Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

SuperSatanOverdrive t1_j96802s wrote

Reply to comment by Mr_Otingocni in Diablo IV’s open beta starts next month by Sorin61

I love D2, but I actually think D3 has a lot of customization, as you can swap up what kind skills you use any time, while in D2 you lock in to much larger degree. D3 is much more about the items though

15

Mr_Otingocni t1_j96i70y wrote

I kinda liked that aspect, being locked in. You had to make your build work one way or another. Which increased the replay factor. I initially liked the ability to switch around the skills at a whim in D3, but instead of creating a ton of unique builds from each class, you just had the same class and a ton of equipment to make each variation work. I didn't really care for it but I do see the appeal.

5

poetdesmond t1_j97l4vn wrote

I don't know, locking builds just means most people are going to crack open Icy Veins and go with one of the preset builds there, and they're doing to top-to-bottom do it in order, while grinding for the gear that fits that build, because an unoptimized build in D2 is basically just an increase to the difficulty level with no ability to dial it back if you don't like it. It also gimps creativity or experimentation unless you want to risk dedicating hours to something that may not work.

Open builds mean I can go, "Hey, I've got a weird idea!" implement it, test it, and make a decision on how effective it was in minutes.

2

Mr_Otingocni t1_j97nlbt wrote

What you said sounds like you are probably right, but, bro, I don't understand half of those references, ha ha. I played D2 with expansion packs on solo, no mods, for years. No guides or anything. I was really too old to be spending all day playing video games back then, when you actually had time to see if some weird ass combo was going to work out or you'd be halfway through the game before realizing you screwed the pooch and should start over or expect a lifetime dependence on potions. So now I'm way out of the loop and so old I fart dust.

I hear what you're saying, and in general I like the ability to reset skill trees in most games, I just liked that with Diablo you really got a run for your money with builds because it took getting your ass kicked but unwilling to restart to find a creative way to make some wonky crap actually work.

3

Wonkbro t1_j994q42 wrote

I liked being locked in too. I liked being a "Fire Nova maxed, Lightning Nova maxed" sorceress. As opposed to just a sorceress.

Even though the build was shit.

2

Nagisan t1_j9915bu wrote

The shift to an item-based focus is what I didn't like about D3. Obviously gear can make or break builds in D2, but in D3 almost the entirety of character progression was based around gear.

Sure you unlock skills as you level in D3, but once you got to the appropriate level changing your build was as easy as clicking a couple buttons. All the skills were gear-based, and sure certain items worked better for certain skills but once your character was leveled there was little reason to level that class again because you could easily swap skills around and just have gear swaps in your stash.

D2 forced you to think about the character you wanted to play and actually build into that character. Once you did it wasn't easy to change your character, so it encouraged replayability by forcing you to remake the same class if you wanted a different build. The only way I spent years playing D2 was due to this, such as leveling up a paladin into a hammerdin, leveling a different one for boss killing (smiter), and even a third as a zealer. In D3 this would've all been accomplished with a single playthrough and some gear/skill swaps depending on what I wanted to play. D2 gave a sense that a character has a specific purpose to me, D3 was just "idk do whatever you want whenever you want" so the characters felt boring and had no real meaning behind them.

That said I still did enjoy D3, I just felt like it was well behind D2 in terms of replayability. I played D2 for 4-5 years when it first came out, I played D3 off and on for maybe a year, and a good chunk of that was to make a little bit of money when the real money auction house existed.

4