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[Alevice]

Lets not forget the toads.

[Capntastic]

A lot of people seem to be mixing up customization and "being locked into a choice you made".  D3 lets you try new skills as you get them rather than forcing you to select skill A from tree 1 or skill B for tree 2, and needing to make a new character or refer to a guide to prevent being stuck with an awful choice.

So what if at max level all characters of the same class are going to have 'access' to the same abilities?  Why is being forced to roll and level a new character because you spent points wrong a virtue? People using the same builds in D2 (hammerdin, bowazon, whatever else dumb names they had) was directly caused by there being one or two "right" ways to do things as any given class, which is far less of a choice than, say, any of the dozens of apparent (and not so apparent) synergies in the skills lists for the D3 classes.  Being able to shuffle your movelist around to better mesh with your group of friends is also super good.

Basically, at some point you need to see that those samey builds come about because of them being the "most effective" or "most fun", and that all things being equal, there's no reason to lock someone out of that, punishing them for being ignorant or making a mistake.  At the same time, allowing someone to experiment with different builds practically on the fly encourages experimentation while simultaneously taking away the focus from "A SPECIFIC BUILD FOREVER" towards "A BUILD THAT IS FUN AT THIS TIME".

Edit:  http://imgur.com/a/JWHtg#1  Here's a screenshot of a super old build's skill system, and it has the same sort of "put points into these separate trees and eventually unlock skills deeper into that tree" method.  The forced investment of specific things along that track, locking you out of other things, and sunk costs forcing you to max out in one tree primarily, are pretty detrimental to truly being 'custom'.

[Trevor Dunbar]

To be fair, Diablo 2 was also terribly easy until late Nightmare, even played on #players8. I remember running through Normal without even stopping to kill monsters, just to get through it ASAP.

But you can't LITERALLY stand there and go make a sandwich or something- whats a gamer to do if he dies!? It's old school game d-sign to allow a new player to get hurt. At all...Yeah (at least according to Acti-BLIZZARD.)

Why is being forced to roll and level a new character because you spent points wrong a virtue?

You didn't have to, the last d2 patch gave you 3 resets (one per difficulty) and more if you fetch items from act bosses.

AND it worked really well.

ALSO- if you can't change your character easily, it's easier to become attached to your toon because it becomes an investment rather than something throw-away. Choices actually have consequences- Oh my! Ask people who played games like everquest where dying meant you lost LEVELS and DAYS WORTH of EXP if you died and didn't get a REZ from a cleric. You could potentially lose ALL of your items you've acquired from all your amazing adventures if you don't get your corpse in time too.
Time investment + permanent consequences = attachment.
Making choices that matter gives meaning to your actions.

It's gotten to the point where Blizz is so desperate they are drastically 'dumbing down' their games. This is when you let marketing start designing your games. See WoW talent tree revamp and debacle. See the friend recruitment program for Wow- where you invite a friend and they INSTANTLY become MAX level AND you get a free mount. See this horrible game. They want you to just buy the game out of hype- they don't care what happens after it leaves store shelves (to an extent). They could care less. This is not the Blizzard North we all loved- far from it. Anyone who vaguely knew how to make or worked on previous Diablo games at Blizz is long gone.

The only reason they don't dumb down Starcraft is because if they messed with it then Korea and hardcore SC players would have their heads and they would literally go out of business if their WoW expire ever got stale or boring (like WoW could EVER get stale or boring).

[Dragonmaw]

Something to note regarding the auction house:

There's both an in-game currency auction house and a RMT auction house. So it's not like you have to pay real money to trade. If anything, the RMT auction house prevents people's accounts from getting stolen and stuff over dumb game items.

[Netsu]

There's both an in-game currency auction house and a RMT auction house. So it's not like you have to pay real money to trade. If anything, the RMT auction house prevents people's accounts from getting stolen and stuff over dumb game items.

Exactly, and you can even sell your items for real money without paying anything, thus being able to participate in the RMAH without paying real money.

[C.A. Sinner]

Time investment + permanent consequences = attachment.
Making choices that matter gives meaning to your actions.

agreed. when i have all the options available at all times it doesn't feel like i'm making my own character (not to mention the progression is completely linear from what i know). might as well call assigning items to buttons in zelda "customization."

[Netsu]

Yeah, that's my biggest problem with D3. Sure the D2 system was flawed (especially when there were no repsecs yet) but removing permanent customisation completely is a bad move. Nothing in this system feels like a 'build' any more. You just assign stuff to buttons and there isn't even any restriction to when or where you can do that.

[Dragonmaw]

There's both an in-game currency auction house and a RMT auction house. So it's not like you have to pay real money to trade. If anything, the RMT auction house prevents people's accounts from getting stolen and stuff over dumb game items.

Exactly, and you can even sell your items for real money without paying anything, thus being able to participate in the RMAH without paying real money.

Not entirely true. You can only do this to a point, then you have to pay a small fee to have an item listed. At least, according to the FAQ on the site.

[Netsu]

Haven't been following this so close lately, but they said before that you will get a limited number of free listings per week. Then you could do this indefinitely, just not very often.

[Capntastic]

I don't really care about becoming attached to my characters though, and it's far from being a requirement for enjoying the game.  I can see how in a system where you are forced to fret over choices you could become attached and how that is cool, but that is endemic to that system-- abandoning the system removes the need for that sort of mentality.

It's like Saints Row 3 in that regard, really, where you can decide to be a realistic Andrew WK clone one session and then decide to become a perfect golden androgyne the next. 

Yeah, it's going to be a far different experience than D2 offered, but that isn't the only metric to measure it by.

[Dragonmaw]

Also I'm a fag.

[Capntastic]

me_before_the_last_wipe.png

[Dragonmaw]

Really wish there was a feat of strength for doing beta overachiever

[John Sandoval]

Ask people who played games like everquest where dying meant you lost LEVELS and DAYS WORTH of EXP if you died and didn't get a REZ from a cleric. You could potentially lose ALL of your items you've acquired from all your amazing adventures if you don't get your corpse in time too.
Time investment + permanent consequences = attachment.
Making choices that matter gives meaning to your actions.

i don't know a thing about diablo games but losing exp upon death (in an mmo) is tedious and stupid

[Capntastic]

I just realized he referred to something in an MMO, specifically EQ, as an amazing adventure