[Bugalugs McScruffin]

Originally Posted by Xeen

Except that's wrong, because you could never put all your points into a single skill - it was capped at 20, which generally gave you 4-5 maxed out skills (an arbitrary number, as well) that defined the focus of your character and created the potential for diversity.

The problems were:

A) The introduction of synergies in 1.10 alongside major stat rebalances meant that to be effective at all, suddenly you had to focus on 1-2 skills and use every other point to boost them (this sort of creates the situation you mention, but it has an entirely different cause). There is a similar situation with the Mastery skills, that effectively created a 20-point sink for some classes.

B) Some skills were so ridiculously well-rounded and powerful that there was no need to diversify beyond honing a single skill to maximum power + a few support skills (Hammerdin, etc). This is a balance issue.

All I see is that rather than polish the system or fix the most glaring issues, it was scrapped altogether. Again, that's not a good or bad thing (it'll depend on how well it gets executed), but implying the skill point system was the root of all lack of diversity is short-sighted.

dazaris, I'll have to check out that video once I get home.

Xeen, I should probably have prefaced my post with the fact that I have never progressed very far in either Diablo game, or games like it, such as Torchlight. It has also been a while since I have played them, so I am unsure on the specifics. A couple of points quickly though.

Firstly, synergies does sound inherently bad the way you describe them, and exacerbates the problem that I had with Diablo. I never got far enough into either of the games for this to be the main problem though.

Secondly, I do not know how the current system for Diablo 3 is intended to work. My enthusiasm is based on my gut instinct as to how it should work. As I see it, the Diablo 3 system would enable you to change builds 'on-the-fly' using any of your currently available skills. This is in stark contrast to the previous games where you would have to plan out your build at the beginning of the game. If Blizzard limit the way to can select and change the skills my enthusiasm will be short lived.

Thirdly, the skill point system makes it feel, whether correct or not, that pumping a few powerful skills is the right choice. Requiring more than one skill point in a skill before advancing along a skill tree ensures that you feel that any of the 'extra' skill points put into the skill are wasted if you do not keep pumping that lower skill to it's potential. If you min-max your build you can work out the best choice and do not have to worry about this, but if you are your average player it feels like you are creating a weak character trying to go for the skills you want higher in the tree without first building up the earlier skills first.

I am going to have to go back and play Diablo again and see if I still have the same objections to the old system. I am keen to try out the new system and see what it does well.