Agreed. Anything that can easily be kept up permanently should just be always up automatically, like the passive part of auras/mantras. I even got annoyed by having to keep up Wizard armors every X minute in D3. Pointless.
But an active part shouldnt always be up, nor does it even have to be a buff.
Like you could have an aura where the passive part is of course some buff, but the active part is an attack; if we use the aura example, maybe you send out a holy aura shockwave that damage enemies, but for a short while deactivates/consumes the aura. Or the D3 style, where you do get a buff, but it only lasts a few seconds, with a longer cooldown (and no silly amounts of CDR that allows you to always keep it up +of course, CD only starting after the active buff wears off).
yea, i really like these dual effect auras
when the active part just functions like a skill i see it as an active skill, not a buff
but the buff shouldn’t be maintained by the player
The number of skill slots should not be build limiting/defining at all. It is just there because of gamepad controls and simplicity for new players (which is fine as a default). I think you should be able to have as many skills on your bar(s) as you like. The limit for the number of skills to use are the points I can spend into skills.
I agree and think those skill are valid and should exist. I would limit them rather via resource costs or active player interactions then passive long cooldowns (and cooldown reduction since I think its not good design to create something bad/not fun in the first place and then just provide remedy).
Absolutely, it should be “uncharged” after the effect has expired but it shouldn’t be charged by passively waiting 25 seconds IMO. The “charging gamplay” could be much more interessting and be even part of the skill modification in the skill tree.
Another possibility would be to have the temporary buffs be more specialized. Instead of e.g. a shout increases damage to all enemies in range, it could for instance increase damage to all cold enchanted enemies in range. That would be more situational and IMO more interesting (e.g. when I play a cold sorc build which struggles against cold enchanted enemies, since I only have a weaker fire ball skill as secondary attack available, I could react to that using such a shout).
That easily results in 1-point wonders. Imo, having a skill slot limit is good, as it makes it a harder choice to pick skills. 6 skill slots are just too low.
I think my preference would be an adjustable limit. Like, you buy skill slots themselves with skill points. Going above 6 skill slots cost a fair amount of skill points, like 5 points for the 7th slot, 10 points for the 8th slot, 20 points for the 9th sloth or whatever, resulting in significantly less powerful skills, if you choose to have many skill slots.
So that 1-point-wonder in your 9th slot will effectively cost 21 points. It has to be really good for your build to make it worth it. While most builds could probably afford the 7th slot.
That would be a working solution to balance the cost of additional skill slots and limit possible one point wonders. Not sure about how much the cost should be exactly but in principle yes, I think this is a reasonable design to actually provide as many skill slots as the player likes to have without a hard cap.
I really don’t like Paragon boards 
I understand the goal but why copy “someone’s” flawed implementation?
I’ve suggested my vision of nearly the same mechanics in much more compact way:
I think that Skill-specific Skill Trees that have their own Skill-specific Skill Points - like in Last Epoch - is superior to all Skills competing for the same Skill Points and the next evolutionary step of ARPG character customization. D4 should copy that.
The competition for points would no longer take place between the skills, but between various upgrades within the skill itself.
Then having 6 or 7 Active Skill Slots makes perfect sense, as it also gets rid of the issue of 1 Point Wonders.
oSkills should imo have their own, separate Skill Bar.
I think both have a place to exist.
Some buffs with cooldowns and other buffs with a resource cost.
Well, that you consider long CD’s as “not fun” is a personal preference of yours.
I actually would say that long cooldowns allow you to also have amazing skills that otherwise would not work without a long CD, for example a screenwide Meteor Shower, like this one:
https://imgur.com/Qqel9zG
… because the alternatives are to…
- drastically reduce the skills damage and therefore the power and effect of the skill feeling incongruent with each other
- consume all your resource + lower your resource generation for xx seconds after you used the skill
- channel the skill for x seconds before it goes off
- reduce your max resource for xx seconds after you used the skill
- make you more vulnerable for xx seconds after you used the skill
- make you more vulnerable while channelling the skill before it goes off
- nerf your damage output for xx seconds afterwards
- etc
- or a combination of two or more of these
… and that would imo “not be fun” since it would lead to situations in which you e.g. could not cast anymore Fireballs for quite a long time or run away from enemies since you are more vulnerable, or can not (or to a much lesser extend) engage in combat for a while.
I would argue that you are not “waiting” while the skill is on cooldown, but that you are actually using other skills as well while the skill is on cooldown.
One of my favorite builds uses Arcane Orb and Meteor with the Molten Impact rune, which causes Meteor to deal more damage and have a larger AoE, while also having a 15 second cooldown.
While Meteor is on cooldown, you can throw around Arcane Orbs (or Fireballs, if Fireballs would be in the game).
I consider this a lot of fun.
I do like something that encourages using other active skills to lower the cooldown of a skill like Wrath of the Berserker, e.g. by lowering its CD when you Attack and also after you spend xx Fury.
A bit like this:
https://imgur.com/QuO0UN2
Then it actually feels rewarding to attack and feels less of a “waiting game”.
Agreed, not all buff skills need a cooldown. But honestly, nearly all cooldown skills, buffs or not, should also have a resource cost. So you still have to think about resources, even when using cooldown skills.
Maybe with the exception of mobility and defensive skills, if they are meant as panic buttons.
I greatly dislike that on the skills Blizzard has shown so far in D4, all cooldown skills seemed to have no resource cost
A cooldown exist to prevent using the skill too often, so does a resource cost. A resource cost also exist to make the use of one skill affect your ability to use other skills. Unless we use global cooldowns (which we should not :P) a cooldown can’t do that. They serve somewhat similar purposes, but different enough that a cooldown can’t and shouldn’t replace resource cost (nor other types of costs associated with skills, as the examples in your post).
Which tbh should also be a mechanism used. All your examples could be used. As well as Charging. It doesn’t have to be either/or. The more diversity in skill design, including costs of using skills, the better.
Then let us adjust those costs through skill modifications. Like adding a CD to a skill, remove a CD, add a detrimental effect, replace CD with Charging, etc. Not all skills should have all of these of course, but each skill could easily have a few different types of costs associated to it, through skill modifications.
Serious question because I just don’t know: How do I acquire skill points in that system? I assume by using the skill instead of global XP? I really like the Skill-specific Skill Trees instead of the “unlock-skill-after-skill-tree” because it provides more freedom in early game. I’m not sure about pros and cons of skill-based-XP right now but find it interesting.
I played builds in aRPG’s using 3 skills and builds using much more. It’s hard to say how many slots are really needed. I think Shadouts general idea of unlocking slots for points is quite interesting and more flexible.
Absolutely. Especially with the possiblity to modify each skill in the tree. Variety should be the key here.
Of course it is. I don’t say long CD’s could not exist. And with skill modification it could be possible to modify skills to every ones personal preferences.
I disagree because the goal of having skills that can only be used very infrequently can also be achieved with a charging mechanic. But if such “nukes” are available in the game they need to be balanced very carefully to not make otherwise hard fights (e.g. bosses) very easy. Because then such a skill becomes a must have and the gamplay will just be “save your nuke and use it on the boss” wich I personally would find very uninteresting.
I think this is also a personal perception.
I agree, the only difference in lowering the CD vs. charging the skill is that with CD it will be available again when doing nothing too. I don’t think that’s bad as long as activity will result in a shorter amount of time until I could use the skill again.
This last Q4 update certainly excited me with the changes. The overall feeling is so much closer to the dark spooky realism of D1 (that at least I remember!). My only suggestion is the video example made battles seem a little too easy. Fear is important feeling Diablo for me anyway. My own fear doesn’t really increase when more HP’s and damage are stacked onto monsters to the point where you’re having to hack on one for ten minutes. That’s repetitive. Dynamic AI, surprise attacks, motivated hero monsters with schemes etc, all bring an intense realism. Also the dread that the next room really could kill me, making me sweat, plan, and worrying that plans fail, is part of the fun. Steer away from the repetition of needlessly killing things and make it more emotionally dynamic. Anyway, good luck guys. Thanks for making me excited for this one. It’s been a while!
I think that several factors play a role in this.
One is the question if a resource cost fits on the theme of a skill.
Another one is how the gameplay feels with and without a resource cost.
etc
But I agree that many buff and CC skills that have a CD should also have a resource cost.
Some D3 examples that come to my mind:
- Frost Nova
- Ground Stomp
- Mirror Image
- Slow Time
- and maybe even Leap and Teleport, though the fluidity of the gameplay would eventually suffer to much from an additional resource cost on them, so I would say that is debatable.
A skill like D3’s Threatening Shout (the one that reduces damage done by enemies) imo could have its cooldown removed and have a resource cost instead, because it would imo thematically fit better.
But I agree with your premisse.
Yeah, I have similar thoughts.
I was reading this paragraph of yours after I have written down the respond to your first.
A duo of resource cost and a CD also makes resource management more interesting.
That was one of the worst things in D2…
I agree that these mechanics should be used, but not all of them should be used on very powerful skills, because they would be too detrimental for a too long time after you used a skill.
For example to call down a single powerful Meteor, you might channel 2 seconds or be debuffed in one way for 2-3 seconds after that, which is fine, but with something like a screenwide Meteor Shower - as shown in the GIF in my previous post - you had to channel for maybe 15 seconds or be debuffed for 20 seconds or more, which does not feel good at all.
Or imagine that after you used “screenwide Meteor Shower” your maximum Mana would be reduced by 80% for 20 seconds to make up for the power of that skill.
Ironically that would feel much worse and much more like a waiting game than having a long CD of 60+ or 90+ seconds than some people claim. imo. (that is not directed to you, btw)
Yes, I agree, as long as it fits the theme of a skill and is not overly detrimental / detrimental for too long for the gameplay after you used that skill.
That is one way to do it, but another one is to have “Specialization Slots”, that each unlock at certain levels. It means that you can use any skill on your hotbar that you get during your character levels up, like in D3, but you can only put points into the ones that you specialized into.
If you have e.g. 7 Active Skill Slots, you will be able to also specialize into 7 Active Skills.
First Specialization unlocks e.g. at level 10.
Second one at Level 14.
3rd one at level 17
4rth one at 20.
5th one at level 25
6th at level 30.
7th at level 33.
You also can equip a mix of Active Skills that you are specialized into with skills that you are not specialized into.
Then, as your character levels up, each Specialization Slot gets Skill Points, so the Specialization Slots would get Skill Points rather than the Skills itself - if that makes sense,
Yeah, I agree.
But I would say that it also has to fit the fantasy of a skills and also the gameplay, so I would not just want to simply have variety for the sake of variety.
It depends. I think there are limits to it. In my opinion there should be limits too how much “sandbox-y” a game can be.
To make an analogy, it reminds me of a discussion within the DOOM community between those that think that DOOM 2016 is superior because “it allows you to use the weapon/s you want to” and those that say that DOOM Eternal is superior because you have to manage your resources better (because ammunition is more limited), enemies have weakness and strengths against certain weapon, etc, aka “you are forced to play a certain way”.
I think that DOOM Eternal is much better gameplay wise, because it forces you to adjust to the limitations, so you can be creative within these limitations, while in DOOM 2016 you could just run around with the Super Shotgun and kill everything with relative ease.
So upgrades that completely remove the CD of a Skill can be there, but they should not be on everything.
Didn’t I already respond to that?
With a Charging Mechanic you mean that the more you attack, the more a “Meter” fills up that then allows you to activate that skill once it is full?
Or do you mean that you have to e.g. channel for xx Seconds before a Skill like “Screenwide Meteor Shower” goes off?
These “nukes” already exist in D3 and 1) they are already very balanced (on a base level, when not factoring in itemization) and 2) they are not “nukes”.
With a skill like Warth of the Berserker you don’t annihilate Elites and Bosses, but they rather just help you to better deal with bosses and elites, but it doesn’t melt them.
I have played many such builds in D3 where e.g. WotB has a ~1 minute or even 1+ minute downtime, and it is not like it has become a “must have”. If in that build I had replaced WotB with Battle Rage, it would have been just as viable.
Indeed, not denyjing that,
But you will not want to do nothing because it would be very inefficient to do so while the skill is on cooldown, even without a mechanic that reduces the CD everytime you attack or spend x resource, because as I said, these skills are not “nukes” already.
well that’s kinda the point of a screen clear skill (if it should even exist. it shouldn’t)
it leaves you exhausted and vulnerable. not just able to spam your stuff happily ever after until hitting it again on cooldown.
It doesn’t “clear” the screen. It is not a “nuke” as I have explained several times.
Sure, it might kill minor enemies and maybe some support units, but it does not “clear” elites or bosses.
Which is worse than a cooldown I would argue, especially since people who are against (long) cooldowns often make the argument that (long) cooldowns slow you down, and slowing down = “not fun” according to them.
slowing down = “not fun”… that is what people have told me that are against (long) CD’s.
I’d rather have a “Screenwide Meteor Shower” that has a 90 second CD and costs 30 Mana/Arcane Power and after I used it I can continue to use skills, rather than a “Screenwide Meteor Shower” that costs 80 Mana/Arcane Power and lowers my resource by 80+% for 20 seconds, causes me to take 25% more damage and to move 20% slower for 20 seconds as well.
That would actually result in a real “waiting time / period” in which gameplay would not be very engaging.
If it would be on a medium powerful skill or spell that would only have a 15 second CD and it would reduce my Maximum Mana by 80+% for 3/4/5 seconds afterwards etc, fine, but on more powerful skills, debuffing yourself for longer periods of time to compensate for the gain in power just to not have long cooldowns it a terrible trade-off.
yea so that’s probably the thing where i divide from other people you are talking to
games are becoming too fast and people can’t handle chilling anymore
once, like 20 years ago, just taking your weapon and casually hitting monsters in the face was still a thing
today everything has to be a fancy skill or kids will immediately shelve the game and go back to fortnite
This is exactly what happened with “piano” potions in PoE, really boring and kind of annoying way to play.
And clearly a great amount of players hate it, enough for them to rework it completely.
So I’d say make something like D2’s Paladin Aura, players has to equip it on the skill bar to gain benefit from it, or turn them in to buffs, with cooldowns significantly longer than the active time, or D3’s Monk Aura, a mixture of both.
Depending on what you use as a means of reference here, I also prefer ARPG’s to be slower than many of D3’s current endgame meta builds (same for PoE). Way too fast.
That is why I personally like to play non-meta builds for the most time (like the build in the video that I linked in earlier posts). That build, compared to most endgame meta builds is also very slow. It is not slow like the character would be dragging himself, but “slow” in comparison to a build that can just zip several screens within no time, as many of D3’s current meta builds are able to.
However, if you indeed had something like a 20 second “downtime” after you cased a spell, during which your Maximum Mana/Arcane Power would be reduced by 80%+ for 20 seconds, your Damage Taken be increased and your Movement Speed be decreased, that I actually would consider dragging.
So I would say there is a middle ground between too slow and too fast.
oof, yes, another thing that I don’t like about PoE, though their Keystone Passives and Special Effects on Uniques are great.
I actually like the idea of Health Potions having 3 Charges inherently, and them recharging over time, one after the other, like the Monk’s Dashing Strike Skill.
Each Charge having a recharge time of ~15-20 Seconds, not being influenced by CDR, restoring ~30% Health instantly and another 30-40% over 3-4 Seconds.
You could still spam them if you want, but only to some degree and not indefinitely.
So on level up to level 34 I would get 7 skill points (one per spec. slot) or 1 skill point I could use on one of the 7 skills?
And in your example of using a mix of spec. skills and not spec. skills do you think skill points should improve the skills “power” (like in e.g. D2) or do you prefer only changes in the skills mechanic (e.g. the D3 skill runes)? Because in the first case not spec. skills would probably not be very useful (if there are no one point wonders like D2’s Static or Teleport).
I would prefer a system where a skill point could be used to increase the skills “power” OR change the mechanics depending on how I spend the point in the skill-specific skill tree.
Agreed. Also the CD should not just be removed but changed into a different tradeoff.
If so I’ve missed that. Yes, I refer to the first.
That could exist as well but of course not in a range of 20 seconds. 
I was refering to your screen wide Meteor example as a “nuke” because with a large CD I assumed it would be rather powerful. If you are just talking about a large AoE with “normal” damage (like e.g. D2’s Blizzard) I wouldn’t call that a nuke but then I would argue even more against a 20 second CD for that skill. Of course it all depends how it is balanced in the end and that’s what I wanted to say.
Sure, I will be down to 5 instead of 6 skills for the next 1-2 minutes. As already written I don’t think long CD skills should not exist as some people seem to like them but I personally would prefer to be able to use all my skills and have them more situational instead (e.g. one skills against fast enemies, one against lightning resistant enemies, one for movement, one for CC, …).
Again, that’s a personal preference and as long as the game allows for different play styles and still provides enough build customization I think that’s fine.
Btw. I absolutely agree with D3’s and PoE’s gameplay being to fast. But 20+ seconds are a very long time in an aRPG.
While that offers the most choices, I fear, if we can completely freely choose to spend our skill points wherever we want, that the right strategy will just always be to go all in on buffing 1-2 of your skills then, leaving the rest as one point wonders (or something close). Which would kinda reduce choice, if that is the only viable way to play, but even worse, also lead to bad gameplay, if we are down to buffing 1 attack skill that will carry us, D3 style (due to the itemization used in most builds).
For balancing, and gameplay, I think it is probably better if you get the same amount of customization points for each of your skills, preventing you from buffing just one.
An alternative could be to have the kind of increasing cost, the more points you spend on customizing one skill, making it extremely costly, but theoretically possible, to focus all on one skill (like, first 10 customization points cost 1 p each, next 5 costs 2 each, next 5 costs 3 etc.).
Or maybe a mix; Each skill gets 10 customization points as you lvl up. But, every second (or maybe every 4th, if we want to limit the power difference) skill rank you get, also gives a skill customization point. So if you bring a skill to rank 20, you get another 10 (or 5) skill customization points for it. That way, each of your skills will have between 10-20 (or 10-15) skill customization points. Preventing us to go all in on one skill, neglecting our other skills.
Imo definitely both. Skills should have ranks, for increasing its power. And then a customization tree alongside it.
Like
Skill points; used to acquire skills, and increase their rank (and maybe buy skill slots)
Specialization points; used in the individual skill customization trees.
Yeah definitely. Tradeoff could both be another cost (increased resource cost, charging and all that), but also just a weaker skill. Like, remove CD, but skill deals 70% less dmg.
100%. There should not be an “obvious choice”. Increasing costs of skill upgrades could work as well as diminishing returns.