Derp III to be consolized

[Needles]

If anything no-respeccing discourages thought for 99% of the players. Noone wants a character they spent 15 hours playing to turn out weak, so the bottom 99% are going to copy what the top 1% number crunchers figure out.

no re-spec = 1% innovates, 99% copy (at the start)
re-spec = 1% innovates, 99% copy (at the start, to level fast and at the end to own at pvp)

Plus: guides aren't there from the beginning, which means respeccing enables people to use them.
I mean, it's not rocket science: if you know it doesn't matter what you do, because you can correct it anyway, later on, then you won't give it much thought.

I am actually quite dazzled, isn't mine a similar line of reasoning that is used to support all kinds of c&c in RPGs?

 

[Xor]

Not really. C&C is interesting because it has a meaningful impact on gameplay - you miss some quests or end up with an inferior item or something, it doesn't usually force you to start over because you made a mistake. In Diablo 2, I had to remake characters from level 1 several times because some build got destroyed in a patch or I realized something wouldn't work as well as I thought it would. Being able to fix that without investing hours and hours of work into an entirely new character would have been a godsend.

 

[Melcar]

Diablow III was a better name now that I think about it.

 

[DraQ]

Not really. C&C is interesting because it has a meaningful impact on gameplay - you miss some quests or end up with an inferior item or something, it doesn't usually force you to start over because you made a mistake. In Diablo 2, I had to remake characters from level 1 several times because some build got destroyed in a patch or I realized something wouldn't work as well as I thought it would. Being able to fix that without investing hours and hours of work into an entirely new character would have been a godsend.

That's one of the places where D1 is far superior to D2 - your character is too strongly shaped by what drops or pops-up in game to let you orgasm at level one that at level million yours will be the badassest build ever.

No "lol imma making teh hammerdin!111 *grindgrindgrind*" involved.

 

[Needles]

Not really. C&C is interesting because it has a meaningful impact on gameplay - you miss some quests or end up with an inferior item or something, it doesn't usually force you to start over because you made a mistake.

"Force you to start over"... hm... if you continue to shape your character a certain way and solve quests a certain way, it will (or at least ought to) force you to start over, should you suddenly realize you don't like the ending.
So I have this fallout character with 3 charisma and 10%speech, and I can't talk the master into suiciding, RESPEC RESPEC!!!1

In Diablo 2, I had to remake characters from level 1 several times because some build got destroyed in a patch or I realized something wouldn't work as well as I thought it would. Being able to fix that without investing hours and hours of work into an entirely new character would have been a godsend.

Having overpowered builds destroyed by patches may be a valid argument for respec. But then again, at some point, major patches began to be paired with ladder resets, which sort of solved the problem, because most people would reroll anyway. And honestly: how many builds got really destroyed because of patches compared to those that stayed viable.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Skeleton necros got nerfed the most. No more armies of 80+ skeletons that lagged everyone else.

 

[Graah]

Lack of respec adds very little to this type of game except the ability to charge for it as premium content. Just takes too long to level up and get to experiment with the skills(and note that the easier it is to level up the closer you get to just having respeccing.)

The game might even hide information about how the skills scale as you put points in. It definately WILL hide information about how good various weapons are. Many games have let you screw yourself with weapon specialization.

Basically, lack of respec assumes the developers do a good job balancing. Almost none do while still having serious differences between your choices. Blizzard especially don't, just look at the patch notes for their games to realize that. It's drastic stuff like "this skill is now half as good." That is basically saying that they're clueless.

 

[DraQ]

Lack of respec adds very little to this type of game except the ability to charge for it as premium content. Just takes too long to level up and get to experiment with the skills(and note that the easier it is to level up the closer you get to just having respeccing.)

The game might even hide information about how the skills scale as you put points in. It definately WILL hide information about how good various weapons are. Many games have let you screw yourself with weapon specialization.

Basically, lack of respec assumes the developers do a good job balancing. Almost none do while still having serious differences between your choices. Blizzard especially don't, just look at the patch notes for their games to realize that. It's drastic stuff like "this skill is now half as good." That is basically saying that they're clueless.

Arguably the only thing Blizzard from D2 onward is good at is balancing.

 

[Serus]

Since we pretty much agree on the rest, I am going to adress these 3 points:

Trade in Diablo 2 is broken, with multiple exploits that have come up over the years and the general difficulty of actually finding someone with what you want.

I would argue to the contrary: Its economy and trage was one of the most amazing features that emerged from D2, and is a huge part why people keep coming back to the game after many years. It was basically a free-market economy with zero regulation and some degree of transparency. An auction house means full transparency, items get an almost fixed value attached to them. The joy of D2 was to be able to start a character in 2009, and be able to afford very nice equipment for 2-3 characters without ever having killed Baal on Hell (and without cheating/scamming/ botting/whatever) in about 1 week. An example: By noticing that -for instance- you can get 15 perf. Amethysts for a Shako in bnet, and yet on some forum people would offer you the value of 5 Shakos for 15 Amethysts (because they were "wealthy" and needed huge amounts of the gems for crafting). In a nutshell: taking interest in what's happening paid off most of the time! Now, I do realize that for some people this might not be something that appealed to them in D2, but for me, and many others I talked to, it certainly was.

THIS !!!!!!!!!! You are a true bro. Battlenet trading was the funniest part of D2 (in fact - after some time it was the ONLY fun part). If they are going to simplify, dumb down and in general make free trading impossible then they can go fuck themselves. I am not going to buy it. Trading in Diablo 2 Battlenet was a game on its own - superior to the "real" game.

I agree with this, but I can't imagine someone listing the ways in which Diablo 3 is being dumbed down without mentioning mother fucking AUTO ALLOCATED STATS. Characters might as well not have stats any more, just a class and level.

This too.

 

[SimpleComplexity]

But guiz Lenoardo Boyazrki is working on it!
The famous Leanard Boyursza from Troika!

 

[Black]

something64

Did you really just say that?

If it's not amiga, nes or PC I don't give a shit.

 

[SharkClub]

something64

Did you really just say that?

If it's not amiga, nes or PC I don't give a shit.

Do you know what the "N" in "NES" stands for?

 

[GarfunkeL]

I'm sure Black does. If he likes NES 8-bit games doesn't mean he must then automatically like N64 games too.

 

[ghostdog]

I too like somethingES 8-bit games. I even like the nextgen SsomethingES games. What's the big deal ? Something happened to something after that and the decline started. I wish something did something about it, but something tells me they wont.

Well, that's something to ponder about.

 

[Xor]

I too like somethingES 8-bit games. I even like the nextgen SsomethingES games. What's the big deal ? Something happened to something after that and the decline started. I wish something did something about it, but something tells me they wont.

Well, that's something to ponder about.

What.

 

[SharkClub]

I'm sure Black does. If he likes NES 8-bit games doesn't mean he must then automatically like N64 games too.

I don't think you could be any further from my point.

It's a dull argument, but not knowing "Nintendo" is a sign of retardation. Especially when he said he likes the Nintendo Entertainment System.

 

[Black]

I know what nintendo is, but I didn't remember if it was nintendo64 or somethingcompletelyelse64 that had starcraft 1.
Not that I care, seeing as it's not NES.

 

[Needles]

But guiz Lenoardo Boyazrki is working on it!
The famous Leanard Boyursza from Troika!

I never quite understood why it's relevant. (Aside from the fact that it's nice to hear that the dude's got a nice job)

To illustrate:

Sup, guise, we're building the successor of CERN, and have Christian Louboutin on the team so I am quite convinced our shoes will look great.

Or: Quentin Tarantino will help us with the narration script for our new documentary film describing the mars rover missions.