Have they gone away with having all skill/spell damage be tied to weapon damage? I see that weapons still provide the Attack stat, I hope that’s only for physical attacks?
Noone knows for sure but I don’t think so
I think they used the ATK stat (instead of Damage) on weapons cause there will be also DEF stat on each individual target (mob or player). And no, don’t think that skill will “coincide” with the ATK as D3 did, it’s quite easy tbh to see not to repeat that one
Just guessing, since we have no confirmation otherwise, but I think that was something they considered a success from D3. It allowed the team to balance the experience of physical damage dealers and casters around a single lever (the weapon damage). It also allowed all classes’ spells to be treated equally by the game.
Traditional ARPGs might have scaled them differently, working the caster’s power gain off of an INT stat for example. This meant that developers had to deal with spells cast by INT-main stat classes very differently than from other classes that had no impetus to stack INT. It created a mathematical puzzle that was elegantly solved by simply balancing around the weapon as the primary source of player power.
I honestly don’t have a problem with it, since it simplifies the mathematical model considerably and makes scaling concerns apply equally to all classes, again keep the balancing as simplified as possible. When combined with simply having the game auto-fill your stat allocations for you in an optimal way, people had a better game experience.
One of the concepts I think is very critical in D4 is the idea that if the player is given a choice, the choices should be equally viable choices, and those choices should be meaningful.
Old schools stats were not such a choice. There was an optimum solution to stats. There really wasn’t a meaningful choice. There weren’t viable alternatives. There was one right solution. So, there’s no reason to have it in the game. Make it baseline and let the player spend their time choosing which spells to use, and in D2, where to allocate those spell points to maximize your synergies. That’s a meaningful choice.
We’ll see how they end up working things for casters in D4. We don’t have enough information yet to judge.
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I disagree with that big time. Yes there is an optimum solution… that’s fine. It doesn’t mean there is no meaningful choice. This is the way I see it. You should get some benefit out of every stat. So if you are leveling and you need some extra stat to use a really good weapon/armor so you pump that stat up a bit but then you find that “endgame” weapon that doesn’t have the same stat requirement. The stat should still give good benefit even then. It isn’t wasted, it isn’t optimal. The journey should be meaningful… someone who is going to play the game for thousands of hours should suffer some in the early/mid game to squeeze out a few extra bonuses in the endgame… more “casual” players won’t progress through end game activities as fast/easily and that is fine.
I personally would prefer it if for both physical weapon attacks (Bash, Whirlwind, Pulverize, Multishot, etc) and spells (Fireball, Blizzard, Cataclysm, etc) ~1/2 of a skills total damage comes from the weapon, and the other ~1/2 of the total damage of a skills comes from the skill itself.
A bit like this:
https://imgur.com/wwJ0Yfk
https://imgur.com/LPsqzsw
I don’t think auto-stat made a better experience in D3. ^^’
But it’s true that tying all skill damage to weapon made the game easier to grasp and balance. Though I prefer the way it is handled in D4 where skills provide raw numbers that are multiplied by weapon, and not the other way around.
I’m not very fond of that, it makes choosing the skills more complex for no real benefit.
However, there could be a talent that adds damage to a skill category based on weapon Attack or any other “weapon damage” stat.
The advantage is that neither spell casters, nor physical based attackers will be better then the other, while at the same time the weapons damage will not have such a massive impact as it has in D3, which allows you more leeway in the choice of your weapons.
Also, when you wear a 1h weapon + shield instead of a 2hander or dual wield, you will only loose ~25% damage as compared to loosing ~50% damage where a skills damage only depends on the weapon. This will make shields much more useful and viable.
Also, I don’t understand how this would make choosing skills more complex, as you say.
If there is an optimum solution, there’s no reason not to take it. No player is going to want to willingly gimp their character. All this type of system does is penalize new players and players who don’t meticulously plan their character from inception. There’s no “meaning” in that journey, except that eventually you find out you have to abandon your first character and make a new one because you allocated all the stats wrong. That’s a terrible gaming experience and was a major flaw of D2 and I’m glad to see a solution to it that worked in D3.
I’m not against the idea of having stat points in the game, though. I just think that if they’re going to be there, they need to offer a meaningful choice. That would require a complete rethink of the entire STR, DEX, INT, VIT concept and a whole new vision. I’m not sure what that vision is, frankly, because every suggestion I’ve ever seen ends up being either:
- Stack your one main stat as much as possible
- Stack only the bare minimum requirements for several, then dump into one
- Stack in a ratio of x:y for optimum power
None of those is a meaningful choice to the player. It’s just a variation on the D2 system with a different optimum solution. I’m open to new ideas, of course, but I think this is one where the class-specific power gain needs to just be automatically applied when you level as a function of your chosen class. Your meaningful choice here was made at the character selection screen. You chose a barbarian and not a druid or a sorceress, so you won’t allocate your stats like a druid or sorceress. If you want to further customize the stats, you do it with your gear. IMO, they should get rid of this non-choice and let players focus on choices that do matter like your skill choices and supporting gear.
I like the idea of getting points to allocate into your spells to make them stronger. I think it lets you customize your character, choose which spells you want and which you’re willing to pass on, then which ones you want to make your most powerful. Grim Dawn’s system works like. With some spells, there are key breakpoints. Some have diminishing returns. I do worry about it becoming a math problem someone solves with a spreadsheet, which is something I really want to avoid, but I do like the principle.
Regarding the power gain, what you’re suggesting is a combination of a linear scaling system where damage comes from your spell level, combined with a multiplier system that comes from the weapon damage. I think that’s unnecessarily complicated. You can accomplish the same goal by simply rolling all of the intended power gain into the single multiplier number.
Example:
Instead of Arcane Orb, Skill Level 100 (cost: 30 AP) does 200% weapon damage + 8000, simplify it to:
- Skill level 1: 200% weapon damage
- Skill level 2: 215% weapon damage
- Skill level 3: 230%… etc
You can vary this in many ways, reducing or increasing the mana cost, changing the AoE size, changing the scaling to include diminishing returns, or whatever. The main point though, is that you have a simple to understand spell power progression. You don’t need to get out a spreadsheet to see how the linear and the multiplicative scaling parts of it interacts. Your linear scaling component is your weapon damage. Your multiplier is determined by the spell and it’s level.
What do you think?
It’s more complex because I can’t know if my Arcane Orb makes more damage to single target (250%) or AoE (10 000). That’s two different numbers with no direct connection.
There are other, simpler ways to avoid Weapon Damage/Attack dominance, make Shields relevant or any other customization possibility.
Your system would function, no problem, just not the most intuitive possible.
With this reasoning, you can also take out Skill and Talent points ^^ (that was exactly the mindset of the D3 team when they did it, with the results we now witness).
The question is not about finding the optimum build, but making a choice that creates emotional commitment to the character. It’s me that made this 220 Strength / 105 Dexterity / 290 Vitality Barbarian, by allocating my points every level, not an automatic AI.
Of course the four D2 Attributes were bad (though it’s not true that every class build needed the same allocation) and it would need many adjustments to be more viable (it’s been discussed on other topics). But the same argument could be done for Skills…
That’s how D3 worked before they removed Skill points in 2011.
The problem is the overreliance on Weapon Damage, without it your Meteor won’t scratch a louse on a fallen’s head. D4 has already corrected this issue by interverting the logic : it’s the skill that makes the damage and the Weapon increases it.
You misunderstand. The Arcane Orb explosion is dealing 200% weapon damage + 8.000 flat damage as Arcane. That is both against single targets and the AoE.
Both the initial target as well as the enemies in the explosion take 200% weapon damage + 8.000 flat damage as arcane damage.
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I also like spending skill points because it gives you a sense of progression, but skill points also can be skill specific (meaning that you have skill points that you can only spend on one specific skill into skill-specific upgrades.
Like this:
https://imgur.com/bAqZlGj
https://imgur.com/KBx5akF
This is how Last Epoch and Wolcen do it and in my opinion htat system is superior to how D2 and D4 are doing it (and obviously to D3 as well).
No, it would be more like that the weapon damage modifier always stays the same, while the flat damage increases with your character level (and only with your character level).
That is what the 100 means: the skill level is equivalent to your character level and the +x to skills affix would increase that. The weapon damage modifier always stays the same, regardless of the skill level being 5, or 70, 100 or 107. What would change is the flat damage.
However, both the flat damage and the weapon damage would increase when you spend points into the skill specific talent tree I just showed you above. When you but a point into the skill specific talent that increases the damage of Arcane Orb by 10%, then the 200% weapon damage becomes 220% weapon damage and the 8.000 flat arcane damage become 8.800 flat arcane damage.
But you don’t have to spend points into that skill specific talent.
Increasing the AoE, reducing the mana cost, increasing the damage, changing the Arcane Orb to a Fireball or Frozen Orb or to a Lightning Ball that electrocutes enemies while traveling, etc, all that can be done with a skill specifi skill system.
Why? Why does it need to be super simple? imo neither too simple, nor too complex is what should be aimed for.
It is basically D3’s system, and that is kinda unsatisfactory to me. Games like Grim Dawn or the Median XL mod for D2 have a similar system where ~1/2 of the damage comes from the skill and the other ~half of the damage comes from the weapon and there it works really well.
If 100% of your damage also comes from the weapon, it feels like your skills have no impact on their own. And why shouldn’t a Sorceress who does not wear a wand or a staff (or any weapon) not be able to cast a Fireball?
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As long as it is balanced across classes I dont think the exact system is that important. All classes/builds should desire weapons equally. But 50% from weapon and 50% from the skill seems perfectly fine.
Also, I it might be interesting to have two dmg numbers on weapons; “kinetic”/physical dmg and spell dmg.
So some wand might be 1000 kinetic/6000 spell dmg, and a mace might be 6000 kinetic/1000 spell dmg. While a staff might be 4000/4000 etc. (some RNG in these rolls of course, as well as legendaries breaking the rules, giving you a spellcaster mace etc.)
So a barb who want to focus on Shouts might want to use a wand or staff. A melee sorc might want to use a staff or sword, a pure spellcaster sorc might prefer a wand.
Some skills might benefit from both kinetic and spell dmg in various amounts etc.
I think you should clarify this in your tooltip because it looks like it’s just the 8000 flat Damage that does AoE. ^^
Anyway it makes the differenciation not that important, but what about a skill like Meteor that deals instant Damage + burn Damage, or any other ability with several Damage effects ? That would lead to onerous tooltips…
Again, D4 seems to achieve the same mechanics just with flat Damage for skills and Weapon Attack multiplier.
I like this very much ! I had a similar idea a long time ago but without Skill specific points. This kind of mechanics is getting quite commonplace in modern ARPG, all thanks to D3’s runes that opened the way for skill customization.
Blizzard should have expanded upon it to create a vastly improved system, instead they rely on legendary powers again and this very disappointing Talent tree… 
How would you phrase it?
Maybe change a few words around so it reads like this:
“Hurl an Orb of pure Energy that detonates on impact in a 15 yards radius and deals 200% Weapon Damage as Arcane Damage + and additional 8.000 Damage as Arcane to all enemies hit.”
Funny that you ask about this specific skill, since I still have an older mock up of it.
It would look like this:
https://imgur.com/t58K6xK
Indeed, especially since games like Wolcen and Last Epoch have already done it this way.
No, you couldn’t. There is no “optimum solution” to which skill to pick. The game is designed to make them all potentially valuable in various situations. A player has to choose which ones he wishes to use. That’s a meaningful choice.
The same is true of items. Items are randomly generated. Players have to weigh whether or not any new item is an upgrade or not. It’s not always a straight-forward call because items rarely roll perfectly.
This is not the same as character stats, which do have an “optimum solution.” The character gets maximum power and survivability with that solution. There’s no reason to choose any other solution. It’s not a choice. It’s a solution to a math problem the players shouldn’t be asked to solve. Again, the meaningful choice is made when you select the class. Further customization is provided by gear.
That depends on the mathematical model. In D3, this is true. In D4, it doesn’t have to be. They could design the entire spell system around straight numbers instead of weapon damage exactly as was suggested above.
The reason they don’t do that is because it becomes a nightmare to get those numbers right and scale them properly. You effectively generate a massive spreadsheet for every skill in the game, put 40+ (to accommodate + skills after max) rows on that spreadsheet and start filling in columns, hoping that your numbers feel right in game. Any change to player power means you have to revisit this spreadsheet and retest it from the ground up. Building it around weapon damage allowed it to scale predictably and to change as player power naturally changed.
The other problem is solves is the balance between physical damage and caster damage. Making all skills revolve around the weapon damage means that barb skills are automatically balanced against druid skills, etc. The game doesn’t care what kind of damage it is. It calculates them all the same. It’s intuitive to understand. You don’t have to know, for example, that on a sorceress, you ignore the weapon and stack INT because spell damage is determined by INT. That kind of complexity used to be built in to RPGs. There are people who are absolutely wedded to the idea, but it’s one that really just makes things unnecessarily complicated.
I don’t know why you think there is no reason to pick another solution. The optimum is a moving target throughout the game. Very few people are playing solely for that tip-top endgame condition where you got all the exact right gear and the exact right stats to wear it. Regular people like me will optimize in the middle, and meta players will optimize at the end. Thats fine, I’d say even a good thing. But I’m not talking about D2, where one stat was clearly way better than the other three… they should all be useful so that nothing is wasted, something being a little bit better is not a big deal.
If you can make skills and gear that does not have an optimal solution, then surely you can do it for attributes too.
Now, most games dont manage that, Diablo 2 surely did not. But then they typically dont manage it with skills and gear either.
Good attribute systems do exist though. My personal favorite is Pillars of Eternity’s attribute system, which have multiple different optimal solutions for the same classes/builds, depending on your focus.
For that specific focus, there will be an optimal solution of course, but that is not a flaw, that is the concept of building a character.
Where attributes (and skills/gear) fail, is when everyone (or large groups builds) want the same optimal solution.
Like in D2 with the attribute, or in D3 when if you have picked a set to use, there are no choices in items or affixes after that, and rarely a choice in skills.
I’ve explained it twice. If it’s not getting through, I’m not sure what more I can say.
If the D4 devs want to design an attribute system with meaningful choices that doesn’t have a spreadsheet perfect solution, I’m absolutely open to it. As it exists in the previous Diablo games, there is one best solution and there’s no reason to select anything other than that. Players don’t want to be gimped, so they go to the website, read the guide, copy the build. It’s not a choice. That is something that should be built-in and never offered as a “choice” to players.
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Sure. D2s attributes were bad and quite pointless, and it was the right decision not to have the same in D3.
Yes that’s better imo. Or :
- Hurl an Orb of pure Energy that inflicts Arcane Damage within 15 yards on impact.
200% Weapon Damage
+8,000 Arcane Damage
As for the Meteor tooltip it’s all right, not as heavy as I feared. ^^
I’m not talking about skill choice but skill points.
D3 also took away itemization with oversimplified affixes that could be reduced to +Damage/+Defence, all with this logic of “players should always make the optimum choice”.
What you say about Attributes can be tranferred to affixes. It’s like saying Cooldown Reduction is always better that Energy Reduction. Of course not, it depends on what build you are going for.
So if you have, for example, one Attribute that reduces Cooldown and another that reduces Energy costs, would you say there is no choice ?
Yes, as I said before D4 will switch +Damage and +% between Weapon and Skills. All they have to check now is that Weapon Attack doesn’t multiply Skills by 1000%. ^^