D4 | Skill and Passive Ideas

General Discussion
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From what I’ve seen of these systems so far, they feel pretty bland. While I think they could still use the attribute system in a cool way. It too feels like something thrown in to give an illusion of depth as is right now.

Something I’ve pondered about is how could they make the system add depth in a way that makes the systems feel connected. Passives, Skills, and Gear. All connected to each other to create a unique character.

The Idea I kind of have in my head is this…
Using a Skill system like Last Epoch. In the case of Diablo 4 you would invest a point into a skill and get a passive within its passive tree with a max of lets say 20 at max rank. Lets use an Example.
Whirlwind - Within this skill could have nodes that increase the AOE, Add a bleed effect, Increase Movement Speed, Resource Costs, etc. But you could also have nodes that act like a basic Legendary power. Something like Whirlwind activates weapon throw at a nearby enemy every 2 seconds while Whirlwind is active. So now maybe you find a legendary with something like when inflicting bleed will use weapon throw on a nearby enemy. Now you have a passive and legendary item that connect with each other. So if you make Whirlwind deal bleed damage through the passives you can have a whirlwind/weapon throw build. Also if these weapon throws also reflect your investments into that skill this could create a deep system for build making and this is only between Skill Passives and Gear.

Now we look at Grim Dawn for our General Class Passive Tree.
I think doing something similar to the devotion system in GD would be a nice addition to D4. This wouldn’t be class specific but would have general bonuses and maybe some special more powerful bonuses that unlock based off your attributes. These would be things like increases to resource gen, dmg bonuses, etc. Things that would allow people to really min/max their character. I think like GD these shouldn’t be unlocked with levels but through playing the game, completing different goals. This would give something more to do besides just grind levels and could give players more content to shoot for. These passives wouldn’t be needed to complete the game for someone casual, but would help for sure doing harder endgame content.

Thoughts?

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I honestly like that skills have bonuses/upgrades that can be unlocked with character’s primary stats. That said, all skills should have bonuses that for each different primary stat instead of just one or two. As in let the barbarian have skill bonuses pertaining to not just strength and dexterity, but also willpower and intellect. Or allow the sorceress to have bonuses for strength and dexterity.

(Taken from another thread)
Using Whirlwind as an example:
The node with the fury regen on hit function could have the following Willpower bonus:

  • “Whirlwind cost 15% less fury” or “Every fury point you regain from using whirlwind increases your defense and resistances 1.5% for 5 seconds. This effect stacks 10 times”

For intellect, they could introduce a node with the effect:
“Whirlwind has 30% chance to inflict bleed or crushing blow (depending on weapon) on enemies for 3 seconds”.

Then the intellect bonus could be:

  • “Enemies inflicted with bleed or crushing blow from Whirlwind takes 10% more damage from your attacks.”
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I made this^^

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We are having the same (or at least similar) thoughts on that issue:

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I also have made made something very similar for D4’s Whirlwind.

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I personally would prefer a list for passive skills rather than several passive skill trees like in Grim Dawn.

They could combine it with having both Passive Skills that can be increased incrementally, as well as “Keystone” Passives that significantly change the way a mechanic works or how a class plays which are gonna get unlocked by spending several points at once in that “Keystone” Passive.

Imgur

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A few more can be found here, if you are interested.

I think it should be both: you would gain Passive Skill Points while leveling up, and some from doing specific quests and maybe also from specific achievements.

That was how it worked in D2, where you could get +4 additional skill points in each difficulties from doing certain quests (Den of Evil, Radament, Izual) in addition to gaining skill points from leveling up.

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How much of that tree would even be used, realistically? You put a lot into it, looks nice. :clap:

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not too much i guess
at least enough to fully max out 2 active skills completely?
which you probably wouldnt want to do but rather choose 1 way for each skill you want to use
but thats up to you
have 1-2 powerhouse skills and a view supports or a greater variety of strong skills

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If the max level is 40 and we receive 2 points per level that gives us a total of 80 points to use.
We will defiantly need to pay attention to what we are selecting as the points will be limited.

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i think thats the point of a good skill system and also what blizzard realized they should return to

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Sadly the blog said we would max 30-40% of the skill tree as far as I recall, which points toward Blizzard not realizing anything at all :frowning:
That number should be closer to 10%-15%

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a lot changed since then already
i do not take anything for finalized yet
for example not the attribute system AHHAHAAHAHAH

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The paragon system as it is in D3 hopefully will not be in D4.
Warhammer Chaosbane has a much better Legendary levels system(like paragon in D3) which is much more better. You can spend the level points to increase several available abilities in terms of “a chance” to get some damage buff/ danage reduction/healing. You will have something like: 30% chance on crit to do 30% more damage next 5seconds and 40% chance on hit to heal 10%life… all this combined if have enough level points, because each level point can be spent to increase either chance, either amount. quite clever system.

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RNG as to whether you got a crit.
RNG as to whether the crit causes more damage.
RNG as to whether the damage gives you healing.

So, it’s better because there’s even more RNG involved?

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Read carefully and think before jump to conclusion.
It is 30% chance on crit, you have 50%+ crit chance on high level char, to do more damage in the next 5 seconds, so, since you fire around 2 times a sec => you enable the buff in around 3 sec, get it?

those numbers where example anyway, depend on level points available

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For those who care. I made some very rough mock ups. Disclaimer I don’t edit stuff or have I ever really done anything like this. So when I say “rough” I mean they are pretty garbage lol. But they get the point across.
I can’t post links so just replace /com with .com

This is the Idea for skill passives, each skill would have something like this…
I try to avoid damage increases on skill passives. As ranking them up would increase their damage and would remove the need for a damage passive. This system is also meant to play off gear a bit more. Combining different powers of skills and gear to create interesting Skill/Gear combos
i.imgur/com/cTaTZy9.jpg

this idea is for the general passives. The idea is each set of nodes would have a theme of some kind, represented kind of by the images attached to them. This would be something general across all classes. You will most likely have to zoom in on this one to see anything. like I said don’t do this at all and I just kind of threw it together. How you gain points for this is up for debate. But the idea I had in mind was doing a variety of different activities in game that would gain points, such as completing story quests, defeating World bosses, etc.
i.imgur/com/8wzPosR.jpg

Some final notes. I know a lot of people are fans of the Attribute bonuses on passives. I think the ideas above still allow for this and could be adjusted for that as well. imo the idea is difficult to balance around without making it either being pointless or just too powerful. I think that system would be better suited around a general passive system than skills. being able to have things like +.25 All Res per point of Intelligence as a node or .2% Chance to Stun per point of Strength

So far I have really like a lot of the ideas people have shared here, I hope they take things like this into consideration and if others have more Ideas I’d love to see them

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Even if it is a rough photoshop, it is better than nothing since it still helps to get the point across, which still is better than a wall of text.

You can simply put it into code, then it looks like this:
i.imgur.com/cTaTZy9.jpg
…so you can actually post the whole link.

It looks a lot like the Skill System from Last Epoch, which is a very good thing.
I also took a lot of inspiration from it for my mockups/concept art.

The only thing that is missing from your concept is an indicator of how you unlock Major Nodes? By spending 1 Point into them? By spending several points into them at once? Or do they unlock automatically once you have points in all adjusted nodes?

It depends on whether these two sources of damage increase are multiplicative with each other or additive.

When they are additive, sure, it becomes less impactful, but if they are multiplicative, then they amplify each other.

I personally would put “increased damage” on the skill tree to upgrade a skill, but give it a smaller amount than the rest of the upgrades, as you can see in the images I shared in my previous post in this thread.

That is very Grim Dawn-like.

It is just a personal preference of mine, but I think that Passive Skills should be class specific, maybe with only a few exceptions. And also that things like PoE’s Keystone Passives are great, just without pre-required nodes.

I think I already posted them here.

I think that an Attribute System is good for general passive buffs, the Passive Skill System could be for more specific passive bonuses, and the upgrades on the active skills themself, are skill specific.

This here is what I came up with for the Attribute System:

Imgur

^^the numbers may need to be adjusted a bit.

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