Question to the DEVs

So you figured out it's better to pump all your points into one or two skills. What a smart gamer you are.

How long do you think it would have taken even bad players to look up on a website that it's the best way to play a game where skills have to scale with more points?

We've been playing the game, we know what skill points were causing, and it was not interesting and unique builds. It was not meaningful customization. It was maxing out a couple skills, and that's it. It was Diablo II. What we have now actually forces people to make interesting choices, to craft interesting builds based on very strict limitations.

One common mistake people are making is thinking all the class skills are straight damaging attack skills, and they pick six of those, and they're on their way. There's no variety because you just pick the most powerful six, and you're done. You can do that, but you're either going to straight up die, run out of resources and waste time dying or running away, or you're going to have to figure out some godly resource regen stacking gear setup. One of those sounds fun, and challenging, which makes even crazy builds like using six straight damage skills potentially viable if you can game it right.

Q u o t e:
The current iteration of the skill system will work just fine. My only concern is the limiteless ability to change skills (either out in the field, or in town) with no cost. I know you said you are taking a "wait and see" approach.

What I am wondering is if you, personally, can say how you feel while out in the world being able to change skills on the fly. Do you come upon a particularly nasty group that this other skill would just be perfect for, so you hang back, grab that skill, then destroy the group?

Maybe my concern with this is unfounded, but I just like the idea of a character build having more permanence.. so a "Whirlwind/Ancient Spear Barbarian" actually means something, instead of what you feel like playing that day. I understand the need to experiment early.. but can't there be a comprimise in that late game build changing could be more restrictive?

I think that someone choosing to hang back and switch up their build for a specific pack is totally possible, but experience shows that it's not something most players want to spend the time to do. And that's more about build identity than min/maxing.

It's far more lucrative and time effective to create a viable build that can deal with a variety of situations, and we also find that players want to create and stick with an identity even if there's the ability to freely swap. It's generally a matter of finding the way you want to play, and fine tuning. And really we're not talking about skills so specific in function that it's going to be that enticing. You're pretty much either killing enemies, or protecting yourself. There's a ton of variety within offense and defense, but I don't think it's so ideal as to make someone stop and switch out their entire build.

Like I said players inherently want to stick with a specific character identity. You're far more likely to see a player sticking with a build and working to become better at it than constantly swapping around. That's not a rule, it's player psychology so there's going to be a wide range of variables, but it's what we have found to be true not only for Diablo III, but a lot of the games out there with similar free-swapping of builds.