Taking Diablo IV in the direction of Diablo II.
How. Dare. They.
1200+ nodes like POE - RIGHT NOW! sarcasm
(Those of us who like Diablo don’t want POE - I, for one, am happy it’s going the direction of D2)
11 Likes
This is unironically an attempt to obfuscate how much depth the passive tree has by sprinkling in a very minor amount of character dependent passives. defenses? Where the hell is cool stuff like 30% of your mana is taken when you take damage going to sit? between some dinky modifier to frost bolt? So you have to take Frostbolt in order to get actually interesting passives? Yeah, they’re not doing that 100%. Good try by making the background look like a tree and not a twig though.
13 Likes
Overall, Diablo 4 Devs are out of touch with what “gaming” means nowadays. I grew up playing games like diablo, DND etc. The fact that they are trying to put Diablo 4 out like a mobile game rather than an actual IN DEPTH game is a slap in the face. They are trying to mask the Diablo 4 system by acting like there is going to be customization to builds but really its linear. You get 1 skill, you get no customization, there is no extra effects you can earn, unlock, play towards etc. These developers think slapping the Diablo title on a terrible system is going to make players blind but after what happened with Diablo 3 and Diablo Immortal, I am extremely skeptic as to what they think they are doing. Scrap the whole project and start over, look at games like POE, DND, anything. You look at what they did with the necromancer class etc, this is just a final “cash grab” from Blizzard and its saddening. Focusing on a console “friendly” ARPG is ALSO a bad idea, Diablo is a PC based game and should stay that way.
29 Likes
I liked this update (although a lot of questions regarding skills weren’t touched) and I am waiting for the itemization one.
Having strong class identity is the right way to go and sorceress enchantment system looks very nice.
You do realize this is just an Alpha-look of what is to come, right? Think in concepts, not what is displayed exactly in the graphic shown.
2 Likes
Each skill needs to be more customizable. As others have said, there should be a tree for each skill. Even D3 had quite a few options for each skill. Last Epoch is doing it right, that should be the reference.
26 Likes
Feedback
I think it would be nice to have one of these trees for EACH SKILL. Imagine having a tree for sorcerer’s Charged bolt (for example) where you could spec into it’s elemental affinity for ice charged bolt, fire charged bolt etc. You could pick up passives that split the charged bolt into many lower-damage bolts, or passive for a singular gigantic charged bolt. This would give players a lot more agency when designing their builds and differentiate between other sorcerers.
The sorcs enchantment system looks cool and it gives flavor to the class.
I hope the endgame progression system is deep and rewarding, where you have many choices to make. I think that the endgame progression system could take PoE:s ascendency system where you could spec into a subclass of your original class. so that you get an Ascendency talent tree with a lot of decisions.
I hope that the itemization update is deep and rewarding and where every tier of rarity has a pro and a con, like the D2:s Itemization. Where there is a reason to look for White item bases that you could use for runewords or crafting bases. I like it that magic items have higher stats than Rares.
I think that legendary items should be more like D2:s unique items where every legendary item has its own unique affixes. And these affixes are connected in some way to the legendary power “orange text”.
Looking forward to the next update.
24 Likes
Thanks first for the update. It is nice to see some of what you guys are working on. Keep grinding to make the best Diablo ever. The skill tree does look like it is heading in the right direction but work still to do. Everything else that you shared looks great.
5 Likes
Am I the only one that thinks the skill tree looking like an actual tree is kind of cringe?
12 Likes
This tree dissapoints me… it looks like this tree just tries to fool everyone to have depth… just trowing all skills from one class and including 1 or 2 locked passives to them doesnt give the game a real depth. That doesnt give the player the chance to create diverent versions to use specific skills… we need more like mentioned in other replies a passive tree for every skill with multiple passives for each skill and another passive tree for all classes with basic passives for the character for to create many unique ways to play the classes.
hope this tree will change completly … if not i dont have much hope for this game
27 Likes
Hah You beta’d CoH too? Small world.
It that case they better make loot display filter. I don’t want to check every single item out of 1000000 that will drop.
3 Likes
I think the tree also looks like it’s poorly designed and impressions upon me a lack of depth.
18 Likes
Yes, the ADA system needs a lot of rethinking tbh.
But, first of all, you need to explain if you can ONLY get some affixes through meeting ADA requirements. Because that will be an immense problem. It wont work if you cant get fire resistance unless you go Demonic power as an example.
It might be totally fine if Demonic power gives easier access to fire resistance. Or gives access to slightly more fire resistance. Just be extremely careful with the RNG. It will suck to find a bunch of items with the wrong version of fire resist. Tbh, best solution might be something like:
+10% fire resist (+13% with >50 Demonic power). That way, the item is always useful, even if you dont have enough demonic power.
Please let it be skill customization! Seriously. The game needs this basic aspect. Even D3 has it. All competition has moved far ahead on it.
And it is a direct way to add character power outside of items.
I dont think magic items should have any relevance in end-game, but it is good to hear you are thinking about how to differentiate the item qualities. Especially rare, legendary, “legendary-rare” and mythic.
Praise the sun!
No really, this is addressing one of the main concerns from the Blizzcon presentation.
However… sorry, still not very good.
Branches are still really linear. It is hard to determine from the picture if you can switch branches. I sure hope so.
Should be a web, not a tree. (showing it graphically as a tree is perfectly fine)
And each skill need multiple upgrade nodes… otherwise is just a prettier version of what was shown at Blizzcon. Upgrade nodes where you might need to pick one upgrade over the others, or split your points. Or even better, you can go full in on one skills upgrades, at the expense of other skills.
Make these choices matter!
Dear lord, thank you. The idea of unlimited skill points was one of my biggest concerns at Blizzcon. It went directly against the base concept of an RPG.
30-40% of the tree filled, still sounds like way too much however.
Also, sorry, the tree is still too small. The amount of skills might be fine, but as said above, it needs way more upgrade nodes for each skill.
And more passives.
Look as what the competition is doing here (Last Epoch, Wolcen, PoE).
This looks like a good start, with a ton of potential. Now we just need more of it… and a focus on giving actual choices, rather than following pre-determined upgrade branches.
Btw, now that we luckily dont have unlimited skill points anymore, what happened to the skill tomes shown at Blizzcon?
Yes! Exactly the way the passives should be.
Sounds very good!
Something to make each class feel different, even when they might use similar skills.
Sorc system sounds fine. However, it also sounds somewhat like a skill customization system… don’t make Sorceress the only class with skill customization (see the skill comment further above) 
Totally cool that sorc has an additional skill customization system of course, and as said before, the unique class mechanisms is a great addition.
I am still really skeptical of any kind of “paragon” system that rewards power.
But… at least you are using some of the right words here (aka. depth and replayability)
At least I assume this also means the system is NOT account based.
Now it only needs not to be “endless”, and my main concerns would be addressed.
Very much looking forward to it.
This new blog certainly represents a step in the right direction for the game. Arguably the biggest step so far.
Even if a lot more of these steps are still needed.
20 Likes
Super disappointing update, the amount of depth to all of this is like finding water in a desert
11 Likes
I think they should make it so that each skill has a tree, doesn’t need to be huge, but this tree would have to change how you use the ability, by changing the core mechanics and the element of the skill, like a sandbox for each skill.
Of course this would require the characters to go to level 99 or something, wich I think they should!
I think I like the enchantment system.
I’m looking forward to see what you guys have in mind for the endgame character system. I hope it really opens up possibilities.
I think the legendaries should be like a cherry on top of the cake.
10 Likes
I think a good way to be able to keep the angelic/demonic/ancestral skill ideology without completely being gone with it and to add more customization would be to re-implement the idea of charms, but not blown out of proportion. I think if you make a separate inventory for these charms and keep the stat bonuses minuscule as to only buff the three powers and maybe one or two other stat areas that it would be a very useful tool. And it could be one of those items you need to unlock like the kanais cube or horadric cube. Then, you wouldnt have to worry as much about the stats being specific to the items you are finding, but rather locating the proper charms needed to be able to unlock the beneficial stats that come on the items you are finding.
I believe that if they don’t receive harsh criticism/feedback for things that look lackluster nothing will change.
They decided to be this transparent and want to get the feedback, so there it is.
5 Likes
I am intrigue by the Sorceress’s Enchantment system.
2 Likes
Short but sweet. Thank you for the update!
I love the design of the new skill tree. It immediately grew on me as I read further through the post. I love the subtlety of passives being the literal roots of the tree as well as the fact that you’re limiting point spread to 30~40%. Despite what has been mentioned before, I was still worried it would ultimately be a situation where players would just have everything they want and it would only come down to gear for power, so thank you for reiterating that you’re striving for balance. I love that you’re increasing the emphasis on character/class power to balance out the power from gear. THANK YOU!
The Sorceress Enchantment system sounds fantastic. It really does fit the fantasy that an unparalleled wielder of magic can utilize more abilities than other classes. Even if it’s the secondary effects, that still sounds like it feels amazing. Best of luck during development, it sounds like it has amazing potential to be extremely fun to use! Very much looking forward what unique system the Druid (and future classes) will utilize.
I really appreciated the addition of those little tidbits about itemization iteration and acknowledging the end game progression system. Even if they don’t give specific/in-depth details, addressing feedback directly goes a long way. Those little touches help tremendously in your fanbase understanding that you are focusing on those aspects and helps assuage fears we might have about whether or not you’re listening to “big picture” feedback.
I cannot wait to hear about the end game progression system(s)! Hopefully this will be part of BlizzCOnline announcements? =) Looking forward to it!
Ready to sink my teeth into the itemization update at the end of the year. I hope everyone on the Diablo teams is doing well and staying safe! Keep up the amazing work! You are all slaying it!
4 Likes
Spell leveling is an evolution of runes.
I like the idea of adding Bolts, etc. We should be able to max this. Like 10 points in “Additional Bolt” should add 10 Bolts.
Enchantments are an evolution of Numlock
I’d like a macro system built-in in Diablo, to be able to repeat and/or chain spells, like a combo in Street Fighter. It would greatly add depth to the game, with players sharing not only builds, but also combos to make the build rocks, which is part of playstyle. Also useful for Console players that are nowadays excluded of such configurations. And if you are able to make this shareable somehow, like : Copy build / Copy macros, it would be awesome
I’d like the ability to transform a firewall in an icewall, lightningwall, poisonwall, …etc.
I think there is the mean to deliver damage (bolt, meteor, ray, …etc), and then there are affixes/refinements/enchantements/runes you can add, such x10, Fire, Xplode, HealMeBack, …etc.
And you should be able to enchant every skill slot with up to 5 modifiers, but once one modifier is used for a skill you can’t use it for another skill. Affect your x10 modifier wisely, then.
Think about the bad guy All For One in Boku No Hero Academia, and especially the battle between All Might VS All For One. All For One uses so much multipliers and modifiers to boost its attack (“Ultimate Quirk combination : Springlike Limbs, Four Kinetic Boosters, Three Strength Enhancer, a multiplier, Hypertrophy, Rivets, Air Walk, Spearlike Bones”). It can creates an infinite amount of combinations since he can absorbs powers from others.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EVCbeSTWoAAb5oD.jpg
That would be cool if we could absorb powers from monsters and use these powers against them. Like in Final Fantasy 7. Imagine after being hit by ennemy meteors, and defeating the monsters that gave you these treat, you learn it. That’s a super reward. “Aha, dear monsters, we will see who is laughting now ! I can fight back with your own powers”. Maybe for a dedicated class ?
–
Proposal
Nephalem’s Demonic powers
You can collect ennemies demonic powers (ex: x3 bolts, x10 strength) once you have defeated them. You can enchant your own skills with up to 5 demonic powers each. A demonic power used on a skill cannot be used on another skill.
And bam. You have a nearly infinite combination system, with a reason for the player to play long hours : “Gotta catch them all, these demonic powers !”
1 Like