“There are no attribute requirements for items”
Oh wow. D3 seems to be simplifying a lot of things I assumed were “core aspects” of Diablo.

Awesome! That was my biggest grip about WoW, was the fact that only certain classes could use only certain types of armors/weapons. When they announced stat distribution I was somewhat dissapoined. Now, with this, it’ll be cool. Your characters overall stats in in health/mana regen, chance to hit, ect is going to be taken care of so that you’ll be able to focus more on gameplay. Now we can equip whatever we want…. but how is this going to work? different level requirments for classes? if any

That clears a *lot* of stuff up, that one little correction!

I can definitely see better how this will work now; I was ok with it before, more or less “wait and see” neutral, but I feel a little more positive with this news.

Imagine it this way: say you have found that big melee armor, and you get the fancy notion of putting it on your sorc. You meet the level req so that’s not a problem. Without the attribute req’s, you don’t have to unbalance your character by pumping their weakest stat to crazy levels just to wear one item. Now you place your skills to emphasize close-quarters combat, and voila! Melee sorc.

I think this might actually make it easier to create oddball builds, in a strange way. If blizzard designs the gear correctly, so that there isn’t one item that it’s clear every character should wear if they can *cough*Enigma*cough* you can choose the items that will aid the type of character you want to make more easily.

Totally agree with Kunzaito.

With stats as requirements out the window, it really, really opens the door for many more builds.  I think what Blizzard is trying to do is increase the playability for people new to the game, but at the same time actually increase the levels of customization.  I have played Diablo 2 for a looooong time and I can honestly say that pumping my stats never made me really feel a sense of ownership on the character…it was all about the skills and items.

As for re-specs, a system like having a re-spec as a quest reward, one per difficulty would work for me.  That limits it to three per character, which is enough to correct mistakes or make funky endgame builds that are only possible once you get to endgame, without allowing endless remaking.  It will still drive you to make multiples of the same character class.

Overall, my only complaint is that it makes leveling up just that much less fun…now if they award more than one skill point per level or find another way to give you somethign besides one skill point to use per level, then they can offset this.  But everyone wants to be able to make a few choices and click some buttons when they level up.

I just re-read this, and I have to say That I’m confused about exactly what Bashiok is trying to debate. He sort of reminds me of John McCain- He denies one statement, restates it in different words, and insists that his statement is correct. Honestly, suddenly Diablo 3 isn’t sounding like the hot game we’re all hoping for. Character customization is the holy grail of this series.

Bashiok makes a statement about cookie cutter builds- but exactly what was blizzard intending when they released the 1.10 patch, and vastly increased the difficulty of the game- where only the most powerful builds could be successful (barring very creative, determined players)? Furthermore, exactly what are we to do with trash skills like poison dagger, sacrifice, etc?

“Bashiok: Hrm, I’ll have to talk to the designers about this but I think you might taking a little bit too much Diablo II experience and overlaying it on Diablo III.”

Something about sequels being similar to their predecessor games.. If Blizzard wants to make a whole new game, they need a whole new name. No crap we’re expecting D3 to be like D2.

“No crap we’re expecting D3 to be like D2.”

Diablo 2 was incredibly different from Diablo 1 on several fundamental levels. In some ways, it was an even bigger jump from D1 to D2 than D2 to D3.

this article was a little confusing to read.. but i think i got the gist.
im a little tired of all the comparison of d2 to d3…  its not just some expansion for d2, its a whole new game with new features and a new take on the series. the no need to allocate stats is nice so there is no silly messups for stats. but the items requiring no stats is a bit silly… itll just make people get gear for their low levels and transfer it over to them with their higher level…

I can’t access Battle.net since yesterday… The thing keeps waiting for an answer from the servers… The title sometimes loads but thats all I will ever see from the forums.

One time I was able to see one page for a post, but as soon as I clicked on the forum index I was gone to the void….

Anyone else?

I still don’t see why Blizz can’t give us both options. Give player-controlled stats but have an “autostat” button available for those who want it. That solves “probably the biggest” positive but still keeps character customization to the max for us that want it. Also no stat requirements for items seems kind of misguided. The only reason that makes sense is if stats are automatic (which I disagree with). I heard one guy suggest a “soft” requirement where you could use an item at less efficiency for less str/dex and wouldn’t get full power from the item till you had a certain par value. That seems like a very good idea to me.

These changes seem targeted at the casual Diablo player to me. They keep people from making mistakes with their builds, and require less knowledge or thought to make a powerful chr. This effectively closes the power gap between the casual player and the experienced/dedicated player by limiting the ways in which a player can improve themselves. While you may get more casual players this way who want to be as good as everybody even if they don’t take the time to learn about the game, you will loose the more hardcore/dedicated players. If somebody works hard at building the perfect chr they SHOULD be better than somebody who didn’t. If you spend all the time to work on your build and somebody who didn’t is almost as good you’ll go find another game where your hard work is rewarded.

Let me add another prospective to this. I live with a guy who is a very casual Diablo player, I don’t know if he’s ever even seen the 5th act. This guy has tried every bad build in the book, and is constantly re-making and doing acts 1 and 2 over and over again. I mentioned some of these changes for d3 to him (while he was doing a1 again with a fire arrow zon, with a bunch of energy) and his reaction was not pleasant. He said “that sounds stupid” to auto stats and no item stat requirements. These things would have made the game easier for him no doubt, and more able to compete with somebody like me who researches builds and plans stat points right from the start with end-game gear.

Obviously not all gamers are like that, but that’s why you make more than 1 game. Diablo has always appealed to people who liked a game with a bit of “sting” in it, and that’s why you have a huge population of people who will buy d3 no matter what. The problem is if d3 is too simple or “idiot proof” many of us will have moved on by the time blizzard wants to release d4, and that built in audience will be gone.

I love many of the things that Blizz is doing with d3, I think the runes idea is great, many of the new skills are super cool, the environmental interaction is amazing, using more primary skills at one time, the new drop system; the list goes on and on. This changing of stats though is a fundamental thing, and it seems fairly arbitrary to me. I have yet to hear a reason for this that can’t be handled just as well in some other way that keeps the maximum player customization.

Granted there are things we don’t yet know that may change my opinion on this, but even if they add 10 new ways to customize the chr I still think 11 ways including stats would be better.

@BrotherRatcliff: Allowing the “either/or” on auto-stats breaks the very reason they did it in the first place - to allow the item designers more stability in that area for them to create and balance gear around. I think this’ll all blow over, like the artwork, once we’ve seen the true depth of features they’ll have for character customization.

And I would argue that stat tweaking gave any real advantage to a knowledgable player in D2 (remember, D1 had fixed max stats for each character class). Maybe over complete neophytes, or maybe over a very casual player for a short time, but anyone can look up a build and cookie-cut their stat points into it, and after you learn one or two basic principles, there’s no real strategy to stat placing - granted, this could be fixed, but it’s not really a very strong argument against removal since D2 implemented it poorly and was still a massively popular game, even with the math nerds. :D