Diablo 3 Discussion Thread

[GoldenTiger]

This game, is a disgrace to gaming, the Diablo name and what Blizzard used to be. I would not call it consolized more like "noobed". Playing the game I felt like I was actually not playing but watching an interactive movie. My 60 year old mother who can barely use a computer could finish this no problemo. Turn on auto Equip follow the little arrows and click monsters, wow is this supposed to be a game? No stat point investment, no skill choices and by default even damage done and received is not shown.

This is the easiest game I have played in my 20+ years of gaming, I feel as if Blizzard has taken us all for gullible fools. They knew we would buy this on launch.. not wait for reviews and what do we get? A game so easy to play and so dumbed down I don't even think it can be called gaming. Higher difficulty levels will not help this.. the gameplay mechanics are broken, the combat system is ridiculous (enemies hit you from great distances.. no dodging) After the epic and awesome StarCraft 2 I was expecting more. Shame on you blizzard. I want my 60 dollars back.. OR a huge patch reintroducing stat point skill choices and fixing combat.. even then it will only be "OK".

The reviews and press will reflect what I am saying don't worry. Yes it was always a fun hack and slash game with SOME depth. How they had to make it EASIER for the RETARDED is beyond me.

Calm down. Are you even past Act I, or on anything but normal mode? Oh, and don't worry, not many others agree with you who have actually played the game that it is simple enough for your 60-year-old grandmother who can barely use the computer to complete. P.S. Gaming is not a religion, and professional reviews are mostly bought/coerced with ad dollars nowadays anyway.

 

[StaticSurge]

It's like I said increasing the difficulty is futile the game is over simplified and stupid now, I don't even think it can be called an ARPG let alone an RPG anymore. RPG = Role playing.. it seems like someone is doing the job for you in this game.

 

[StaticSurge]

Really? Read the metacritic reviews if you show such disdain in mainstream press. People are saying the same damn thing. Take off the fanboy glasses for a minute and realize Blizzard failed.

 

[GoldenTiger]

Really? Read the metacritic reviews if you show such disdain in mainstream press. People are saying the same damn thing. Take off the fanboy glasses for a minute and realize Blizzard failed.

The bulk of those reviews are from children (or those with the minds of such) complaining about server issues. P.S. I hated WOW and didn't buy SC2, I'm about the furthest thing from a Blizzard fanboy as one can get.

It's like I said increasing the difficulty is futile the game is over simplified and stupid now, I don't even think it can be called an ARPG let alone an RPG anymore. RPG = Role playing.. it seems like someone is doing the job for you in this game.

So, have you been past Act I, as inquired about?

 

[Jutsu]

Finished the game, I have to say this game first half is pretty well made, second half is complete rush feeling.

Especially Act 4 is really just Act 3..... WTF...

Feels like the game is a bit rip off...

I am pretty sure there was supposed to be 5 acts, Act III and IV was very rushed and disappointing. However the gameplay is still a blast, I am having fun leveling and getting better gear.

 

[Intel_Hydralisk]

The reviews and press will reflect what I am saying don't worry. Yes it was always a fun hack and slash game with SOME depth. How they had to make it EASIER for the RETARDED is beyond me.

Hah... it's ironic since my friend was playing right beside me and I had to explain to him how you don't invest skill points anymore or stat points and everything is just done for you. It took him a while to realize what the heck was going on. In their attempt to hand hold everyone through skill decisions, it left the familiar RPG crowd a little confused.


And as far as reviews go: I'm having a blast with my friends. That's the only review I care about.

 

[StaticSurge]

No honestly I haven't and I have no real interest in playing it, I'd rather challenge myself than have a game play itself. If I don't feel like playing a game the second day after buying I consider it a failure. For the record I do like Blizzard and have liked everything up to SC2, I can't see why someone can't see the changes made were definitely for the worse. Hey free world right? Feel free to disagree I'm done with D3 for now and I feel cheated and that is my opinion.

As for the metacritic reviews if you look past the server ones and the gushing retards that gave it a 10 most people are saying the same thing as me.

 

[GoldenTiger]

No honestly I haven't and I have no real interest in playing it, I'd rather challenge myself than have a game play itself. If I don't feel like playing a game the second day after buying I consider it a failure. For the record I do like Blizzard and have liked everything up to SC2, I can't see why someone can't see the changes made were definitely for the worse. Hey free world right? Feel free to disagree I'm done with D3 for now and I feel cheated and that is my opinion.

As for the metacritic reviews if you look past the server ones and the gushing retards that gave it a 10 most people are saying the same thing as me.

So, you haven't made it past the tutorial section, and are complaining it's too easy ?

 

[Climber]

Calm down. Are you even past Act I, or on anything but normal mode?

Doubt it. His entire rant is filled with past tense uses so it sounds like he is pissed at the core mechanics and not the actual gameplay or story.

 

[StaticSurge]

Since when did games need TUTORIAL sections to teach people that are hours long. I'm done obviously my comments regarding game mechanics are lost of you. It's not just the difficulty, it's the lack of depth and the disgusting trend in gaming to cut options and choices to sell few more games. By all means enjoy Diablo 3, I'm glad if most people are but it's not my cup of tea.

 

[Deleted member 232162]

I'm enjoying it, but wouldn't be enjoying at all if it was single-player only. I'm only playing it because I enjoy playing games with friends and the style of the game. Simplified gameplay? Sure. Can't argue there. Does it get a little tougher later on? Of course.

Leave it at that. What's the point in insulting each other and screaming at the top of your lungs your hatred for the game? Ridiculous.

 

[Jutsu]

The dual chakrams are insanely nice. I'm favoring multishot with the rune that reduces hatred cost though.

Currently running Rapid Fire/Webshot, using Preparation/Punishment, my over all goal is to get as much Crit Chance as possible to regen Discipline with Nightstalker, so I can refill my hatred at will and spam Smoke Screen.

I found that at first I was stacking for straight DPS, around act III Normal started getting 1 shot by the fireballs, enemies exploding, etc. Started stacking Vit so I could make through act IV.

My gear plan is to stack Vit on Armor with stats and gems, and then scale weapon damage using a Ruby.

Currently at level 31 I have about 3k health and do 500ish dps. I mow everything but take a lot of damage if enemies get close enough to hit me. Rolling though Nightmare now with no problems so far.

 

[Intel_Hydralisk]

Currently running Rapid Fire/Webshot, using Preparation/Punishment, my over all goal is to get as much Crit Chance as possible to regen Discipline with Nightstalker, so I can refill my hatred at will and spam Smoke Screen.

I found that at first I was stacking for straight DPS, around act III Normal started getting 1 shot by the fireballs, enemies exploding, etc. Started stacking Vit so I could make through act IV.

My gear plan is to stack Vit on Armor with stats and gems, and then scale weapon damage using a Ruby.

Currently at level 31 I have about 3k health and do 500ish dps. I mow everything but take a lot of damage if enemies get close enough to hit me. Rolling though Nightmare now with no problems so far.

I'm definitely trying to balance dps and vitality as well. In Act IV I got 1 shot a couple times by a certain boss (no spoilers!) even though I had a shield on with what I thought was decent vitality at the time. I think a good shield + 1 handed crossbow will be the ideal combo for survivability later on. The last boss gave me a 106 vitality chest (almost shit myself when I saw it).

I'm using multishot on my right click and rapid fire on one of my numbered keys (elective mode FTW!). I find the 20 hatred multishot just absolutely mows through everything (brings back some Amazon memories).

My DH is 33 right now and my Monk is 25 (trying to balance playing with different friends). While Monk is incredibly strong, I prefer the gameplay of DH so much more. Kiting, stutter step shooting, and his awesome clutch dodges suit my tastes.

 

[Loading]

Servers are down yet again. At times I've been available, the servers have been down more often then available. So far I've played solo, other then about half an hour when I let someone into my game to see what multi play was all about. He clicked rapid style though all the quest dialog and then couldn't figure out what to do to complete the quest.

Still really wish this was available offline.

What I've seen of the game so far--it's good, but it would have been a lot better had I been able to assign my own skill points.

 

[Deleted member 232162]

Servers are down yet again. At times I've been available, the servers have been down more often then available. So far I've played solo, other then about half an hour when I let someone into my game to see what multi play was all about. He clicked rapid style though all the quest dialog and then couldn't figure out what to do to complete the quest.

Still really wish this was available offline.

What I've seen of the game so far--it's good, but it would have been a lot better had I been able to assign my own skill points.

Skill points would have been a nice addition. Also people that rush through games are the worst. This is why I refuse to play with pubs. and solely play with friends.

 

[Intel_Hydralisk]

Servers are down yet again. At times I've been available, the servers have been down more often then available. So far I've played solo, other then about half an hour when I let someone into my game to see what multi play was all about. He clicked rapid style though all the quest dialog and then couldn't figure out what to do to complete the quest.

Still really wish this was available offline.

What I've seen of the game so far--it's good, but it would have been a lot better had I been able to assign my own skill points.

I've had about 1.5 hours total of bnet downtime during approximately 18 hours that I was free to play the game so I'm pretty satisfied with my ratio right now. Hopefully they prepare for the weekend accordingly.

I've never been a pub gamer and I tell all my friends to control the dialogue so I don't step on anyone's experience.

 

[Modred189]

Down again, this time for 'scheduled maintenance?"
During the FIRST WEEK of a game's release?! What kind of amateur hour is going on over there at Bliz?

 

[pewter77]

Since when did games need TUTORIAL sections to teach people that are hours long. I'm done obviously my comments regarding game mechanics are lost of you. It's not just the difficulty, it's the lack of depth and the disgusting trend in gaming to cut options and choices to sell few more games. By all means enjoy Diablo 3, I'm glad if most people are but it's not my cup of tea.

I like how you're saying that Diablo 2 has a lot of depth to it. It has some stats you allocate that were essentially this stat for this character, this stat for this character, pick up vitality for everyone and a talent tree. Where as Diablo 3 has several skills per slot and several different runes, on top of that you can any skill basically on any slot you want with elective mode (it has more skills overall btw). As for Diablo 2 being hard? Maybe if it was one of your first games you ever played. But Diablo 2 is an incredibly easy game to start with on the starting difficulty. And nightmare was only released after the expansion pack as well. Saying D3 too easy after playing on the easiest setting? NO WAY! I'm not saying Blizzard can do no wrong, because theres some issues with the game such as graphics being simplistic to a point and the voice acting being subpar in some areas but to the effect that you're saying? ya right.

 

[SnowBeast]

Doubt it. His entire rant is filled with past tense uses so it sounds like he is pissed at the core mechanics and not the actual gameplay or story.

Well I made it between work and getting some play time in to Act 2, past Magda and OH LOOK SERVERS ARE DOWN AGAIN!!! Quit drinking the BlizzCool Aid guys. These aren't even the same folks from Diablo 2 and WoW and past Blizz great games. Those people actually moved on and you are kidding yourself if you can't notice the difference. When zoomed, characters don't look much different than WoW which is 8 years old, 12 with developement time. Its not the "look" or "style" like so many like to say with other Blizz games. No my friends, this game seems rushed and DX9 was the fastest way to get the cash cow going again.

20-40 million in revenue after server costs for WoW every month and they couldn't launch this game smoothly???? 8-12 months of closed and open "Server Stress Tests" and they were down the majority of launch day. Oh look! Were down again now! Game shouldn't have been out till Xmas with time to polish after a bad open beta test.

With WoW, SC2, Diablo 3, and "Titan", seems too much on their plate with too few people to get things right. Activision/Blizzard, heading down the road of EA.

Come on guys, you don't have to be 12 to have an opinion on a company most of us have watched go slowly down hill quality wise while raking in the cash because of "Sequel" names.

I am staring at Titan Quest on the shelf thinking that was more fun, and I can play it offline, ANY TIME.

 

[Jutsu]

Kiting, stutter step shooting, and his awesome clutch dodges suit my tastes.

Ya I seem to have a bit of problem with my clutch dodging. I am not sure if it is latency or what but I have like 1.5 second delay on vault its gotten me killed quite a few times. Or I will vault away in what looks like time but still get hit. Kind of starting to piss me off. I dont think I can ever roll a DH in HC they are just too squishy. But I am having a ton of fun playing mine.

 

[Dallows]

blah blah blah

Were the servers really down the MAJORITY of the day? My friend seemed to be able to get to level 45 by the time I was home from work. So surely they weren't. I think he claimed like 4 hours downtime at one point. Which was a nice break for him considering he was playing since about 3am.

Servers were also supposed to go down this morning for what an hour? At 6am PST till 7am PST. Seems reasonable to me given the allotted time and off-peak hours.

 

[quadnad]

I dont think I can ever roll a DH in HC they are just too squishy. But I am having a ton of fun playing mine.

I agree, playing DH feels so different to playing as Barb in the beta - I don't know if i ever used a health potion, or ever felt that "oh shit" feeling I seem to have more often than not in Act II with my DH!

I really like how they made the playstyle more 'active' with the four skills + two mouse buttons. They definitely force you to think about how you approach combat, and it makes things much more satisfying.

 

[Modred189]

Ok, gameplay question:
With the witchdoctor, the weapon you equip never actually gets USED. I mean, when I lob toads, or jars of spiders or flaming skulls or even darts, I'm not USING the sword I have equipped. Does it nonetheless determine the base damage of my attacks?

 

[Ritorix]

Ok, gameplay question:
With the witchdoctor, the weapon you equip never actually gets USED. I mean, when I lob toads, or jars of spiders or flaming skulls or even darts, I'm not USING the sword I have equipped. Does it nonetheless determine the base damage of my attacks?

Yes. Attacks are based on weapon%, which it says right on their tooltip.

 

[huxley]

For the people who hate the game, whats the difference between this and Diablo 2? I cant really tell the difference...and the differences made seem to be improvements for the most part. The party system is fantastic, might be the best I've ever seen. They reduced the need to spam health pots like crazy, more loot than ever and they eliminated game cheats. What sucks about this?

 

[GOD'SlittleSERVANT]

I don't hate the game and I enjoy playing very much, but I hope I don't get bored of it before I beat it.

 

[Druneau]

(I've only played diablo I a long time ago, did not touch diablo II)

I'm glad I don't have to carry town portal scrolls, identify scrolls, mana pots. The fact that enemies drop health globes which auto-pickup is great. Same for gold autopickup, saves me alot of useless clicking.

I'll admit I was a little lost at the start when I didn't have to spread out skill points, then I tought I had to make the big decision of which skill I was going to level up... nope, you can change at anytime between them. After I understood how to play the game I can't say I hate it. It's different, and for now I keep thinking that if I play 3 different barbarians they will all be identical. I guess I'll see when I get there.

 

[Vorret]

(I've only played diablo I a long time ago, did not touch diablo II)

I'm glad I don't have to carry town portal scrolls, identify scrolls, mana pots. The fact that enemies drop health globes which auto-pickup is great. Same for gold autopickup, saves me alot of useless clicking.

I'll admit I was a little lost at the start when I didn't have to spread out skill points, then I tought I had to make the big decision of which skill I was going to level up... nope, you can change at anytime between them. After I understood how to play the game I can't say I hate it. It's different, and for now I keep thinking that if I play 3 different barbarians they will all be identical. I guess I'll see when I get there.

Yea, then again, I like that you don't realize your build is really, REALLY sub optimal when you reach 40-50+. Talent tree aren't needed, I think I prefer the new "style" where you simply can't go wrong (how is that ever fun?)

 

[GOD'SlittleSERVANT]

My brother was upset there is no talent tree and to be honest, I kinda was too.

 

[hfk]

For the people who hate the game, whats the difference between this and Diablo 2? I cant really tell the difference...and the differences made seem to be improvements for the most part. The party system is fantastic, might be the best I've ever seen. They reduced the need to spam health pots like crazy, more loot than ever and they eliminated game cheats. What sucks about this?

Artistic style and quality. D2 was more "The Mummy" while D3 is a bit more... spongebob squarepants.

In D3 you dont really feel like you are roleplaying, because anyone playing your class can be exactly the same as you if they have your items. There's very little uniquess and commitment to your character.

Obviously a lot of people are fine with these changes.. personally I despise them cause I like to think and have the freedom to grow better than other people by learning and gaining skill. I have a philosophical question. Which challenge is more exciting/fun; one that is impossible to fail given enough time, or one that it takes thought to overcome?

 

[fdiaz78]

It's like I said increasing the difficulty is futile the game is over simplified and stupid now, I don't even think it can be called an ARPG let alone an RPG anymore. RPG = Role playing.. it seems like someone is doing the job for you in this game.

At higher difficulties the mobs have more aggressive AI, more HP, hit harder, etc. If haven't even passed Act 1 and you are honestly rendering judgement based on this?

 

[Xilikon]

As a Diablo series veteran (played and beat D1 a few times alone and with friends, Played D2 for thousands of hours including scripting so I know the game mechanics but never ever played D3 before launch), here's my opinion after 3 hours of game play (I just received my package yesterday afternoon) :

-I find D3 have a good mix of D1 and D2 feeling (D1 within the cathedral with the barrels and such, even the atmosphere felt like D1 while the outside areas is like D2 like the Den of evil and such).
-For someone who doesn't always have time to recreate countless characters, the new skills system is a very welcome one since you can experiment various ways on the fly without resorting to redo it from scratch. Others might not like this due to the RPG factor but since the Diablo series is about fun hack-n-slash game with some RPG elements, it's perfectly acceptable and what make it good is the items variety which is a characteristic of Diablo.
-I like the fact they went away with the need of identifying magical items. No more scrolls to carry ! I also found it funny that when I'm in the catacombs and break the bookshelf, a bunch of dusty identify and town portal scrolls fell on the ground.
-I find it a bit more linear compared to before but since I'm currently on the King Leoric quest, I would refrain from judging more since by experience, A2 and A3 would get vastly bigger so exploration would be more common.
-The game interface seems to be created for the new users who doesn't know the Diablo series with lots of tips, indications etc. That remove a lot of searching and thinking and this is a bit disappointing. Too bad there are no way I know to disable some of those so I can play without being told what to do or where to go.
-The attack system is vastly superior to before because you have more active and passive skills to use (D1 is just one skill in a clickfest, D2 is only left and right mouse button while D3 assign 4 keys to passives and 2 mouse keys for both attacks). This lead to more thinking and more battle strategy, especially with more fragile characters like Demon Hunter or Wizard using passives to protect while using actives to kill monsters in a optimal way.
-For the server status, I got a server down once but that's expected with the launch of that game. Why no "realm down" ?

Overall, I like it a lot and I expect to like it even more the further I play, solo and with other people. I picked the Demon Hunter because I loved playing the Amazon in D2 (I made a speedazon, javazon and paper tiger) and I liked it even more in D3 due to the passives which help a lot instead of running back a lot to avoid monters.

That's my own opinon !

 

[Dallows]

Artistic style and quality. D2 was more "The Mummy" while D3 is a bit more... spongebob squarepants.

In D3 you dont really feel like you are roleplaying, because anyone playing your class can be exactly the same as you if they have your items. There's very little uniquess and commitment to your character.

Pretty stupid analogy I think. I for one love the art style in this game. I like the way everything looks. Environments, buildings, tomb structures, etc. It all oozes detail and ambiance.

I could almost agree with the lack of being able to adjust your own stats when you level, but I'm not really missing it.

 

[huxley]

Artistic style and quality. D2 was more "The Mummy" while D3 is a bit more... spongebob squarepants.

In D3 you dont really feel like you are roleplaying, because anyone playing your class can be exactly the same as you if they have your items. There's very little uniquess and commitment to your character.

Obviously a lot of people are fine with these changes.. personally I despise them cause I like to think and have the freedom to grow better than other people by learning and gaining skill. I have a philosophical question. Which challenge is more exciting/fun; one that is impossible to fail given enough time, or one that it takes thought to overcome?

I can agree with that. They tried to add some customization and money sinks in with the character dyes at least which will offer some difference in look. 10 years ago, when time was in abundance, I would have backed your point 100%. Nowadays, I much prefer the choice to respec on a whim even if it takes away the uniqueness of my build.

 

[Scooty Puff Sr.]

So I went looking at a few diablo 2 reviews because a lot of the crap people are complaining about sounded very familiar. Here is what I found.

These are from the Gamespot review of D2 posted July 7, 2000

http://www.gamespot.com/diablo-ii/reviews/diablo-ii-review-2600303/?page=1

he actual gameplay still consists almost exclusively of killing monsters to gain treasure and experience points. Since your character constantly gains more and more formidable abilities and weaponry, that relatively simple style of play proves to be just as addictive as it was in the original Diablo and in other games that have since exploited the same formula. It's difficult to extract yourself from a game that always keeps you on the verge of being rewarded for another achievement.

Early in the game, that otherwise effective blueprint is overused, since swarms of weak creatures are hurled at you. The game is so easy until the end of act one that it gets tiresome wading through crowds of pathetic beasts, several of which are less fearsome versions of counterparts from the original game. The lack of resulting tension is noticeable, especially since the first Diablo increased its difficulty very quickly by requiring relatively inexperienced characters to battle behemoths such as the Butcher and the Skeleton King. There isn't a similarly difficult showdown in Diablo II until the very end of the first act, although there are plenty of challenging confrontations after that point in the game. Blizzard has always seemed intent on producing games that are extremely intuitive for new players; with Diablo II, the developers may have been concerned that neophytes would find all of the new character skill choices intimidating and accordingly structured the game so that the early stages would give you a less stressful opportunity to get accustomed to the new character development system.

On the other hand, the graphics in Diablo II are disappointing, especially when compared with those in the original game. When Diablo was released at the end of 1996, its SVGA graphics were amazing. More than three years later, those low-resolution graphics no longer look impressive and barely look adequate, and yet that's all Diablo II offers. There are some notable graphical improvements, such as the game's lighting and translucency effects and the new parallax scrolling that gives a 3D gloss to otherwise flat objects, but the game's 2D graphics are generally disappointing and look pixelated and lack sharpness on larger monitors.

Blizzard's Battle.net Internet servers, which were initially launched concurrently with the release of the original Diablo, have proven to be unable to cope with the number of players currently trying to play Diablo II online. Gameplay has so far proven to be laggy, which is surprising considering Diablo II played well during beta testing and the original game played smoothly online. Once additional capacity is added, Battle.net should be a more accessible and enjoyable option

 

[Scooty Puff Sr.]

This is also a funny quote from the IGN review. It seriously sounds like a D3 review.

http://pc.ign.com/articles/160/160629p1.html

So first of all, I have to begin this article with a few words about the state of affairs with Battle.net and all of the bugs that are popping up in the game. I really am surprised about all of the complaints that are flowing into our mailboxes about problems that people are having with the game. We aren't even Blizzard, and we're getting a ton, so there are sure to be quite a few very unhappy gamers out there. The first thing that blares in my mind, and made me a bit wary of problems in the game was that the first day that the game was released, there was a patch out for the game. Ummm... yeah. You shouldn't need to download a patch right off the bat. And there is already another patch on the way. For the most part, I haven't experienced most of the problems that people are talking about, but one of my characters (a 17th level sorceress) did disappear after I logged onto Battle.net for the first time. I had already downloaded the patch and installed it before I started playing the game at all. Downloading the patch was what was supposed to be causing that glitch, but I guess it might just be logging onto Battle.net that was the problem. And Battle.net has been a big problem. After severely underestimating the amount of people that would want to play their game online (guh? Count the preorders maybe?), the servers crashed, burned and then bundled up in the corner weeping like Tal after being slapped around by Vincent on one of his "bitchy" days. To their credit, Blizzard has been working on the problem trying to fix it, and has managed to stabilize it quite a bit. But after people are paying anywhere from 55-70 dollars for the game, you would imagine that it would be a bug free, finished product. Oops.

 

[dremic]

I can agree with that. They tried to add some customization and money sinks in with the character dyes at least which will offer some difference in look. 10 years ago, when time was in abundance, I would have backed your point 100%. Nowadays, I much prefer the choice to respec on a whim even if it takes away the uniqueness of my build.

Im sure at level 60 there is plenty of uniqueness between somebody elses wizard and my wizard in fact even at 30 im sure their build is completely unique in comparison to mine.

 

[Maplehamwich]

I'm really looking forward to getting a little more play time in after work today. 5:30 can't come soon enough!

 

[Intel_Hydralisk]

I know they made this skill system so that "all skills / rune combos are viable", but I can't help but think a lot of these skills / runes are just garbage.

One example is multi-shot and the rune choices. The first rune reduces hatred cost by half (40 hatred -> 20 hatred). The skill does 165% weapon damage. There's another rune that increases damage to 214%.

Why in the world would you use the rune for 214% dmg over the half hatred cost rune that essentially lets you deal 330% dmg with the same hatred cost?

Perplexing. There are a lot of other examples as well. Some skills are just not useful based on their resource cost. I.E. Cluster Arrow costs 50 hatred for 200% weapon damage on target and 100% weapon damage AOE. That is just not remotely competitive with multi-shot / chakram rendering this skill worthless.

 

[[F8]]

If you watch the video from Jay Wilson, they removed attribute and skill points, because they were not fun and did not add anything to the game. People stacked enough attribute points to wear the armor they wanted, and then put everything else into vitality. They wanted to get away from the geeks doing the numbercrunching and mking people forced into playing only one way because someone said "This is the best way to play, and if you don't spec like this, you suck".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVTVMqtmxPU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuKvxab1kBk