You'll be happy to hear they confirmed that in D4 sets will be a stepping stone to legendaries and mythic weapons. They admitted that sets being the most powerful really cut into your ability to mix-and-match different legendary items.
Yes, I did notice that. That's definitely a better approach.
But as for fixing you into a build, they said skills (which are very similar to how they worked in D2) will be permanent. And talents, similar to WoW talents, will be respec-able. But they said that if you play enough, you should be able to maximize all skills. But you'll still need to choose 6 out of those, however many there will be.
What I want is just a proper incentive to play more than once with each character.
I was brought up with the old Rogue-likes - like Nethack and Moria.
As such, I love experimenting with builds - and I want them to feel meaningful and I want reasons to try more than once to come up with something original
If you mean that every ability ultimately had its damage calculated off of your weapon, it seems that for the demo they showed off, that was still the case. That's why I strongly hope it's just a relic of needing something quick for the demo.
No, it's not just that.
The primary problem with DPS sticks in Diablo 3 is that weapons had no identity. You simply picked the weapon with the biggest number - and the actual skill animation would be identical.
I'm big into identifying with my character in these games. I always have a very specific vision for what weapons I prefer - and how I like to do combat.
So, I don't want to see my guy use a huge magical hammer when I'm actually wielding two daggers, you know?
Thankfully, I did notice that the Diablo 4 demo had specific weapon requirements for skills. For instance, I noticed a skill had "Slashing Weapon" as a requirement.
So, there's hope
Of course, I would go way, way beyond that for weapon identity. I don't want a long sword to feel like a bastard sword.
I want each and every sword to feel different - and to animate differently.
Sort of like Dark Souls does it - except Dark Souls has the most boring magical item design imaginable - not to mention a complete lack of unique skills.
Anthem is actually in the lead here - except it doesn't have nearly enough of what's good about it.
Hellgate London is another example of weapons each having a unique identity ON TOP of the magical properties.