I'm talking about the Diablo III skill system.

Blizzard are doing the same thing as Bioware, Bethesda, Infinity Ward, Ubisoft and countless others before them; they are removing the thought process entirely from the equation. Diablo II was always a half-hearted RPG, with action and hack'n slash elements dominating the setting and concept but the skill and stat system was traditional and functional and more in line with RPG's as a whole. And it forced you to actually choose a path, you couldn't get equally good at everything, which should be common sense.

What is this new bullshit? This is from the official Diablowiki; (pertaining to runes ingame and their effect on skills) "creates a vast number of possible builds, and with the easy respec system, players can try out all of the skills and rune effects, and switch between them as needed."

No, that sentence creates an oxymoron, if you can freely switch and respec at all times, there really is no build. If you're building a mill and come near completion, you can't suddenly change it into an aquarium or a treehouse. What Blizzard is doing here is akin to what Bioware have done with all their modern "RPG's" and Bethesda did with Skyrim; they're removing customization options and consequence of choices and calling it innovation, or worse yet; improvements. What is an RPG that does all the thinking for you, plays solely on action and holds your hand the entire way? Its completely and utterly useless, is what it is.

What are they thinking with this? This is like the "buy all options" DLC for Battlefield 3 and other titles, the entire game at its core is built to cater specifically to people who don't want to think or make an effort, who don't want a challenge or options. Its made for those who want run-of the mill template characters doing run-of the mill tasks while spamming hotkeys and waiting for cooldowns. They have effectively implemented "IDKFA" into the main game mechanic and made it a golden standard to be followed (don't get the reference? Be older!).

My last hope for proper depth in games now lie with Valve software, they have yet to sell out like this. The 7th generation has now almost completely butchered several genres, let's just hope that someone revives the idea of a proper, challenging game with depth, content that might appeal to people besides teenage boys and real thought gone into it.

What's the point of this rant, you say? I've been waiting for twelve years for this game and now it turns out it could become for naught, this could very well become casual drivel with no appeal and room for failure (room for failure is paramount to a good RPG in my opinion). And that makes me sad. Thanks for all the good times with Warcraft, Warcraft II, Starcraft, Diablo, Diablo II, Lost Vikings and more, but I have probably purchased my last title from you, Blizzard. Long live Blizzard and may they rest in peace.

PS: So much drama!

There is "a build" because you will lose the buff "Nephalems Valor" when you decide to swap your skills on the fly while playing. This will motivate the players to build one build. But they can easily change it between the runs.

Where is the difference to let you pay gold for a rebuild like in WoW, to letting you change your skills everytime (but punish you a little for doing so).

Imho you are just whining without thinking of it.

There are alos no stats, they allocate themselves so you won't waste your time choosing. What kind of people think that that's fun in any kind of way?

Whining? Maybe I am. But don't tell me I haven't thought about it, I've been playing and loving Blizzard games since Lost Vikings first came out and I've been keeping my eyes on this for a decade.

i really understand you and before i've played the beta i had same thoughts as you.

But consider that: you dont put skillpoints into your character anymore, but you choose what stats you prefer on your items just like before.

This is, for me, the same thing. And you can't make any unrevertable mistakes anymore.

This a classic case of gamer indignation.

I'm sure the system will be fun. Instead of theory crafting in order to optimize your build, you'll be able to try out the builds whenever you want to find the best build for your play style. What can be wrong with that?

Also as a reflection on past gaming experience, permanent choices don't make a lot of sense. In order to try out new spells and abilities would require a second or third play through and I would rather have the best experience in a single playthrough.

The only consequences from choice with a permanent build are having a poorer experience. Making the choice for an ability that you have no experience with and which theory crafting doesn't really make sense, is not a fun game mechanic.

As if you couldn't change your builds in diablo 2.
Love how people just forget things.
Now in D2, you can change up to three times for free, completely respec, and then, each boss drops a different essence, allowing you to further respec as many times as you have all 4 essences.

What d3 is doing is getting rid of all the tediousness of d2. D2 is extremely tedious and has become a game of "rush to hell" then 100 chaos runs with bots.

Sure, I mean, if you think that that's the optimal way to play, then so be it.

I had my doubts too before I played the demo but now I'm really liking it. You get new skills at every level and that's awesome no more 6 level gaps like in DII. Also, you get new skills/runes up until level 60.

It can sound like every Monk will be the same but in practice it's not. I prefer ranged attacks so I had my Monk use Deadly Reach and even when the teleporting rune was unlocked for Fists of Thunder I decided to stick with DR as my primary skill because it fit my style more.

You can change your skills at will but it doesn't work like in DII where a simple F-key would switch you active skill around. There's a cooldown whenever you set new skills in so you can't run into battle and use every unlocked skill. You gotta choose what you'll be using beforehand so you do get your own customized character.

No Cow Level? I'm out.
J/K - seriously though I paid for my pre-order before I played the open beta and thought about cancelling it. I played 3 different chars all the way through and thought "this is too easy - I never died once". Then I realized this was just a beta and I had sunk 10-15 hours playing 3 different chars and was not bored at all. I'm still on the fence about the skill system, though.
So now I'm anxiously awaiting for the 15th. And hoping they do something later on like the Cow Level lol.

I am pretty sure there will be a treasure goblin level, that would be awesome. Mushrooms, crazy unicorns, and so on...

Top secret weed level.