How about some low-level focus?

[andrewmoquin]

This is something I rarely see anyone mention, but it's a serious flaw D2 suffered from and D3 needs to avoid. That flaw is that most of the fun stuff was aimed only towards endgame, high level characters. Virtually nothing was provided to make the beginning of the game interesting.


Think about the low levels in D2 for a moment, untwinked. For melee skills, you have a bunch of things that amount to "Normal Attack with some side effect." For ranged skills, you have several duplicates of "basic projectile that damages one guy." You probably have no more than 20 FRW, 10 IAS, or 30 FCR. There are no interesting CTCs, oskills, charges, or "aura on equip" items. Even your standard item stats don't give you much variety.

Now think about the high levels. For melee, you have whirlwind, charge, zeal, and so on. Casters have frozen orb, strafe, blessed hammer, and the like. You can outrun most enemies, and you attack lightning fast. If you get bored, you can mess around with Dual Dream setups or equip your Zealot with a "Voice of Reason" weapon. Oh, and there are Ubers.

Ever wonder why so many people prefer rushing as opposed to just playing through the game? This is why. No matter what your character is, it starts out at level 1 and has to go through the same thing. Seriously, mix up the low levels. Make them fun.
http://ready-up.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/diablo3.jpg

[N V]

The problem with trying to have lots of interesting skills at early lvls is to make them viable even at higher lvls. In D2 as it is now that just doesn't work. And when they introduced synergies I think it was in an attempt to make people place more points in lower lvl spells. Ofc this amounted to people hoarding points to maximise effectiveness.

In D3 there has been talked about some form of respec system. That way they could make loads of interesting and fun spells for lower lvls while still being able to respect at higher lvls to make the character viable without so much points "wasted" in lower lvl skills. The other options is to make low lvl spells viable in higher lvls. Although when you've used the same skill for 80+ lvls it starts to get boring right?

D2 is an old game with lots of flawes. Hopefully a lot will be corrected in D3, however any piece of software is never perfect. There will always be flaws, bugs, glitchs etc. It's just nigh on impossible to make it perfect. So imo we should focus on the positive things and not negative.

Btw this is the 3rd thread I've had to move for you today. Could you please pay more attention to where you're posting?

[Kayeto]

I think his intention was to make a thread about D3.

His point about low levels skills was what he thinks the skill learning progression should be like in D3.

[N V]

Lol. You're probably right, I just missed that part where he mentioned D3.

Moved to D3 general discussion forum.

[Kayeto]

That flaw is that most of the fun stuff was aimed only towards endgame, high level characters. Virtually nothing was provided to make the beginning of the game interesting.


For experienced players, this is true. But in theory those early level where not much is going on are designed to let new players get used to the basics of the game. Experience points, level, quests, input controls, thngs like that. As veterans we take all that for granted.

[Omnicide]

Indeed. I think it's a very biased opinion to say that "there's no high end skills" at low levels. There's a very specific reason for that....you're a lower level. Beginning skills are almost always more basic than those found on higher levels.

Also...there IS talk (still no 100% guaranteed announcement) about respec with skills and I think that does a lot to make your way through the game easier without going so far only to find out you made a mistake in your skills.

And in defense of veteran D2 players. You should play some LLDs and you'll gain a greater understanding just HOW effective your skills can be even though you aren't level 80-90ish.

[Dbane]

The point of Diablo (and most games in general) is to start off slow and work your way up to eventually have the UBER skills you always wanted. It keeps people playing longer.