Diablo III Simplified

Blizzard has released the official character builder for Diablo III giving insight into how people may customize the various classes. It seems to be that Blizzard has opted for a very simplified skill system when compared to the two previous games. Diablo III looks to have a lot less RPG elements to it and a greater focus on action. Blizzard has seemed to be making an effort towards streamlining the player’s experience.

The skill trees from Diablo II are entirely missing and instead, every several levels players may choose a new ability from a set of skills. In turn, each of these skills may be customized using varying levels of runestones. Gone are the days of skill points or of spell books that raise your skill level. Player’s don’t even choose to allocate stat points when they go up a level. Instead, the leveling process is much more simplified and players choose “traits” which passively affect your character (much like talents in World of Warcraft). While this may disappoint the min-maxers, there are still plenty of ways to customize your characters. It does, however, seem that Blizzard has made the game much more accessible. There are several factors we can speculate on that may have lead to this choice.

[caption id="attachment_21135" align="aligncenter" width="620" caption="The Barbarian Skill "Tree""][/caption]

One only need to look at Blizzard’s other major title to see a similar evolution in their RPGs. World of Warcraft has gone through a major transformation during the last expansion by reducing the number of stat choices and “mandatory” talents. Granted, the game did reach a point of complication where in order to get the most out of a character, one needed to read volumes on stat, gear and talent choices (don’t even get me started on getting hit/crit capped). This is now less of a problem and arguably the game is better for it. There is even evidence of similar choices being made in Diablo III; one being that they have gotten rid of a talisman bag which would have held the charms you were using instead of taking up inventory space. They apparently thought the talismans did not add enough to the game that was not already done through armor and other items.

Blizzard has confirmed the intention to release Diablo III on consoles. The complicated stat allocation and heavy RPG elements are an ill fit to the majority of the audience for these platforms. Making it a more smooth flowing action hack and slash, the more likely people will be to play the game. In addition, having only six active skills at your disposal, a game pad becomes a much more viable option. A console port is still far off and may not even come to fruition given the number of hurdles Blizzard must overcome; the greatest of these, I would imagine, is the auction house system. There are not many third party games on consoles that support micro-transactions let alone ones that actually pay people back for selling in-game items.

The conspiracy theorist inside me has a more sinister outtake on the simplification; while it may have not been a major factor, the in-game auction system could have influenced these design choices. With the emphasis moving away from skill point allocations and more towards gear in an already heavily gear focused game, Blizzard only stands to profit from the greater demand players will have on equipment. While this has not been confirmed by any sources, I am suspicious that runestones, gems, etc will also be available on the marketplace. Having these stones being a crucial component to how strong a given ability is, one can only imagine the sheer volume of these stones that will be available for purchase. This, of course, relies upon whether the runestones can be traded and sold by players.

While it may seem that there are many negative factors to be drawn from the simplification of the system, I still believe that a good game can come out of it. In simplifying the system, Blizzard has reduced a lot of the cruft and inconvenient aspects of the game that really added no difficulty or depth. I’m a very big proponent of this game design theory as it makes your game easier to play in the sense that players need not perform actions that do not have any risk or reward associated with them. Additionally, the chances that a player will create an ineffectual character are much reduced. Granted it may still be possible, it should, however, be much more obvious that you are making a bad choice as opposed to: “How could I have known I was putting points into an ability that was entirely useless at higher levels?”

I must also add that they only seemed to have simplified the leveling and skill aspect of this game. There are still your varying levels of gems and runestones in addition to a completely new crafting systems. It really only seems that the focus has shifted away from choices based on stat/skill allocation and more towards gear choices and customizations. Which, as we covered previously, certainly is in Blizzard’s best monetary interests.

The auction house itself is not necessarily an “evil” choice on Blizzard’s part. People will sell items regardless and the consumer is better off going through a sanctioned marketplace. While the emphasis on gear may be greater in this game and the immediate advantage is given to the players willing to purchase items, there is still the option to farm the items yourself. I always find that honing your ability as a player far outweighs the benefits of an upgrade. This is usually true in games designed where skill is more important than gear, but as to what side Diablo III will weigh in on, we’ll just have to wait and see…