Of all of the changes (removal of stat points, auto-identify of magic items, addition of Health Globes, shared stash, etc.) there is only one that I ended up changing my mind about. Unfortunately, that mechanic ultimately led me to realize that there was no reason to continue playing the game. And that mechanic is: the ability to change your skills at any time. I suppose I have to give an honorable mention to a related mechanic: that skills unlock automatically at specific levels as you progress through the game.
I made this realization months ago, and have tried a couple times to put it in writing. Here is my latest attempt to distill my thoughts into largely readable bits:
- There is never any reason to level more than one character of each class.
- The only thing that makes characters unique from each other is their equipment... and equipment therefore becomes exceptionally specialized.
- Once you've reached max level and unlocked all your skills, your sense of "progress" is tied entirely to gear upgrades.
- You can change your skills out at any point, but since you probably want a whole new set of equipment for the new loadout, you really can't .
There is never any reason to level more than one character of each class.
With the exception of Hardcore or working toward some of the in-game Achievements, every playthrough of a Demon Hunter will be exactly the same as every other playthrough. You'll get different gear from drops and you can choose to use different skills, but the skills will become available in the exact same order. You have no choice in how your skills progress other than jumping on the new ones that become available. But this means that the very early levels for every character are very nearly the exact same experience. Compare this with Diablo 2, where your first few skill points made sure your character played differently than it would have with the other choices.
Thus, there is little reason to replay a class in the early levels.
Things improve a bit as you go up in levels and some of the more interesting skills and variants open up. You could easily settle on a loadout that differs from your previous playthrough, and your drops are all but guaranteed to be different (assuming you're not sharing gear, though it's nice that such an option exists). However, as you near max level and you've unlocked all the skills you care about... you now have a second character that can literally be swapped for the first. Since I can swap my skills and my gear... the character is just a sack of levels with a humorous name. You can pass all the gear from any level 60 Witch Doctor to another level 60 Witch Doctor, swap some skills around, and have an instant carbon copy of the original. Conversely, that first Witch Doctor can "become" any other one you want.
Thus, there is little reason to replay a class in the late levels.
At first I thought this would be fun. You can start using skills whenever you want and not worry about having made a poor choice or working yourself into a corner... and that's true. The problem is that the options don't go away. You never invest any decisions into the character, and as a result, your character is exactly the same as any other character you may make.
They addressed this a bit with Paragon Levels, where you can keep earning experience and gaining "levels" beyond the cap. Wait, no... that actually makes this problem worse. As you gain paragon Levels, there are concrete rewards... increased Magic and Gold Find are nice-to-haves, but you also gain the same stat bonuses you get for normal levels, so a Paragon 60 Barbarian has gained twice as many stats as a new Level 60 Barbarian. Thus, if you want a barbarian, the incentive is to keep playing your old one, since it will keep improving. Level a second and... you can get two more in-game achievements.
The only thing that makes characters unique from each other is their equipment... and equipment therefore becomes exceptionally specialized.
Any character can use any skill loadout. The only thing stopping specific builds from being cookie-cutter copies of each other is the gear they're using. Of course, specific loadouts and playstyles will be looking for a specific type of gear to compliment it. The end result is that very specific types of gear becomes very valuable. You need to squeeze every ounce of power out of every possible gear slot, since there is literally no other place to squeeze it from.
Note that preventing cookie-cutter builds was one of the primary reasons Blizzard stated for making a lot of their changes. And I think it's a good motivation... it just backfired a bit here.
Speaking of specialized gear:
You can change your skills out at any point, but since you probably want a whole new set of equipment for the new loadout, you really can't.
Unless, of course, you've already collected high-end gear for your new playstyle or are willing to backtrack. Oh, there are certainly lots of skill changes you can make that don't require a whole new set of gear. In fact, you'll probably do fine with virtually any skill set and gear. But that's not how it plays. You'll probably experiment with a new skill every so often, but you'll find a set that works and you'll stick with it. Quite a lot of the most powerful builds are also the most gear dependent, requiring a lot of Critical Hit Chance or Damage, or special effects on Legendaries. You're not going to swap out those skills to experiment, so you're left with the couple "non-required" support skills you're using, if any.
Enter another mechanic in the game: Nephalem Valor. Once you're level 60, you earn "stacks" of Valor every time you kill special monsters. Each stack gives you some nice passive bonuses, such as increased magic find and experience gain. This was added to encourage players to hunt down these special monsters, instead of just farming the Act Bosses for items. and it works for that, BUT... they also made all stacks go away if you switch any skills. This was done to force people to use a balanced skill set (you can't swap to an "ideal" skill to take down specific mobs), and that makes sense. Unfortunately, it also dis-incentivises experiments with different skills.
There were times when I sat down at the game and wanted to try some new skills, so I did. And I gained a Valor stack or two, but wanted to swap out one skill to try another. Boom, I lose my stacks. Now, this isn't a huge real disadvantage, but is has a decent emotional impact. I start feeling like I'm being penalized for trying out new skills. You have to enter the game with the express intent of experimenting with skills, otherwise you start focusing on the extra bonuses you could have been getting from those stacks you keep wiping out. Your odds of getting better gear (your only real means of progression) is suffering because you're playing with you loadout.
What was that? Gear is the way you progress? Oh, yes.
Once you've reached max level and unlocked all your skills, your sense of "progress" is tied entirely to gear upgrades.
This complaint is more about the way I enjoyed Diablo 2 than anything inherently wrong with Diablo 3. Grinding for hours hoping to find that one amazing item that is just slightly better than my existing gear... isn't my idea of fun. Especially when my reward for getting that gear is that I have a very slightly easier time grinding for the next piece of gear.
The Monster Power system addresses this slightly. It allows you more granular control over the difficulty of the monsters in Hell. Thus, being able to survive higher MP levels is a sort of progression. That's a point against me, I guess. But it doesn't feel like a particularly enticing one. I want to feel like I'm progressing towards something, not that I'm getting increasingly better at treading water.
So what do I want when it comes to a sense of progression? I guess that's tied to the way I played Diablo 2.
In D2, I made dozens of characters over the course of many years. My goal was never to make the most powerful character ever, or even to survive in Hell difficulty. My goal was, "let's see how this type of character plays," I'd try ill-advised combinations of skills because they sounded cool, knowing full well I'd peter out somewhere in Nightmare difficulty, but I'd have a unique experience for that time, and then I could try something new. Each character's goal was to play until it stopped being fun to play that character.
The difficulty ramp in Diablo 3 is much smoother, and it's also calibrated so you won't reach level 60, and thus have all your skills, until about the time you enter Hell difficulty. The original configuration of Hell difficulty was apparently a monster, difficulty wise. Massive whining caused Blizzard to change that fairly quickly, and I never experienced it. I can say I probably wouldn't have enjoyed it the way it began, but at least it would have had some of that sense of progression. Now, though, I just get to Hell and start wondering when exactly I'm supposed to stop. "Eh, whenever," seems to be the answer.
Ultimately, all of this boils down to two points:
- The game is designed to be played entirely in the "end game".
- There is nothing in the "end game" to inspire me to play it.
I probably should have broken each of these points into its own post. But ain't no one got time for that.
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