[Patch 10 info] Oh @#$%!...Nephalem Altars removed. Swap skill fest is BACK

[ChamPam]

I think is very good. Becase if you dont visit the town, you will miss some quest to, after while. Of curse there will be quest npc in the world, but head story are in town i think.

[Raesene]

I am very pleased with this change. I tolerated the altar, but it felt very clunky. It's very nice to be able to swap in a skill right after you level instead of having to waste time going back to town.

[ThulRasha]

I never much cared for that altar anyway. Good change in my opinion.

[ShadoutMapes]

The altars weren't good, but this change sucks.
How is this any different from the combat respeccing which they seemed to dislike a few months ago.

[Inarius]

Blizzard changed always-swapping for in-town-swapping because players played with an open skill menu and swapped on the fly, depending on the enemy they had to face.

Now the beta patch says "This will impose a 30-second cooldown on the newly-activated skill, during which time the skill cannot be exchanged for another."

What does it mean? I read it as: run around in the dungeon with an open skill menu, change your skill, you can use the new skill immediately, but you cant change it back to the old (or an other) skill in the next 30 seconds.

So how exactly does the new (old?) system limit skill swapping in fights? Seems like the old system they tried to combat with "in town only" and "nethalem altar". So back to the broken roots?

I like freespecs, and I like free speccing in the dungeons (for example after receiving a new skill because of a level up). But if this is just the second try for the broken old version, then I am against the change. Why not have a 2 to 5 minute cool down on your skill tree every time you change one or more skills (not a rune in a skill), so that you cant free spec every 30 seconds (= before and after every fight?)

[MrMegaProphet]

In my opinion they could just make the skill pane to auto-close when you engage in combat, and have a little buff appear when you are out of combat for about 2 minutes. When the buff is up you can change the skills, otherwise you can't. And no altar needed?

[Namik]

The altar was temporery solution in the first place. Also as they said they are rewarking the skills system so the cooldown might not be needed, they might have solution to it already, just not ready for beta.

[Raesene]

In my opinion they could just make the skill pane to auto-close when you engage in combat, and have a little buff appear when you are out of combat for about 2 minutes. When the buff is up you can change the skills, otherwise you can't. And no altar needed?

I think this is the type of solution they really want to do, but can't due to technical limitations. They have stated that the game engine has no concept of "in combat" or "out of combat". They are never going to have everyone be happy with any solution because there is a lot of difference of opinion on what the problem actually is. Some believe it's a problem you're allowed to change the skills pretty much at all, and in that case, they overblow the minor problems that skill swapping can have (a lot of histrionics about running around with the skill window constantly open).

[MrMegaProphet]

I guess it could be what Namik said, if not there's always the straightforward option to allow skill swapping only in town. We will indeed have to wait and see what they have been doing to the skill system..

[raveharu]

Skill swapping will obviously be an excellent source of gold sink.