Wowbagger_TIP wrote on Apr 23, 2012, 01:24:

Dades wrote on Apr 23, 2012, 00:19:
The problem with the rune system is that they came up with them a long time ago but didn't patch them in until beta 13. The game launches next month which hasn't really given them a lot of time to make the system deep and interesting. Right now most of the rune activations are either very situational or have an obvious upgrade path. The user interface for both it and the skill system is very clumsy and a big indicator of the problem that they tried to go back to the drawing board too close to release. It will change drastically and in fact already has a few times which makes defending their implementation a moot point.

Skill trees in Diablo 2 had some problems but eventually got patched into a very interesting mix of free form customization while still retaining synergies for people who wanted a linear path.

Well maybe I'll check back in six months to a year and see if it's any better. Right now, there's Torchlight 2 on the horizon, Path of Exile which has more interesting character progression options, and others like Krater and Grim Dawn, and maybe even GW2 if it doesn't suck. I think I'll wait and see how those turn out. At least they seem to be trying something more interesting. Doubt they'll take 10 years to do it too.