I love all this rationalization of less is somehow more. It's not just stop trying to say it is.
It's less of some utterly meaningless adjustments. The only skills you put points into in D2 were for maxing for use or synergies or pre-requirements. This just removes the hassle of clicking a button 20 times instead of 1. Pretending that customization existed in areas where it really didn't is disingenuous.
Also, the amount gained through the changes makes up for what's been lost. I can already tell that Diablo 3 will be a much deeper game in the parts that actually matter: the gameplay and combat mechanics. If I want to get a mental hard on from slightly tweaking generally arbitrary values I'll go play with an Excel spreadsheet.
Really my only complaint would be that I can't unlock runes in any order that prefer. Perhaps that's done for balance reasons, but the way that Diablo 3 has been designed affords so much more actual flexibility that I don't care if I can't manually control where my attribute points go.
I guess you never liked having to choose more life or max shield block? Some builts wanted different ways to survive. And that slider bar is exactly (at the bare minimum of) what's missing. Before you could build a glass cannon with no HP and all into the damage stat, or you could built a "safer" character with tons of HP and a lot less damage.
Is it really a choice? I can guarantee that one of them is mathematically demonstrable as superior. I suppose you could argue that you want the ability to limit yourself, but that's still possible in Diablo 3. The only real difference is that you have less rope to hang yourself with.
If you still want to trade between glass cannon or a safe build, I'm certain that gear will exist to cater to both play styles. The only difference is that the extremes may not be quite as far apart, which probably makes for much better game balance.
It definitely hurts replayability since everything is gear based and you only need one of each character. No more need to MF as much, you don't need to find specific gear for multiple characters, just equip your 5 classes and you're done. No need to go switch to your cold sorc with a different setup.
No one is stopping you from sticking with one build per character.
Also, the lack of need to MF argument doesn't follow. If there's different gear for an arcane Wizard as opposed to a frost Wizard it doesn't change anything. At best you can change your spec and have less than ideal gear.
It was the same in Diablo 2 after they added respecs. It didn't suddenly allow my cold sorceress to change over to lightning and be perfectly effective. What leads you to believe that it is somehow different in Diablo 3?
After playing the beta for the weekend, I feel D3 lost some of the luster compare to D2.
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5. another problem is D3 feels less coorp v D2. W/ D2 paladin aura and barb warcry affect the group in much more meaningful ways. Here a few spells seems to effect others in a local basis but that's it. Just feel not many skills are for group setting. for me, it's a letdown.
After playing as part of group compared to playing solo, groups in and of themselves already felt immensely more powerful. Between 4 classes, there are already enough abilities to keep a group of monsters permanently disabled. Adding even more synergy for damage, of which there is already plenty (although usually at later levels), would probably make balance even more difficult.