Does Diablo III Need Variants?
Posted 21 April 2012 by FluxVia his twitter, Bashiok replied in literal fashion to a fan who was (I think) asking a more metaphorical question about play styles and variant options. At any rate, I’m going to assume the fan was asking it in the larger sense, since that leads right into an issue I’ve been meaning to write up for you guys to debate. First, here’s the twittercourse:
Right click the weapon to equip it, or drag and drop. DHs can equip most 1h melee weapons. –Bashiok
As we’ve seen skills and runes change during Diablo III’s development, the issue of variants has been kicked around by the fans. Diablo 2 was notorious for supporting a wide-variety of variant builds, many of which weren’t exactly end game masters, but most of which at least provided some interesting variety for fans after a different play experience.
Thanks to the tremendous variety of items, weapons with +skills, customizable attributes, and the numerous skill options, every class in D2 could be played in “battle” style, with heavy armor and some sort of melee weapon. The reverse was also possible with Hammerdins and more creative options like “Singer” Barbs who used Warcries and equipped wands, and most classes could specialize in ranged weapons or throwing weapons as well, if they wanted an additional challenge.
Most of those options are not going to be available in D3, at least not at launch. Melee classes can’t use bows, there are no throwing weapons, no items have +skills or “oskill” bonuses (granting skills from another class), stats can’t be customized to make high strength Wizards or high Intelligence Barbs, etc. That said, D3 does have a wide variety of rune effects that grant some unusual effects to skills, and there are some passive skills that can enable some alternative builds.
Do you care, though? Do you think it should be possible to kick ass as a Battlemage, or a melee Demon Hunter (without infinite patience), or a Barb who relies on ranged attacks, etc? Or do you think those types of builds, ones that run counter to the central theme of the class archetypes, are out of place and/or unnecessary?
On the Other Hand…
When you look in any of our class forums and see the huge variety of quite sophisticated builds players have planned out in advance, you might conclude that D3 will actually have more variety of builds than D2 did. No, there probably won’t be so many odd variants that completely change the play style, but there should be a huge number of variations on common themes. Most wizards will be ranged spell casters, but while D2′s Sorc skill combos gave about half a dozen options for that type of build, D3′s skills and runes should give dozens more than that.
Also, there will be hundreds of narrowly-focused builds that do one or two things very well, while giving up other abilities. For instance, you can make a Wizard that’s invincible, or a stealth ninja Demon Hunter who can’t be caught (but can’t kill), or a dog-killer Witch Doctor, or a ranged Monk (maybe), or an Axe-Throwing Barbarian.
All of these builds are quite precise, demanding multiple skills and passives to create, but isn’t that the whole point, for players who are looking for an odd variant?
So I guess this article asks two questions, ultimately. 1) Do you want/need/care about variant builds, and 2) do you think Diablo III delivers them adequately, as they’re almost entirely from skills and passives, without requiring/allowing much difference in equipment, which is where most of D2′s variants got their ultimate power.
Great point for discussion Flux.
I think D3, as it is currently built, does not need more variants because basic attack has pretty much been phased out.
BUT, I do think that there SHOULD be a larger emphasis on basic attack and more variants, to add to the overall depth of the game. Something that seems to be lacking in D3.
Putting my conspiracy hat on, maybe they lowered the number of weapon types equip-able by each class to increase the amount of RMAH transactions.
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hey guys,i have a question about WD normal attacks when you start from the scratch.I’m not D3 expert,so can you tell me how to use normal melee attacks with WD especially after I hit lvl 3 and remove melee attack from the right button with skill grasp of death.I mean this one disappear and i didn’t find the way how can I turn it back. I just have these 2 abilities(poison dart/corpse spiders and grasp of death)and I can use only them nothing else.
Pls,I want to hit monsters with my weapon ffs:D
Turn on Elective Mode in options.
Still takes up a skill slot though.
It really looks to me that the original question was simply how to use a melee weapon, instead of a ranged one, on a DH. I haven’t tried doing so (only played WD, Monk & a little Wizard so far), but if it’s simply not possible then I think it’s kind of crummy. This may be intentional, however, and would simply be the way the game works. I LOVE DII, but this isn’t DII. We have to expect things to be at least somewhat different, especially mechanics-wise.
I think many of us look back on DII’s skill/build diversity with rose-colored glasses. We remember that there were quite a few skills covering all those skill trees, and that’s fine. What we fail to remember is that for many builds, or sometimes ANY builds, there were entire swaths of skills that were useless. How many of us made sorcs that used anything out of the cold tree except Blizzard or Frozen Orb? Think about all the Zealot builds out there, and then think how all of the decent, effective ones tied you down to Zeal, an elemental aura, maybe Holy Shield, and then whatever synergies you could afford. That wasn’t diversity, folks; that was status quo. Not to mention so many builds were VERY item dependent, especially once you were in Hell. No Windforce? No good. Don’t have a Stormshield? Good luck with that megaawesomesauceWTFBBQ Palandin build. We’ll be dependent on gear for DIII, but so far it doesn’t look like it’s going to limit us to specific uniques or rune words (well, they don’t exactly exist anymore, either) in order for a good portion of our builds to work.
I love DII. I still play DII. But it just wasn’t a diverse as we give it credit for. You could use any skill you wanted, but how many of them could effectively dispatch a quill rat in Act I – Hell? We’re not going to be tied down like that anymore with DIII. All attack skills are viable. All defensive skills have a use. In DII? Not so much. Ever try to use Ice Bolt as your main attack in Hell? No, you didn’t, because no amount of synergies or gear was going to make it useful. Therefore you never used it.
there is also the point that the original Diablo2 without expansion pack didn’t even have runes and runewords. And all of us expect an expansion pack für D3 as well.
This is an interesting debate. Here’s my take:
D3 has a TON of normal customization. You can rune things and come up with an astounding amount of combinations of skills.
D2 had a bunch of strange options like Aura paladins with bows, wizards with weapons, and runewords that allowed characters to use skills from other classes. These weren’t power classes, but they were hilarious and fun.
I don’t know how it will turn out, but I wonder how many “silly” classes we’ll see in D3.
I think a lot of the complaining around this entire issue is basically stupid.
We are given 5 classes and a class based game revolved around your class doing a specific thing. If it was a skill based game where you pick skills, then great, but that isn’t what we have here.
Now do I care I can’t play a “Wizard wiho carries a two handed axe” ? Not at all. This is a level of experimentation that Diablo 2 wasnt designed for and just because it was allowed and some few people did it, doesn’t mean Diablo 3 needs to do it or it sucks because it doesn’t allow it.
So as I said, I think the entire argument is a waste of time.
Whats next? Complaining we can’t pick up a rifle and go to town on Diablo 3 with a RPG or a M16? I think not.
I think Diablo 3 needs to be another game… the click-click-1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1-fest feels outdated. I don’t care much about the ludicrous story and bad acting, but everything feels \moderated\ and sanitized to the extreme, the music is **** and there’s no feeling of \strangeness\ or surprise whatsover. Of course Diablo 2 was exactly the same thing, but its epic atmosphere, it’s \artistic weirdness\ (like it didn’t seem to be designed by robots and shareholders) made the whole thing enjoyable… for a while. Here I don’t see myself playing this thing more than a few hours without feeling retarded and ashamed of myself. The real problem is probably not even the game itself but some people’s (me included) expectations of it. Diablo I & II are masterpieces in their own way, maybe simply because there was something a bit sloppy and experimental in them…
I think you’re contradicting yourself. You can’t both complain that D3 feels “outdated” and then say it should be less, yknow… modern
No idea what you’re talking about with “artistic weirdness” in D2 btw… was a high-tech and VERY polished for the era in which it was released. D1 players voiced pretty much exactly the complaints that you’re voicing about D3 now :p Which are the same complaints every sequel in a well-loved franchise gets… and yet there will be sequels.
Still, if what you really want is another game, there are plenty out there, as pointed out in an earlier thread. Torchlight 2, Path of Exile and Grim Dawn within the next few months (well, possibly longer in the case of GD).
The reason this isn’t possible is because of removing the focus off of basic attack and moving it onto skills for all classes, in addition to removing the ability to dump all your skill points into what were essentially passive skills.
And sure, barbarians could use bows in D2, but no one in their right mind would. The only classes that could really utilize bows were amazons (obviously) enchantresses (with 2 unique bows) and paladins, kind of. Sure, anyone could equip them but they just gimped most people who would use them (Aside from 3chipped starting bows).
Regardless, putting the focus onto active skills is moving forward as far as game design goes.
You don’t need to have played D2 to understand this topic or have an opinion on it. There’s no need to draw on this experience. What is being said here is that there is a lack of variation in play styles of each character. But the real question is, is variation dependent on customization? There is a feel in the beta of an extreme lack of customization due to the limit as to how far you can go and what you can do in that time. It’s very very painful for those of us that want to just hammer into the game. Atm there is no customization in the game/beta, there’s just not enough in it to get a decent size bite of the game. It’s freak’n annoying the hell outta me but at least I know what the problem is and am willing to admit it. The beta does indeed suxoR!