First off, I'm playing this game right now because I am actually interested in knowing what will become of our hero and deathknight towards the end of act 5. I'm not playing this game, and currently thinking of playing <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/div.gif" alt="" /> again, because of the skill system. You've all heard, and analyzed, the reason's why <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/beyond.gif" alt="" /> skill system is somewhat lacking atm, but I'd like to discuss theories on why the designers chose to take this limited skill point specialization route, rather than the open-ended, fun and engaging system that <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/div.gif" alt="" /> had.
1) Perhaps because you play 2+ characters in <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/beyond.gif" alt="" /> the developers believed that the skills both the Hero and DK had, collectively, would equal the amount of skills you had with one character in <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/div.gif" alt="" />. Easy enough, but the result is much less exciting. This system would work if you didn't specialize melee -> one-handed -> slashing -> accuracy; damage; durability; critical; deathblow. Now, you could keep the underlying system, but tweak it this way. Slashing does high damage, good accuragy, and durability, low crit and high deathblow. Now you put a point into slashing, and all those stats increment as such. Piercing could be low dam, high acc, low dura, high crit, and med deathblow (this is all arbitrary), and putting points into that skill would make those respective traits increase accordingly.
I think you guys see where I'm going. Essentially, each type of damage would appeal to different types of gamers. One would be high crit, the other more accurate, and another medium damage with higher deathblow. This would free up points to take up more experimental, class defining skills.
The convoluted arrow specializations could also be cleaned up in a similar way. I don't have any great ideas on bows and crossbows, but slimming down the arrow choices into more coherent groups would also free up skill points for other, more interesting skills.
I'm sure others out there have good idea's along these lines, and perhaps simply giving the player more skill points would solve most of these issues also. But until I see the patch that adds skill points, or revamps the skill system, playing <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/beyond.gif" alt="" /> will just makes me want to play <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/div.gif" alt="" /> again <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" />
Now I've been meaning to roll up a ranged based fem in <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/div.gif" alt="" />.....
