no more attributes

[Hellspawn]

I am all for no attribute points. You guys that are worried about not being able to make a melee wizard, just look at the skills Pallt posted above. You can have a more focused badass melee wizard in D3 with these skills than you can in D2 by pumping str just to use heavier weapons/armor.

[Apocalypse]

nice post paalt, as i viewed the skill tree today i noticed that they added alot of melee based skills so maybe a melee wiz will not only be possible, but more fun this time around. one skill i think you missed or maybe i got the wrong info is the skill that boosts the wizards health points. now sure this is a good skill for both caster or melee but it should be mentioned when talking tanking a sorc

[Ragefist]

I would prefer if they created a more complex attribute system. The fact that they didn't points out that they are unable to balance it at the moment, fine by me. I'd rather have well balanced, automatic stats than a broken stat system with illusionary freedom. Developers have choices to make, and that's what they did here.

A large part of character design in D2 and some other games have been through stat management. For instance, I might forgo on the ultra high dps high str weapons in hardcore mode and pump stamina. I would like to see more freedom in character design and choice of gear. Balance should not be a major issue in this type of hack-n-slash game.

I do like wow and all but I want D3 to be different with regards to character development and gear.

.

[HRP]

Balance should not be a major issue in this type of hack-n-slash game.

...Are you serious? Balance is important in any game, no matter what genre. Balance is especially important in a game with RPG elements that also includes both co-op and PvP methods of gameplay.

Stat points never affected builds nearly as much as skill points or gear.

[Kiroptus]

^I agree, Balance is always important.

Just because we are used to this unbalanced mess that is Diablo II doesnt mean that its the right way to do it. Its good but it could be better.

[Gigashadow]

Balance should not be a major issue in this type of hack-n-slash game.

Opinion. Strong disbalance between choices made me very annoyed at the game in PvM. It is also annoying when one character is really easy to play (hammerdin), while others have a much harder time.

A large part of character design in D2 and some other games have been through stat management.

Didn't notice. I just put everything in VIT and tried to avoid STR and get it via charms. Get DEX via charms. And get mana via items, mana leech, whatever.

For instance, I might forgo on the ultra high dps high str weapons in hardcore mode and pump stamina.

There is no thinking here, it's just "get as much STR as required for wep".

I would like to see more freedom in character design and choice of gear.

Don't we all want a perfect game really fast. I think it's easy to say what we want. But it's hard to actually do it. Design an attribute system that's perfectly balanced after DIII comes out and I'll see you try it.

I do like wow and all but I want D3 to be different with regards to character development and gear.

What the hell does WoW have to do with this?

[Frostraven]

How many TRULY HELL VIABLE builds were there for each class in diablo II?

What if every build is "hell" viable in DIII -- some more expensive than others, without any build beeing silly 1000$-gear-expensive?

PvM viable, that is.

I do not mind MUCH -- but I hope there's something to remedy the removal of the attributes, like the selection between three optional class-specific attribute layouts chosen at character creation...

OR...
Mayhaps skills give attribute points on selection, based on what the skill represents?

[phool]

2. vitality and hitpoints can now be more finely balanced in pvm and pvp - i think this is is THE most important factor here. in d2, the min maxers had full vit builds... so let's say you end up with a character with 6k life. as opposed to the "casual" player who spread his stat points out and has a character with 3k life. how should pvm be balanced? do you want monsters who can do 2k damage and 1 or 2 shot "casual" players because the min maxers have insane amounts of life?

You can get up to over 15k health with enough buffing... I believe I've seen a screen of an 18k bear. Guess how much of that is due directly to hard points in vita? The mix maxers will be getting 8k on their barbs not because they're distributing stats far better than anyone else, it's because they have the very best gear and they're prebuffing extensively. If you couldn't adjust stats at all it wouldn't make any non-negligible difference to balancing difficulty.

In pvp the stats are quite poorly balanced against each other making all excess stats (after max block and gear, typically) go into vita. For pvm there's a perfectly valid risk/reward choice of damage (titan barb) vs safety (vita barb). If I have access to top notch gear I'll be going for the former every single time, even in HC (75+ all res 20k def and 3k life is plenty... you can never have too much attack damage on the other hand well damage rollover cap aside).

[HRP]

So hey, on the front page there's a bunch of quotes from Bashiok talking about how items won't have stat requirements. That means all you debbie downers will be able to don barb armor as a wizard or whatever the hell else you want to do.

[Gigashadow]

I wonder how would that work. Would there be penalties for wearing armor, perhaps?