The problem I have is, why can't some things be allowed to suck? Why the fanatic devotion to homogeneity? If I want to try the challenge of playing through the game with a non-optimal character, why am I not allowed? Some of my greatest memories of gaming are of times when I was in over my head to a hilarious degree, and somehow managed to pull it off. I just don't see moments like that ever occurring in D3. One of my funnest characters in D2 has always been the flame-thrower sorceress, even though a flame thrower in Hell difficulty is a punching bag. But it's still fun, and isn't that the whole point?

Nobody is stopping you from playing a non-optimal build. They are preventing people who don't want to play a non-optimal build from having wasted all their time. The only way this should piss you off is if you got off more on knowing other people were miserable than on the actual gameplay, which doesn't make it a better game.

[quote name='FLeBlanc' timestamp='1337022664' post='4940167']
The problem I have is, why can't some things be allowed to suck? Why the fanatic devotion to homogeneity? If I want to try the challenge of playing through the game with a non-optimal character, why am I not allowed? Some of my greatest memories of gaming are of times when I was in over my head to a hilarious degree, and somehow managed to pull it off. I just don't see moments like that ever occurring in D3. One of my funnest characters in D2 has always been the flame-thrower sorceress, even though a flame thrower in Hell difficulty is a punching bag. But it's still fun, and isn't that the whole point?

Nobody is stopping you from playing a non-optimal build. They are preventing people who don't want to play a non-optimal build from having wasted all their time. The only way this should piss you off is if you got off more on knowing other people were miserable than on the actual gameplay, which doesn't make it a better game.
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But they are preventing me from playing a non-optimal, at least from the limited taste I got from the beta. I played through on wizard probably 5 times, trying to choose different skills each time. All were basically the same, as far as pacing and challenge. It all just felt "the same". There wasn't any single one that I thought "Wow, I bet this would be tough." I don't like having the decisions made for me, just because some other player needs his hand held. This game might be for you, that's fine. I'm just saying, it's not for me. I have always been a "guaranteed sale" for Blizzard, since day one of D1. They had to work pretty hard to convince me otherwise, but they did it.

But they are preventing me from playing a non-optimal, at least from the limited taste I got from the beta. I played through on wizard probably 5 times, trying to choose different skills each time. All were basically the same, as far as pacing and challenge. It all just felt "the same". There wasn't any single one that I thought "Wow, I bet this would be tough."

I view Blizzard's decision as a game designer's version of Chekhov's Gun. Do not include any useless skills in your skill trees.

(Edit to fix the single quote in the URL; this editor apparently requires it to be escaped)

There wasn't any single one that I thought "Wow, I bet this would be tough."

Have you played Dungeons of Dredmor? I think you'd like it a lot.

But they are preventing me from playing a non-optimal, at least from the limited taste I got from the beta. I played through on wizard probably 5 times, trying to choose different skills each time. All were basically the same, as far as pacing and challenge. It all just felt "the same". There wasn't any single one that I thought "Wow, I bet this would be tough." I don't like having the decisions made for me, just because some other player needs his hand held. This game might be for you, that's fine. I'm just saying, it's not for me. I have always been a "guaranteed sale" for Blizzard, since day one of D1. They had to work pretty hard to convince me otherwise, but they did it.

I still don't get why this is in any way desirable. The fact that your first 5 tries at a wizard resulted in 5 different sets of skills and none of them felt gimped should be a triumph, not a defeat.

[quote name='FLeBlanc' timestamp='1337027545' post='4940187']
But they are preventing me from playing a non-optimal, at least from the limited taste I got from the beta. I played through on wizard probably 5 times, trying to choose different skills each time. All were basically the same, as far as pacing and challenge. It all just felt "the same". There wasn't any single one that I thought "Wow, I bet this would be tough." I don't like having the decisions made for me, just because some other player needs his hand held. This game might be for you, that's fine. I'm just saying, it's not for me. I have always been a "guaranteed sale" for Blizzard, since day one of D1. They had to work pretty hard to convince me otherwise, but they did it.

I still don't get why this is in any way desirable. The fact that your first 5 tries at a wizard resulted in 5 different sets of skills and none of them felt gimped should be a triumph, not a defeat.
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But if the ice spell, lightning spell and fire spell are the same except for the animation, there isn't really a choice there. One shouldn't necessarily be the only way to go, but they should be balanced. Lightning has highest damage, ice has lower damage, but slows or freezes enemies, fire has damage over time... something to make each path feel and play differently, but they should be balanced so that there isn't one true mage build.

Personally I think that "No Bad Choice" is generally a good thing, but at the same time there should still be a choice. A "not a great choice" is different than a "bad choice", in that you are still very much workable with it, but possibly not as powerful as if you had made a "better" choice when you start to consider combos and items with natural synergies.

As tstrimple said, if you have choices between fire, ice, and lightning spells, then how you play if you go heavy on the ice should be different than if you invested heavily into fire or lightening.

For ice, your play style would likely become more defensive and mob control based. You would be slowing/encasing enemies, possibly walling them in. The others would be different. If each one is just "blast away till stuff dies", then why have a "choice"?

The skills definitely seemed varied to me. Even the runes change things up quite a bit. They were probably one of the things I wasn't disappointed with. I'm just confused how you could play the wizard and not have that different an experience through 5 play throughs. I guess it's only the first 13 levels so you really only have 6-7 of the 23 active skills and none of the passives.

I was at the mall for lunch today and there were already people camped out for the midnight launch party. It must be packed by now.

The login screen is pretty fun, I can tell you that much