What was the point of the level 60 cap?

[Deckard Cain]

Sacridoc there are somewhere around 1 trillion possible builds for each class in D3.... thats right 1 trillion. The end game will consist of players constantly messing around with builds since there are so many options! errrrrrrrrrr

[Soval]

I don't get it sacridoc, how does the skill system in D3 lack sufficient customization? Runes, passives, freespecing, +skills on items, proccing skills/summons on new Legendaries -- what do you think is missing?

And for that matter, how are other Diablo-clone ARPG's (like Torchlight 2 or Path of Exile) more "complex" than D3? What makes it "simple" and them not? Combat? Skills? Items? What's your empirical metric for simple vs complex, and how does D3 fail in that regard?

Help me out here, I'm just not seeing much to substantiate to your post.

[Karamo]

Soval; there is no consequence of choice. You are not actually customizing in the sense that gives satisfaction/reward. That's all there is to it... The D3 skill system bored me in a week when I tried everything out.

D2 still has builds I haven't tried and the skill system was just amazing inside out.

[mr punk]

I think that's the overall change in dynamic we're seeing with the team's design sense in patch 1.04. I think making people really earn their gear was commendable, but in the end flawed, because I don't think it's possible to make an ARPG that is addicting solely based on challenging game play, it's just such a repetitive genre.

lulz..do you guys even play any other arpg besides diablo? anyway, it is possible and it has been done. the d3 team mistake was thinking they could make that type of game with a point and click design.

I mean D3 has like none of the main elements that make an ARPG besides an isometric view.

an isometirc view isn't necessary for an arpg. that's just diablo design. simply out, i think these missing elements you're referring to is diablo's traditional roguelike roots. it's like brevik described in his interview. the d3 team simply didn't have enough knowledge or experience to know why or how to play to the strength of the previous designs (and probably why they copied so much from WoW) which is why there is less of an emphasis and complexity of it within D3 and more of an emphasis in mashing buttons.

[pulli]

I don't get it sacridoc, how does the skill system in D3 lack sufficient customization? Runes, passives, freespecing, +skills on items, proccing skills/summons on new Legendaries -- what do you think is missing?

And for that matter, how are other Diablo-clone ARPG's (like Torchlight 2 or Path of Exile) more "complex" than D3? What makes it "simple" and them not? Combat? Skills? Items? What's your empirical metric for simple vs complex, and how does D3 fail in that regard?

Help me out here, I'm just not seeing much to substantiate to your post.

There's no synergy - so no strategy when chosing builds.. You just take what's good & take the best options.. Really take a look at the monk for example; standard build is fist of thunder, healing, serenity, blinding flahs, a mantra & sweeping wind.. What do the skills give each other; really they're just strong options on themself but it isn't that that row of 5 skills make each single skill better than it being a solo skill.

That leads to hardly any customization - you don't customize good when everything is equal you customize when you have to search for a strategy to beat a certain area. Maybe the best phrase shouldn't be that there is no customization; strictly speaking there is. But there is no point in customizing. - Both because there's only 1 thing to do at the end, farm areas, and because there is little synergy.

[dreadwraith]

What was the point of a level 60 cap??

The answer to this is quite obvious, I'm not sure why so many people bash Blizzard on this.

THEY AREN'T THE ONES THAT FLIP-FLOPPED HERE.

Pre-release there was a VERY VOCAL contingent on the battle net forums that demanded a end game "challenge mode" with progressively more and more difficult dungeons. To satisfy this need for an end-game "challenge mode" Blizzard added Inferno after Hell, in order to challenge players. At the same time they capped player level to a fairly round number that approximates the usual time a character completes hell difficulty.

This way no one can out level the content in Inferno, and Inferno stays a "challenge mode" that challenges the player to increase skill and gear.

Once this was implemented the vocal player base on the forums realized that they didn't actually like the "challenge mode" and the vocal criticism began. People who had demanded the Inferno "challenge mode" that they couldn't out level changed their story. They said "we never asked for this, why did you put this in? We want more levels so we can face-roll the content."

In response Blizzard has changed Inferno from "Challenge Mode" to "Grinding Mode". Instead of needing to increase gear and play skill, now the casual player can simply farm to level 60+100 then face roll Inferno as desired.


TLDR:
1) Pre-release D2 players said "Face-rolling hell at the end of D2 was so boring don't let us out-level the content"
2) Blizzard released with Inferno mode and level cap at 60.
3) Post-release D3 players said "WTF Diablo 2 was all about face-rolling content for good loot, why can't I face-roll inferno"
4) Blizzard releases patch 1.04 to allow face-rolling of inferno.
5) Post patch 1.04 (not really cause the patch isn't out yet) - The D3 player base that has rabidly yelled at Blizzard to supply 2 different end-game play styles now complains that Blizzard changed the play styles.

[jamesL]

the lvl 60 cap made Inferno extremely boring

you kill, kill, kill and the xp bar never moves
there's just no sense of progression, no accomplishment
its boring

the paragon system fixes all that
even though the stats (vitality, strength, dexterity, int) won't mean that much, it will be nice watching your MF increase and seeing you're paragon level increase

the new system doesn't fix everything in the game, but with the other changes in 1.0.4 this will make the game much more enjoyable in inferno

[sacridoc]

I'll just ignore the free respecs, but it's a huge part of this.

Besides that, there's no synergy and all the runes usually feel the same. Like other people said, because of how the stat mechanics work, you just pick the best option and you're good. I guess the right word is specialization.

There's no specialization in D3.

What makes an ARPG great is being able to make like... for example (in a made up ARPG) a Summoner Necro that specializes in Fire Damage and uses only Skeletal Mages with I dunno... some proc on Fire Spells based on X and so on... you get the idea.

Before you even introduce other skills into D3, which is seriously needed, you need the base mechanics to build those skills around, D3 doesn't even have that.

TLDR:
1) Pre-release D2 players said "Face-rolling hell at the end of D2 was so boring don't let us out-level the content"
2) Blizzard released with Inferno mode and level cap at 60.
3) Post-release D3 players said "WTF Diablo 2 was all about face-rolling content for good loot, why can't I face-roll inferno"
4) Blizzard releases patch 1.04 to allow face-rolling of inferno.
5) Post patch 1.04 (not really cause the patch isn't out yet) - The D3 player base that has rabidly yelled at Blizzard to supply 2 different end-game play styles now complains that Blizzard changed the play styles.

People on the Bnet forums always have the best ideas...

It should've been obvious to the developers that difficulty is not easy to implement in an ARPG. Not sure you can blame the community for their suggestions even if it is the official forums. The people actually developing the game should've known what they were doing to begin with.

The difficulty could definitely be a major factor in all this though. Kind of like Blizzard tried to build the game around the combat / difficulty of Inferno instead of the customization / ladders / level grind.

But implementing difficulty in an ARPG beyond a raw gear check isn't usually going to work. Throw in an AH and you've created an awesome Auction House simulator where people just buy their way through your super awesome gear check difficulty.

There's nothing really wrong with a gear check difficulty since that's what you're usually going to get in ARPGs. I mean it's not great, but it is what it is. They just failed in all the other areas.

If I want difficulty I'll play a PvP game against other good players or one of the very rare single player games that's actually challenging these days. All I expect from an ARPG is a gear check difficulty with at least the option to kite the stronger monsters in the game.

[mr punk]

It should've been obvious to the developers that difficulty is not easy to implement in an ARPG. Not sure you can blame the community for their suggestions even if it is the official forums. The people actually developing the game should've known what they were doing to begin with.

pretty much. the d3 team simply didn't have enough knowledge or experience to tell players, "no, it simply can't be done with our game design. all we can do is make it a gear check like WoW. do you want a gear check like WoW?". i think the collective answer would have been resounding "no!" (well, except from the WoW players).

[sifuedition]

I play wow. What else do you do with a 12 year wait? Doesn't mean I want WoW in my D3. I understand you don't necessarily mean me, but remember some of us understand these are different genre's of games.