there always will be some experimenting, serious players will naturally gravitate towards min-maxing, to get the most out of the game. More casual players will be content just clicking on stuff.

To take an example from another Blizzard game, while there skill trees and talent points, in time everyone would settle in the same build, same equipment, same Glyphs, enchantments etc. Most of the fun was had getting the requirements to perform optimally.

As long as they do something about that DRM I could get used to Diablo 3. My ISP had two hiccups this week where I lost my internet connection for two minutes.

the new rune system is fucking dumb.

@QKT: Why?

As someone who recently beat Diablo 2, finishing Hell on an Assassin with points all over all three trees, bad bad gear, and not even a recollection of what I did with my stat points, I can say the game is fun but mindlessly easy. Stop playing up Hell difficulty like you need to have a min/maxed character with elite gear to have any chance of getting through it. It was a potion chugging click-fest, but a good one.

However, after beating the game I started with the whole leveling runs and boss runs "end game". I got through about half and hour of that before questioning why I was trying to get more powerful. To kill Baal a little faster than before? At least in WoW there is a point to raiding over and over, because there is more content beyond it. I couldn't think of any functional difference between my horrible waste of server space Assassin and a level 99 character with the best gear and min/maxed stats and spec. Re-roll and play for hundreds of hours and become elite so that I can.. so that I'll be able to.. what?

Diablo 3 looks so much better, complex, and interesting in all the ways I could hope it to be. I love the runestone system and the PvP and bosses make Diablo 2 look like the one that is dumbed down.

Also, look at the skill calculator Blizzard released for an idea of how runestones are adding actual meaningful customization to the game, in place of Diablo 2's awkward synergy system and uninteresting stat distribution. For example, the Wizard's Disintegrate is just a damaging beam in it's basic form, but with an Alabaster rune it can cause enemies to explode when killed by it, dealing damage to foes around them. Or you can use another rune to turn the beam into a cone that does more damage but at a shorter distance with a wider area of effect. If you're going up against a tough boss, you can use a different rune to make the beam charge up as you cast it and lead to a massive damage increase. That still leaves two more runes with different effects, and all from one skill. If you think D3 is being dumbed down then you aren't researching hard enough. The beta is short, only normal difficulty, and doesn't have runes in it among other things. Look harder for real information or wait until the game comes out before judging it.

I can kind of understand why Blizzard would dumb Diablo 3 down to a free-to-play MMO's level. I mean they had a lot of succses with World of Warcraft, as unfair as that comparison is, but there's also been a... heavy?... shift in the population of gamers with things like Angry Birds, Farmville and pretty much any other Facebook or casual game. So it makes sense to take out all of the "hard" choices like "What skills can I synergize with Hydra? Oh wait like barely anything."

Plus with the removal of stat point allocation, you don't have to worry about putting in minimum strength, dex for gear and putting the rest in Vitality or Energy. Although I'll miss making wacky builds like str+dex Sorceress. :(

I think Diablo III's skill system looks pretty cool. The idea of gear being the only thing that differentiates one player from another (with the same class and level) is very fitting for a Diablo game.

I don't think complexity is going to be a problem, for people who want to dig deeper into the game it will be there.

@Swoxx said:

@kingzetta said:

wah wah wah

pretty much my sentiments

Sorry then. The point of creating the thread was to see if anyone else agreed with my concerns and if they were at all justified. I want to be proven wrong because I'm actually looking forward to getting my hands on it and seeing for myself!

. I didn't want to come of as a whiner/hater/troll... ^^

I screwed up my stats in torchlight because it seemed to be possible until the very end to have a jack of all trades character. Then toward the very end all my new stuff required stats I wasn't even close to. So, skill points don't really bother me. I would prefer ability trees to what they have going on there, though. Not with point alocation, but in having to choose a limited number of skills but being able to use all of them anytime. More like Deus Ex. Whatever, as someone earlier said, Diablo 3 will probably be fun because Blizz made it.

I can definitely live without allocating points to stats. But the new skill system bugs me greatly. I like choosing what skills I get, making hard decisions about leveling up existing ones or spending that hard earned experience on a new one. Making the character my own, so to speak. Now, everyone's homogeneous. Lame.