Doesn’t feel any different than punishing mono-element builds in D2 if you didn’t have Infinity and other rare/costly items to overcome them. So, while I know you’re in the “immunities shouldn’t be a thing” camp, high resistances are still going to be a deterrent socially unless the build coincidentally brings something else beneficial like strong (de)buffs.
Being so stringent may be tolerable for fixed encounters, but if you go through a dozen keys you think “work” for your build with mysterious detriments, just to find out 8 of the pool sabotages it, you’re going to be walking away from the game pretty miffed at the time wasted. And that’s a key facet of my overall push. Don’t waste the player’s time. Do it enough and they’ll just play something else, perhaps forever.
Dont want to reiterate previous discussions too much, so I’ll just focus on a few things I dont think I have talked about in previous discussions about respecs.
I think it is important key dungeons are not as simple as “fire resistance dungeon”, or cold etc. Rather the dungeon generator should try to always make sure that maybe there cant be more than 33% monsters in each dungeon with fire resist, or more than 33% with cold resist etc. Similar, based on the “monster archetypes” Blizzard talked about in their Q1 blog post, it needs to make sure a single dungeon isn’t filled only with Swarmers etc. Each dungeon need to have a wide representation of monster types, abilities, defenses/resistances etc. Both so you can’t just fish around for the perfect key dungeon for you (though some will of course be better than others, which is fine), and you should always be able to feel like a dungeon has something that allows your build to shine (no matter if it is murdering groups of enemies, or high single target dmg for a boss, being able to crowd control targets that might otherwise have been dangerous, or enemies being relatively weak to whatever type of dmg you deal etc.).
As for going through keys to get a good dungeon (other than the above, where good and bad dungeons shouldn’t be too different), I assume Blizzard want keys to be like getting GRift keys in D3. Personally, I wouldnt mind if they removed that concept entirely, and just let people enter a dungeon without consuming a key first.
Though then there should probably be a short time limit so you cant just restart the dungeon every second (probably wouldn’t be great for server performance either). Like maybe a few minutes between each new dungeon creation. Though, since it also seems Blizzard want you to move to each dungeon in the overworld, with build in down time for travelling, such a time limit might be completely unnecessary.
Another thing is, I really, really hope, there are no GRift-like time limits in D4. That alone should make it much more viable to push through a dungeon, even if it is not perfect. Because then you wont be punished if it takes 16 minutes instead of 14 minutes to get through.
Time limits in an A-RPG makes absolutely no sense. Everything is already about time efficiency, so people will automatically try to do it fast. Penalizing people twice for a slow clear is not needed.
Plus it penalizes tanky builds, which is already a build type that is often underrepresented in A-RPGs due to having lower efficiency.
Anyway, honestly, while I really care about the respec issue (and D3 has only shown to me that it is even more important than I thought), yeah, some things are more important.
D4 having a skill modification system is more important. Build customization with a bunch of choices and depth. Meaningful, consequential tactical combat is more important. If those are not there, then the game is likely bad and it wont exactly matter if we can freely respec or not.
And even if you can respec nearly freely (it is of course worth remembering that even D3 has a few limits on skill respecs), do not have unlimited skill points. That is just silly.
Just a side comment on the “no time limits” bit you talked about, I agree in the majority of cases, but I could see certain exceptions, with two broad categories. The first would be a minimum time, where you have to survive waves of enemies or environmental effects or whatever. Tough it out past the limit and you are good. The second would be race type challenges, where you are trying to achieve an objective before something happens to make it obsolete, like rescuing someone before they get killed, or stopping a ritual before it is completed.
Both types of challenges could still have multiple paths to victory that could be taken advantage of by different build types, and so long as you know what you are getting into before it starts, and they don’t make up all or the large majority of available challenges, I don’t see any problem with that.
True. Was mostly talking end-game dungeons, bosses etc. In some campaign quests it might make sense to have a time limit, and wouldn’t consider a survive for X time a time limited event, it is nearly the opposite (as long as they dont ask you to also kill all the enemies within that time).
I also dont mind the D3 chests events where enemies spawn for a little while and you need to kill them. But they are also small flavor events, not an all-encompassing end-game system (also, achievements, and even cosmetic rewards for completting stuff within X minutes is fine too. Though there could likewise be achievements and cosmetic rewards for thoroughly clearing content.).
Honestly, I was thinking about that sort of timed event being available either as the theme of specific keyed dungeons, or as a modification of a normal keyed dungeon. So, for example, you take a normal dungeon where the traditional goal is kill the stuff, beat the boss, get the loot, and make it a rescue dungeon by applying a modifier. You then have to rush through to certain objectives to save the day, perhaps including a harrowing escape as you get chased out. You may not necessarily have to beat the boss, you are likely to get a reward for success to make up for lost loot, etc.
In other words, take the thing we know is designed to be end game content (keyed dungeons), and mix things up in very significant ways by altering what your goals are, rather than just adjusting what bad guys are running around inside it. That way, in theory, there is a mechanism in place to create more variety of things for people to do.
Ah, okay. Yeah, could be cool.
I dont think it is what Blizzard will go for, since it likely needs to fit into a leaderboard
But I’d be all for more varied content.
Maybe a better fit for such events is in the overworld though? So a bit like events in D3, just turned into actual end-game both in terms of difficulty and reward?
Definitely also a possibility. After all, we know there will be world bosses, and having a “world event” that is something like what I talked about seems totally doable.
The current D4 system is not very different from the skill gem system in PoE when it comes to maxing out skills. In there you are able to get all the skills in the game on just one character and max them out. The difference in PoE however comes from your talent tree and ascendance points, both of which impact your character progression significantly.
Point being, I can accept being able to max out the skills eventually, so long as there is another interesting talent tree which offers a lot of customization and allows you to differentiate your character from others. What I cannot accept however is Blizzard implementing very lacklustre skill and talent trees just so that they can pretend they are catering to the D2 fans. The Blizzcon footage didn’t encourage me too much, but as it is still very very early I’m sure they will implement much better skill and talent tree systems. I hope so atleast, because they seemed actually worse than the systems in D2 lol.
I’d rather avoid instances of dungeons that are basically “Have a hyper-mobility build or you’re out of luck!” because I think most of us would agree that D3 got too hectic on pacing. Things like the GR timer just affirmed that need to gottagofast.
What would be more optimal is slight bonuses for clearing specific objectives. For example, defeating 90% of the monsters in the entire zone could provide a slight MF boost to an end-dropped chest. Exploring and discovering certain doodads may weaken the boss, though still beatable without. Finding NPCs/encampments to rescue can offer various benefits. Basically, anything to encourage exploration and not leaving mobs alive instead of just filling a gauge ASAP and yeeting yourself out to repeat the process. I’ve always felt a certain degree of “heroism” is lost in the “skip everything but the objective” type of play.
I like skill modification. I think it brings a sense of control over how you want your skills to interact with monsters and environment. The problem with D3 skill modification is that many of them are just an element change, which ends up being quite stupid sometimes. For example, an iconic Shocking Bolts is now fire. Why? It still has a lightining look to it, but now it’s orange… There’s nothing interesting in a colour palette, nor it brings anything new mechanic-wise to the game.
May be if they could find a way to change aspects of your skills while also getting a sense of progression while doing so, you could have a nice and creative system. May be devs can add some collectibles that enhance and change your skills, but you have to acquire them through some event, similar to the way you get it on Median XL. This way you can have a good Charm system that actually makes builds take some time to polish.
This charm system could even replace the Skill Tomes point allocation. Think about it, once you get a Skill Tome, you use it and it just makes the item dissapear, giving you a point in return. But if the skill tome becomes a charm, now it is collectible, you can use it to craft more potent charms, you can combine them, you can trade them, you can try to find them all, you can cube them, you can admire them, etc. Before, grabbing a Skill Tome is just a step to get a Skill point. Now, with Charms, a lot of other options come into being.
I like being able to swap skills at will. I don’t want to be punished for trying out a different build, and leveling a new character will eventually become a chore to do, so that’s a no-no for me. I don’t see the point in starting a new character of the same class, just to makes it’s levels go up so I can now allocate the points the more efficient way.
People are wrongfully expecting D4 to be some “upgraded” version of d2 or d3.
The downside to the d3 system is not only are your abilities limited by level but also the rune combinations. But eventually you end up with all of them.
The downside to the d2 system is you can only specialize in a few things, are also limited by level and you’ll never have all of them requiring multiple alts of the same character type to try everything.
There’s honestly nothing wrong with how D4’s skill system is presented to the player because it gives you all of the choices but still requires you to make decisions until you’ve progressed far enough into the end-game to the point where it would be detrimental to remake your character just to use a new skill.
The skill twig and skill increases from legendaries could be hugely improved but that’s not what you’re complaining about.
I think that’s an assumption on your part. Sounds like you are talking about casual gameplay, in which case it’s the same thing we have now with D3 except more rigid for the same result.
For the people who are topping the leaderboards, they will always want what plays best, this means they will have to roll a new character for every unique task. For everyone else (the casuals), they will keep playing what they want to play because they aren’t trying to compete.
The flexibility with the current Diablo 3 system means people don’t have to have multiple versions of the same class, which imo is a quality of life perk.
I understand the value of feeling progression but not at the cost of QoL for end game, where players will spend majority of their time. What you seem to want would have no affect on players that it matters little too but would be an extreme annoyance to those whose gameplay would be affected.
You can add a respec cost but it would be trivial to end game players who know how to farm and detrimental to players who don’t. The “artificial” progression D4 seems to want to offer is the best middle ground.
If you are asking for a respect cost than I think the argument is more about a gold sink than feeling of progression since the D4 skill tree satisfies both the desires for feels of progression as well as QoL for end game competitive players.
In D2 you got skill points from doing quests. In D1 you would be able to get skill tomes (called spell tomes) that you could use to level up your skills. Now in D1 they were tied to a stat known as magic. The only one that could possibly max out (by level of the skill) was the sorcerer. He was also the one that had the ability to unlock all skills (spells). But still you could use gear that would have magic on it as an affix to raise your magic stat enough to not only learn some skills. But also raise them as high as you could possibly go with the highest magic stat you could get through items, attribute points and attribute potions.
In D1 I never did unlock all skills nor raise all to max. I only unlocked those that I wanted to use. I didn’t feel gimped our like there were things in the game that I couldn’t beat. Heck I had a Flame Swordsman Warrior where I would use Fireball to soften up the enemies then finish them off with the sword.
But still the amount of time it will take to unlock any high amount of skills and take them anywhere near max could, if the game is designed right, take longer than it would to start up another character to try out a different build or have a different build for a purpose that the current build cannot handle.
Also we forget the talents as well they will play a good role in helping us use the skill that we have to be able to clear things that are hard to clear without needing to unlock or max out our skills. Plus you have items as well that could give us a way to shore up the weaknesses in the build that we have.
Blizz did say at Blizzcon that skill points not only would increase the level of the skill but unlock new choices for that skill. Now if that is not something either similar to runes or perks I don’t know what else is.
Remember clueso didn’t say skill modification. Clueso said runes, instead of skill modification. Now do you see how nitpicky I can get huh.
I wouldn’t see a huge problem with POE passives if it was easy to re-shuffle them. Which is not the case.
I understand the allure of the semi-permanence of choice when building a character, but it is very unforgiving to new players who may not know or understand the inner workings of the system. It is not fulfilling to go by a guide either.
For me, I like the idea of POE trees. But I think that the best way would have been if there was a mode like “Hardcore” where your choices were permanent, and another mode with free or easily acessible talent reset.
I liked Wolcen exactly because resetting talents didn’t feel too prohibitive there.
I will disagree with this.
People don’t really like mediocrity. People like extremes.
If D4 would shoot for a more casual and simple approach - it will simply be criticized for being underwhelming and worse than those games.
It needs to offer something else if it shoots for simplicity, or go for complexity and customization instead, expanding on the POE systems.
Depends of how high it is.
In Wolcen for example the cost is high, but it doesn’t feel prohibitive to reset even your entire tree.
In POE the cost is so high that resetting your entire tree is basically never an option.
No , they will not. They will change mechanics of the skill, nothing more. What Shadout meant by that is the simple fact of having like 10 skills in one AND then change the mechanics of how it works. I would point out some simple examples from POE:
EXAMPLE 1
Summon Ice golem + barrage support = ice golem can shoot his skills much faster, less dmg. You can have one.
Summon ice golem + barrage support + Primordial chain , unique amulet = ice golem can shoot faster, less dmg. You can have 4 golem, they have less size (this means they have smaller hitbox), less life and much less dmg (35% less). Less % dmg is multiplicative multiplier (one comes from item, one from support gem), aka 62% less dmg from barrage support gem (take this as modification) and 35% less dmg from amulet, so you do X=Y x 1 x 0,38 x 0,35 x 4(number of golems) = 0,532 x Y dmg where Y is flat dmg of golems skill and X is total dmg (small x is meant as multiplication, * doesnt work in preview text). To compare this without legendary item, X=Y x 1 x 0,38 = 0,38 x Y. This is without change to attack speed of golem, which would add another *2 or *3 to the first formula. This allows to apply much more procs too.
EXAMPLE 2
Fireball + Greater Multiple Projectile + Concentrated effect
vs.
Fireball + Greater Multiple Projectile + Ignite Proliferation
First version of the skill is meant to kill with fireball hit/explosion (CHC and CHD, in the terms of Diablo nomenclature, is important) while second version is meant for ignite damage over time. First version needs rares mostly, second version (depending on budget) can use very cheap uniques like The searing touch staff and is good to go for the dmg. Also, you can scale the first version via converting fire damage to chaos dmg, with stuff like this : The Consuming Dark dagger dual wielding + Infernal Mantle, chest armour. These are 3 archetypes already with 2 totally different playstyles (conversion is mentioned just because it has different scaling than fire only version).
And I can go on and on and on with stuff like this.
EDIT 1 : Forgot to quote original post i replied to.
Make it less efficient to use different characters for different tasks. If you have two characters each are going to level slower, unless you make a silly account-wide systems.
Could make “keys” (If they exist) character bound as well.
Besides, enemies respawn, dungeons reset etc. if you switch characters, which already limits how efficient character jumping can be depending on how endgame is done. Just design the game so different characters have individual endgame progression and can’t easily swap in and out to help each other.
(Though then also don’t make these systems absurd paragon grinds obviously)
It also takes time to lvl chars up, time you could have spend in the endgame instead. So even that comes with a trade off. Make sure powerleveling isn’t an option, make lvling up a meaningful part of a characters journey.
I really disagree with that. It is a sign of a bad a-rpg imo. But it is fine to disagree on that of course.
I’m more a fan of a cooldown instead of a cost (though it could be both) exactly do you can’t circumvent it through farming.
To me it seems more like making a joke out of the RPG part of an A-RPG.
Don’t ever allow maxing out all skills tbh. Don’t even allow maxing out the 6 skills on the action bar.
Let’s say each skill have a lvl 20 skill cap. Then it would take 120 points to max all 6 skills (assuming we sadly won’t get more than 6 skill slots). Then the max amount of skill points from lvls and times should probably be 90-100 skilk points.
So there are meaningful decisions to make.
Regardless of whether you can respec them or not.
Runes are skill modifications.
And yes I know how nitpicky you can get.
Imo there could be free respeccing while leveling through the campaign, so you can experiment, then at max lvl/endgame a respec cooldown/cost takes effect.
There could also be an “arena” where you could try out different specs before committing.
Thing is, if it offers more systems that interacts with each other than for example PoE, Wolcen etc. then each system can be simpler, while the overall mix of systems is more complex. So if you both have deep legendary items, skill mods, passive tree etc. none of them need to be the system that stands out on its own imo.
I believe you said in a recent thread that it was the interactions that created the depth, not just the number of elements.
Imo it just need to be high enough that you aren’t encouraged to respec daily ( or many times a day even). PoE respec cost is too high. Wolcen seemed a bit too low, but closer to what would be optimal (though again I would add a cooldown to ensure the cost never becomes meaningless)
