Again I’m not the one who called it arcane to start.
What is your problem?
Destroying class fantasy is something you argued against. But it’s fine because D2 did it with runewords which were obviously really hard to get even though everyone and their mother had Enigma.
It’s my problem reading it all the time
Who called it arcane then?
I did but it doesn’t matter what it is called, that’s not the point. It could be called X, Y & Z and the point is exactly the same. This is a discussion on skill trees not “what skills the sorc should have”
It doesn’t matter if rune words were possible to get because of exploits and dupes back in the day. D4 doesn’t need to have that issue.
And the class fantasy part? You know taking the things other classes do and share them with other classes?
Every class in D2 fills its fantasy perfectly. Rune Words were added in with expansions and ladder patches later on. People like them because they do allow you to break the mold on classes, that’s the appeal of a rune word. This doesn’t take away from the fact that classes have to use skills from their 3 trees for most of the builds available to the class anyway.
I know
I just said it bugs me because it doesnt really fit in that elemental Trinity
And reading it all the time is hurting me
I agree that if you keep it 1 big tree, you could have stuff like fire branches, earth branches and between them, there could be a meteor or eruption or what ever
But really elements are a weird example because they are just very distinguished from each other
Not much to mix there
So instead of mixing them you can also just have 4 or 5 trees
I stick to the point that trees are actually vertically and that’s a problem if not all active skills are at the bottom and equally “strong” until you enhance them with the branches
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It’s still a skill tree.
4 or 5 trees would definitely work, but I feel like at that point you may as well just add another class. I really do believe 3 is the sweet spot, but it doesn’t really matter as long as the trees don’t overlap with the other classes too much. I’m OK with the Druid & the Barb both having abilities that do bleed, but the Sorc shouldn’t easily have access to that.
If my memory serves me correctly they added synergies to D2 so that putting points into a lesser skill buffed the other ones as well. I think some of the D2 mods took this further since it was a flaw in D2s design. I don’t think D2 is perfect or anything, but spider web trees are just as cookie cutter as a focused tab in the skill tree in my opinion anyway.
If all skills at the bottom of the tree aren’t equally powerful, they would need to be designed with trade offs. So one skill is weaker, but it has more potential to be buffed by items, or modifiers. Maybe that skill is weaker because it does AoE and another one is single target, etc.
I think none suggested that
Just that the 3 trees WITHIN a class will be fluently overlapping and not separated?
With equally strong I mean that you don’t have the firebolt at the bottom and then the fireball and then the firerain and the further get abandoned
Synergies worked for the “dead points” but progression wise and choice wise it was bad
It should be a fireball and a firerain and a firecircle and all of them should have the possibility to become an endgame attack
If you put them over each other and not next to each other you are rather signaling that the player will work his way up and not choose one of them
1 tree is fine. I do think if they are mixing passives and actives on a tree then each spell needs it’s own branch. That way you can spec the specific skills you want and not have to worry about spending points intonactives or passives you don just to get something you do. That way, if you want to be a multi-elemental Sorc, you can chose talents form each family as you desire instead of say, just going down the frost tree because that is the only way to get the good frost spells.
I would consider a tree like that forced gimping for those that want to diversify. You’d still have choices each spell with their own branches would make spells different and have different passives attached ao while you may want crit, but don’t like the mods to the spell against the mod you like but maybe not the passives. Or you might really like all the choices and have to decide how you want to play more.
With the linear set up or individual trees per element, you don’t really have thise choices. It’s well I need that capstone talent, and I have to take these additional talents I’d rather not use because I’m locked into frost.
You can even get this problem with 1 tree per skill
See last epoch, I was moving through stuff I don’t care about like, I don’t know, crit chance, light damage just to get to the life steal modifier^^
So the tree obviously will not be like that in the endgame, but just shows us the direction, in which the development is going from now on. And I really like this direction!
Secondly, my idea of the perfect skill tree is, you have 3 branches for a sorc, but maybe a different number of branches for other classes, making already the way to think about skills different for different classes. Also I would like to invest more than 1 point in a skill and be able to modify it extensively. For example for a sorc:
Have a Fire skill tree. Have somewhere in there the Skill “Fireball 0/12” , where you can invest up to 12 points, each increases the damage. (A level might give something like 3 points, as in Grim Dawn/Titan Quest, whatever) Now If I go to the skill menu, my dream of a skill system would be, that I can right click the Fireball icon, a window pops up, in which there are a hand full of options:
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AoE 0/6
-
Burn Damage 0/5
-
Number of Projectiles 0/10
-
Projectile Speed 0/8
-
Resistance Penetration 0/10
-
Seeking Projectiles 0/6
Now you have like e.g. 20 points to spend on that and it’s cheap to reskill these, but it’s very expensive (or impossible) to reskill the skilltree itself. Or imagine this with a meteor. You could literally skill your meteor into being a Rain of Fire, with lots of projectiles, each with small AoE but with a lot of burn damage. Or you could go for a Frost Nova with
-
AoE 0/10
-
Chill effect becomes Freeze effect 0/10
-
Converts X% of damage to Lightning damage 0/5
-
Duration / effect of Chill 0/5
and an extra node in the Skill tree like “Cold Snap: Frost Nova can now be cast 5m away from the caster at the mouse cursor” which changes the above options to:
-
AoE 0/10
-
Range of Cold Snap 0/6
-
Converts X% of damage to Lightning damage 0/5
-
Duration / effect of Chill 0/5
And even an extra node “Blizzard: Cold Snap now deals damage over time for X seconds” which alters the Skill options to
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AoE 0/10
-
Range of Blizzard 0/6
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Damage Penetration 0/10
-
Duration / effect of Chill 0/5
That would be the perfect system for me. You would barely see other players running around with the exact same skill setup as yours, because as with items, there is no “better”, but it’s just different options for different playstyles. And balancing happens literally by tuning some numbers, which is easy in this system.
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True but I’m not asking for anything that involved. Frankly the sheer amount per skill breaks the game from what I’ve seen. I’m able to one shot almost every non boss enemy with my shield toss ability it’s so powerful.
I posted a quick glance example of fireball where it splits into multiple fireballs, splash damage, or applying a dot. You choose one and go down a small branch powering that up with a few passives.
Something like that could offer enough choices per skill to be interesting and to allow for very diverse builds.
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That has nothing to do with the size or complexity of the skill web however. That is just balancing.
I dont see the problem there.
It should be builds that makes it unique imo. Not the class.
Perfectly fine if both sorc and necro can summon. Perfectly fine if they both can deal poison dmg. Etc.
They will still do it in different ways, and stuff like the Arsenal and Enchantment systems helps with that.
That said, it should not be easy to change dmg types on skills. Let a fireball be a fireball for the most part. But sorcs having the ability to summon a poison hydra or whatever, that I am fine with.
Such restrictions also makes each class much more limited and boring though.
Even if both barbs and sorcs might be able to “freeze” (in some way), not all barb and sorc builds will be able to.
The builds will be the important part.
The less stuff each class can do, the less builds you will have. And each barb build will be more similar to one another due to a lack of options, which imo is much worse than classes being similar.
One of Diablo 3s many mistakes, was the extreme focus on classes instead of builds. As seen in the class-based gear affixes. As seen in the free respeccing, so each character in a class became identical. And as seen in the whole “class sets” disaster.
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I´m already extremely happy simply by the fact that there will be a skill tree with points to spend and the cap of 30-40% sounds nice too.
The visual design looks very nice too so far.
this is a simple problem to fix: make it so each skill isnt just 1 point and done. Have the ability to sink multiple points into skills, even if its just 5-10 or 20 like D2. But D2 required too much investment and you could only have 3-4 skills maxed at 1 time which was fine back then when it was just left/right click but now i think some variety in choosing between multiple options and diversity has value. But basically i would recommend:
- continuing down the tree line
- continuing to invest into the current skill (maybe make it use less mana if u want to control dmg scaling and have a small dmg component with increases, etc)
- retracting and going down another branch or even tree (having gotten what you wanted from this branch/tree)
This is simple yet there is enough depth for complexity - essentially it comes down to do i enhance, progress, or differentiate = thats what every skill tree NEEDS for depth with limited skill points.
I would like to add that i do feel strongly about systems like D&D which allow for specializations or allowing dual class at the expense of specialization - this is a tough and GREAT choice to have to make. In Diablo there is no multi-class, but if there are multiple trees, i think rewarding specializing in specific trees (thematic and powerful high level spells/skill only available to characters that cannot branch into another tree) vs rewards in diversity that come from branching into other trees at the expense of the most powerful spells is as interesting as choices get.
ie: A fire sorc that only specializes in the “Fire Tree” and gets Cataclysmic Mass Meteor Swarm or Permanent Hydras at the expense of not having access to other sorc trees vs a sorc that gets frozen nova in the ice tree, teleport in the lightning tree, and fireball in the fire tree. The multi-tree sorc would not have access to the MOST powerful spells but more than makes up for it with the additional utility she would get with crowd-control and a fricking teleport, etc.
So i love the idea of specializing in powerful ways vs branching out in diverse utility oriented ways…now this only works if the only gameplay loop doesnt emphasis nothing but dps…
Maybe something like world elements that force life and defense to matter - i dunno maybe a system like D2/dark souls where death means loss of XP/currency so that defense becomes more important at higher levels where progression slows and comes from skill as much as power. Or maybe some survival gameplay elements such as some areas not able to be traversed unless you can teleport there, or unless you have SOME/ANY ice skill which “opts-you-in” to being able to build an ice bridge, or needing fire skills to melt/shatter THICK Glacial walls which lead into small dungeons etc, which ice and lightning skills which would be able to punch through.
Having some world gameplay reason to emphasis multi-branching as opposed to just specializing dps
this is where the REAL fun of game design comes in as you can only imagine the possibilities of creating skills that interact with the world to reveal exploration. Also limiting resources such as mana regen severely would make careful expenditure of your mana more skillful and meaningful and allow you to fashion passives that increase mana regen (or a stat like spirit?). Maybe make it so that mana regens faster the more you have (>75%) and regens slower as you “burn out” (<30%) making efficient use of mana rewarding and encouraging larger mana pools for ppl that dont want to deal with the inconvenience of the system…
lots of ideas 
Loved the Visual Enhancement and Presentation of the skill tree (SO IMPORTANT for fantasy immersion and FEELING excited for skill points and skills acquisition). I still think the tooltips look as bland as destiny’s and D3’s tooltips (D2 had great ones) in terms presentation but the biggest thing is the fantasy of spells/skills which needs to be visually satisfying - not just a nerd’s mathematic simplicity - GIVE IT FLAIR!!!
Also, the spell ICONS look bland, they need FLAIR (its ALL about visual presentation and thematic fantasy and intuitive recognition) - i get the stained glass motif but when you cant even recognize or tell a skill from its icon, its a failure. War 3 had probably the best spell icons and thematic. The only thing i can interpret from the stained glass D4 skill icons is red=fire, light blue=ice, dark blue=lightning. which is not good enough. The red NODES for the roots look fantastic - indicating the more “seed-like” node point for general enhancement rather than tied to certain skills. Thats Great.
Now for things i’d LIKE to see with this:
1) Permanent player progression (no resetting skill points like a load out, ensure it is permanent and that each choice is extremely meaningful/impactful simply because there are no redo’s. Alts are for redo’s).
2) I hope the “difficult to master” end game system involves an XP loss system like D2 or Dark Souls where veterans of the game can dive into the game with great risk and skill and also focus survivability instead of just “dps is king” - hardcore Diablo players expect consequences to their deaths to make the world feel meaningful and scary.
3) Druid cosmetic changes: im not a weeb so i dont play as waifus - i like my avatars to LOOK as badass as i imagine them to be in this fantasy world and to look as badass as they feel to play (i dont want them to look like me or some generic rando), so the fatso druid doesnt do it for…at all -> have a good looking body type for my non-realistic dark fantasy gothic game -> also i HATE the current druid free-form shift concept where each button turns u into a wolf/bear/caster - from a fantasy-immersive perspective its SO bad. it doesnt make ANY sense (and is NOT immersive) to just have a cosmetic look tied to an ability which is what this is irrespective of its feel. I want to FEEL like a savage fast werewolf or a powerful massive werebear and shapeshifting into those forms SHOULD matter and make a difference not just visually but mechanically - there are few things as amazing in games (and anime) than TRANSFORMATIONS!!! Take this opportunity to make it grand and impactful! Make BEING a werewolf FEEL cool not just an attack (movement speed/attack speed increase, a requirement for werewolf abilities, being able to sense/see in dark areas - nigth vision) or in wearbear form (increase in armor AND hitpoints, melee attack damage increase) = just like in Diablo 2 (that game did SO MANY things right). Otherwise it’s just like D3 sword vs axe - cosmetic and no point or difference between them.
Side note - I’ve always felt that rpg’s can make weapons more distinct by making axes stack a small bleed, swords have innate deflection (15%), maces have a 1% chance to knockdown/stun and then have some added/shorter frames for somw that some weapon types of that class (swords/maces/axes) have their own feel, etc. (maces swing slowest but higher min dmg, axes swing slow with slightly higher max dmg, swords swing fast but have average min/max dmg modifiers, daggers swing fastest but with lowest min/max dmg modifier)
Otherwise loving the revamp - just hope more of Diablo 2’s influence is seen as i abhor Diablo 3 (incl Reaper) and what its done to the industry that used to think Blizzard knew what was best and copied the D3 excessive rng loot systems into oblivion until the player base finally started to say ENOUGH!. D2’s rng in loo was acceptable because all items had a place and there was trading to offset tedious acquisition methods where you keep getting unlucky. ALL D2 players accumulated a large stash of low-average uniques/rares/gems/runes through playing and then would trade bulks of it to higher level players with a single powerful unique or set item to make rng into a deterministic system. And because gems were used to reroll modifiers on high end weapons through cube, it paid for low level players to accumulate low level items like chipped gems which higher level players didnt want ot waste time with - that was a healthy economy where lower levels players supplied higher level players with their low level items accumulated in mass over their play time which could be put to high level use in limited ways and allowed low level players to have SOMETHING to trade for high level pieces - if it was slow accumulation of set pieces 1 by 1 of entire stash trade ins…this made acquiring gear through play still a pleasant surprise AND allowed those unpleasant surprises (finding items you didnt want/use) to turn into currency (over inflated but still) FOR deterministic gear progression via trading! It keeps the element of SURPRISE Blizzard is so anal for but also negates the HIGH rng that even D2 had and allows for SOME semblance of deterministic progression post level cap which makes logging in feel MEANINGFUL and worth investing. Alt play is a plus as well to this
/endrant - good changes blizzard -> look to Diablo 2 and Dark Souls (its true spiritual successor) with xp/currency loss death mechanics and permanent stat-build progression) for inspiration.
Literally Dark Souls series is the only 1 holding the dark gothic rpg genre well and its because it does NON of the things Diablo 3 did but HEAVILY follows D2 but w/ a different camera perspective and a “create your own class” thing which im NOT a fan of but cant have it all i guess. There’s a LOT of reasons why Dark Soul series is so lauded by all of the community and is 1 of the biggest hype games (along with from software’s other title Elden Ring - expected to be LIKE Dark Souls) of the new gen consoles is Demon Souls and Elden Ring…
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Yes, this! All of this!