Diablo IV, Diablo 2 and Diablo 3 Forums - Diabloii.Net
How about some low-level focus?
This is something I rarely see anyone mention, but it's a serious flaw D2 suffered from and D3 needs to avoid. That flaw is that most of the fun stuff was aimed only towards endgame, high level characters. Virtually nothing was provided to make the beginning of the game interesting.
Think about the low levels in D2 for a moment, untwinked. For melee skills, you have a bunch of things that amount to "Normal Attack with some side effect." For ranged skills, you have several duplicates of "basic projectile that damages one guy." You probably have no more than 20 FRW, 10 IAS, or 30 FCR. There are no interesting CTCs, oskills, charges, or "aura on equip" items. Even your standard item stats don't give you much variety.
Now think about the high levels. For melee, you have whirlwind, charge, zeal, and so on. Casters have frozen orb, strafe, blessed hammer, and the like. You can outrun most enemies, and you attack lightning fast. If you get bored, you can mess around with Dual Dream setups or equip your Zealot with a "Voice of Reason" weapon. Oh, and there are Ubers.
Ever wonder why so many people prefer rushing as opposed to just playing through the game? This is why. No matter what your character is, it starts out at level 1 and has to go through the same thing. Seriously, mix up the low levels. Make them fun.
This is something I rarely see anyone mention, but it's a serious flaw D2 suffered from and D3 needs to avoid. That flaw is that most of the fun stuff was aimed only towards endgame, high level characters. Virtually nothing was provided to make the beginning of the game interesting.
Think about the low levels in D2 for a moment, untwinked. For melee skills, you have a bunch of things that amount to "Normal Attack with some side effect." For ranged skills, you have several duplicates of "basic projectile that damages one guy." You probably have no more than 20 FRW, 10 IAS, or 30 FCR. There are no interesting CTCs, oskills, charges, or "aura on equip" items. Even your standard item stats don't give you much variety.
Now think about the high levels. For melee, you have whirlwind, charge, zeal, and so on. Casters have frozen orb, strafe, blessed hammer, and the like. You can outrun most enemies, and you attack lightning fast. If you get bored, you can mess around with Dual Dream setups or equip your Zealot with a "Voice of Reason" weapon. Oh, and there are Ubers.
Ever wonder why so many people prefer rushing as opposed to just playing through the game? This is why. No matter what your character is, it starts out at level 1 and has to go through the same thing. Seriously, mix up the low levels. Make them fun.