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[forsaken1111]

Yeah that's why I am of a mixed opinion. I understand the reason for it, but switching skills is kind of annoying so it feels like a half-finished feature. If they allowed you to set up two or more builds and switch them with a keypress or hotbar button, that would make it a bit easier to use. Or even if you could hold CTRL and press a key to cycle through the skills.  IE CTRL-1 on a wizard would swap from frost nova to diamond skin, and then cycles to whatever was next. CTRL-right click would cycle from the frost beam to the exploding orb.

[Darkmere]

They deliberately avoided skill hot-swaps. The idea is to either come up with something balanced that suits you well, or make a party setup where everyone does their part well together. Eventually there are some fairly stiff penalties for switching skills (long cooldown, purging the magic find buff at level cap) that encourage you to pick something and stick with it.

[forsaken1111]

They deliberately avoided skill hot-swaps. The idea is to either come up with something balanced that suits you well, or make a party setup where everyone does their part well together. Eventually there are some fairly stiff penalties for switching skills (long cooldown, purging the magic find buff at level cap) that encourage you to pick something and stick with it.

I'm fine with the cooldown and penalties if they'd just make it convenient. There's no reason I should have to navigate a menu to change the spell I'm using. In Diablo 2 I could have several spells on a hotbar and use my mousewheel to roll through others...

[nenjin]

Abilities cooldown alone should have been plenty to disincentivize people to switch skills on the fly. The fact they made the menu obtuse and bloated is just kind of kicking you while you're down.

[forsaken1111]

Exactly. I would gladly accept the consequences of switching sometimes if I could only do so quickly rather than using a menu that covers the entire screen and requires 3-4 clicks per spell to change.

[Darkmere]

I didn't get a change to play too much yesterday, but I was pleasantly surprised at the difficulty ramp-up past the beta content. The environments are nicely varied so far, and I like the crowd-management gameplay aspect. It's sort of a mix between D1's tactical and D2's mow-down-crowds play, with some nasty surprises from champion packs if you start getting careless. Looking forward to upgrading the blacksmith a bit more, and getting the jeweler.

[nenjin]

Nothing like taking time off of work to sit in front of my computer and get fed ERROR messages while trying to sign in for the first time.

Part of me hopes these issues continue so people can point to how stupid of an idea it was to do always-online. This is about par for any major MMO release.

[hemmingjay]

Are you refering to the fact that servers are down for 1 hr maintenance right now?

[Levi]

Nothing like taking time off of work to sit in front of my computer and get fed ERROR messages while trying to sign in for the first time.

Part of me hopes these issues continue so people can point to how stupid of an idea it was to do always-online. This is about par for any major MMO release.

That sucks.    I hope its cleared up by the time I get off work.  Its really silly that they didn't include an offline singleplayer mode.

[forsaken1111]

Nothing like taking time off of work to sit in front of my computer and get fed ERROR messages while trying to sign in for the first time.

Part of me hopes these issues continue so people can point to how stupid of an idea it was to do always-online. This is about par for any major MMO release.

Which error are you getting? I got Error 37 for about an hour after launch but was able to log in after that without any trouble.

Also: The game isn't 'always online'. Always online DRM would boot you the instant you lose connection, which this doesn't (or at least didn't for me when I lost internet for about an hour this morning). I'd have much preferred it to be a one-time check and unlock/authorization or a periodic check, especially for the singleplayer campaign.

[nenjin]

I'm got an Error 317002, some generic "cannot find a game mode" statement, something. Then I was unable to even log in after a certain point.

And "always-online" refers to the fact it has to talk to a home server to play the game.

[ank]

FAIL!
I am so ragefull right now... i don't know how else to describe it...
Servers has been pretty much off-line for 20 hours past launch, and no build-in Single Player.
Seriously Blizzard, i thought you were cool... apparently not...

[forsaken1111]

I'm getting Error 317002, some generic "cannot find a game mode" statement, something.

And "always-online" refers to the fact it has to talk to a home server to play the game.

Always online DRM requires a constant connection to the server. What you're talking about is DRM which authenticates on run, which is what this is. It requires a login but after that you can continue to play even if you lose connection. In contrast, look at Settlers 7... if you lose internet connection for even a second while in the SINGLEPLAYER campaign, you get ejected and the game is saved for you to resume when you have connection.

FAIL!
I am so ragefull right now... i don't know how else to describe it...
Servers has been pretty much off-line for 20 hours past launch, and no build-in Single Player.
Seriously Blizzard, i thought you were cool... apparently not...

It... it hasn't even been live for 20 hours. Not even 12 hours...

Well not in the US anyway

[ank]

Well, it has in Europe.
know a lot of people who got it at midnight...
then starred at a login screen until they fell asleep.

[nenjin]

Always online DRM requires a constant connection to the server. What you're talking about is DRM which authenticates on run, which is what this is. It requires a login but after that you can continue to play even if you lose connection. In contrast, look at Settlers 7... if you lose internet connection for even a second while in the SINGLEPLAYER campaign, you get ejected and the game is saved for you to resume when you have connection.

You don't need to explain online DRM to me, thanks. And for the record, there are plenty of things that can kick you from the game right now that has nothing to do with the status of your internet connection. And people have lost entire acts right now because of this issue.

So regardless of how it's supposed to be working, right now, its an exemplar of shitty always-on DRM.