Diablo IV Quarterly Update - Q3 September 2020

I disagree, I don’t see any reason respec should be restricted at all.

hahahahahaah
change builds in battle XDDDDD
whats next?
how about how about a button to fly all over the map so you dont have to deal with these annoying enemies xD

I got one even better, how about i push a button on the battlefield and change my cold sorcerer to a wirlwind barbarian, just like that, that should teach those immune to cold monsters a leasson.

Wait, why stop there? I want half of druid skills in case the situation gets ugly, you never know when your Muscular Barbarian Sorcerer needs some wolfs to aid in battle.

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I know you are being sarcastic, but that is not actually a bad idea. If I have 2 characters properly geared, and I could push a button to change them on the fly. I don’t remember any other ARPG doing something like that. So, at least, it would be unique.

I don’t like to have to end my game and start a new one just to change characters, so, that would solve that particular issue I have. Some restriction would be necessary though.

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i wouldnt argue against a “shared story”
but changing anything IN BATTLE just destroys the whole point of making proper builds to deal with THE GAME and not just with a single enemy xD

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Just add a button that kills all monsters in the game, and mail their loot to you. Then we dont need to worry about silly stuff like builds. Or skills. Or anything.

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@ Shadout They kind of have that in Diablo 1, see DiabLoL 1 Ep7 “HELLo Diablo” 2:27 :wink:

I like your idea, where each skill node can be assigned 1 point at a time, however I wouldn’t cap the number of points that a node can take (more open-ended is better).

I would also add generic node options such as “Elemental Mastery” that will have skill nodes such as “Reduce the mana cost of elemental skills by 2%” or “Each different fire skill an enemy is hit by increases the burn damage they take by 3%”, plus others.

This will make the choice more complex i.e. do you invest in the main skill further or buff it with the support skills?

I hope the skills won’t all be damage related, they really need to redesign bonuses to be more modular eg. number of projectiles, splitting or piercing projectiles, damage over time effects, special effects for different damage types (I think Angelic/Demonic power would do better as a pure damage type - bring back attributes such as Vitality, Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence - and give them effects as well eg. Strength gives vitality and health regen, Dexterity gives attack speed and movespeed, and Intelligence gives elemental resistances and resource cost reduction).

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Ironically Darkspore did it and there was much skill in it due to a mechanic there with a super skill on each hero (large cooldown skill).

You’d go in a map with a squad of 3 heroes and may change them (some limitations still applied on that) and while not active their skill cooldowns regenerate. So, on different maps you’d open with different heroes and rotations, and in specific situations the optimal hero is different. PvP had the very same structure, so you’d had to know which hero is a counter to which. Each hero had 4 skills and there were around 30 heroes.

I am not saying such mechanic should be in core Diablo 4 mode, just that it could work in some arcade mode when done properly.

Dynamic skill changes in the battle is not respec or anything like that. It shouldn’t matter as long as you possess those skills and invested on it. In Diablo 3 we don’t do that because most of our skills determined by our gear already, back in D3 classic and D2 times we used to do that all the time.
Kripparian did the first hardcore Diablo kill in D3 classic by the help of his friend changing his skill at the second part of the fight. Skill swaps should be allowed by no questions asked.

A few months ago they talked about D4 Barbarian’s arsenal ability and now we heard about Sorceress’ synergy ability for slotting active skills. What really keeps you from swapping out a synergized ability to be an active one?

Free respec where you can reallocate entire point pool is debateable if there would be skill levels ofcourse but changing skills on the fly with a small punishment always welcome. You’re just changing skill setup limited to six actions when you possess the skill level currently to adapt. Only restriction to this perhaps not being allowed to swap them out when they’re on cooldown.

Organizing your skillbar should always be possible in RPGs and also is in most because they have a proper skill point system and you can’t just have everything

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Swapping skills and changing skill points is the same in a game without skill points. Should never be allowed on the fly.

If a game has skill points, then I guess you can be allowed to switch out skills IF the skill point cap is low enough that you cant get multiple builds within the skill point cap.
If you can max 30-40% of the skill tree in Diablo 4, as Blizzard claimed they were aiming for, then you might have 9-13 skills maxed (with upgrades), assuming around 30 skills per class.
With a 6 skill slot bar, those 9-12 skills would represent a lot of different builds. It should definitely not be possible to switch those out on the fly. That is called a respec.

Now, if you only have enough skill points to max 5 skills (like 100 skill points with 20 skill lvl cap), and we have 6 skill slots, then allowing people to switch out skills on the fly could be more balanced. Since then we are talking switching to non-maxed skills - making the build a hybrid build vs. someone who focused on only 6 skills. Which comes with build-in balancing at least (albeit with potential balance issues of one-point wonders dominating).
However, even in such a case the question remains, if you can max 13 skills due to the amount of available skill points, why not just give the player 13 skill slots? The skill slots and skill points should fit together. In all cases it is completely unnecessary to allow people to switch skills on the fly.
That is just having a bad UI then.

Edit: The amount of skill slots is not that important here (although, it is important, and 6 skill slots is too low!). A game can be balanced around having 3, 6, 15 or 40 maxed skills or whatever. Working well in all scenarios.
You can’t have a good game balanced around 6 maxed skills, but then allow 15 maxed skills. Pick the amount that fits the gameplay, based on stuff like;
do enemies have resistances, so you need multiple dmg types? do you need to use multiple different defensive buffs to protect against different enemy attacks? do you need to have single target, AoE, low cost, high cost etc. attacks to handle different situations. And so on.
Diablo 4 could surely be designed to work well with max 6 skills. Or 20. But the number and the gameplay has to fit together.

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yeah so; if that’s the case then you’re still using it to do something

Diablo 2 had 99 skill points so you could max out 4 skills and the rest of the skill points left scattered to unlock some of the others.

4 out of i dont know how many active skill each class had but i bet is around 30%.

Leveling up was a big part of Diablo 2 it felt good and mean something, unlocking skills or finaly have enough strenght to wear that armor.

Full respec is is a bit too much, i like the ideea that you can experiment and have fun until the end game and then fine tune your build at a cost.

There is not a real choice if there is no consequences, In Diablo 3 you cannot i repeat you cannot break your character class because all classes are on autopilot leveling up system.

Let people fail, thats how they learn, the game, the mechanics, all of it.

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On Diablo 2 Sorceress I count 30 skills.
Requiring 600 skill points to max everything.
You get 110 skill points (98 from lvls, 12 from quests)
So you can max 18.3% of the skill tree (and effectively less, due to points spend on pre-reqs in Diablo 2).
Which is much more reasonable than being able to max 30-40% of the tree.
(that does not mean the D2 skill tree is good; it is tiny and lacks interesting skill upgrades/modifications)

Limiting how much of the skill tree a single character can get allows for more different builds to be made. More interesting gameplay. More replayability.

Hopefully Blizzard realizes that.

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I hope they move away from Diablo 3 philosophy, auto stats, auto skills, auto everything, full respec at will.

There not much depth when everything is on autopilot.

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This picture illustrates pretty good why we need to be able to turn off other players customizations:

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Yes - good thoughts… I think weapon damage should only be used where it makes sense and is otherwise not used at all. Some skills and most spells don’t fall into this category. “my meteor is super strong because I have this sword but is totally useless without” doesn’t work. The spell can still be buffed by ‘% dam’, ‘+ dam’ and ‘+skills’ modifiers on staves, wands, off-hands and other items and by skill points, synergies and passives on the skill tree/s

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Agreed. This one is actually easy. You should be able to use all the skills you have learned (by putting points in the skill tree/web/screen/…) anytime. It’s just a UI issue (probably a harder one on controller - again, please create specialized/uncompromized UIs for controller and keyboard/mouse). By writing this I’m not so sure if getting 30-40% of the tree is still too much.

I think the tree has potential, but I would like to have more choices. More meaningfull choices please, +1 bolt to charged bolt is mendatory there is no real choice you always want to have both or your charged bolt is less powerfull. Just for example, it does xx times more damage, but adds xx seconds cooldown. Or a signature-spell does xx more damage, but now it costs mana … So it changes the way the skill is used in combat.

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