Hi, I would like to show you sample character classes for Diablo 4.
I would like to stimulate your imagination and make your time more pleasant.
I was inspired by a movie from Rhykker.
None of the characters presented previously are focused on dexterity, which is why I think it would be a good idea that the next two characters had a lot of dexterity in them.
Here I will show you fan art of archer class named Nomad and its 3 skill trees:
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/xz11w4
Fan art created by my sister.
1 skill tree: combat skills - working with all piercing weapons (daggers, spears, javelins, bows, crossbows) 1 quick hits, 2 precise hits, 3 debilitating hits, 4 Evasive hits, 5 Fend, 6 magic hits: electricity, poison, cold, 7 adrenaline (For 3 seconds the character cannot take damage, each dodge or block reduces the skill cool down. Useful at a distance and excellent in melee)
2 skill tree: spiritual skills - 1 spirit defender, 2 lightning dash, 3 Spirit Leap (teleportation), 4 Soul Harvest 5 Valkyrie 6 Haunt (sends a ghost that enters the opponent, deals damage over time. If the opponent dies during a ghost attack, he will be possessed by the attacking spirit. Weaker opponents will be possessed for longer, stronger opponents for less time.) 7 crowâs spirit does not attack opponents, it flies through them freezing them.
3 skill tree: smoke and mists - 1 smoke screen, 2 poison cloud, 3 paralyzing gas, 4 strengthening fumes 5 storm cloud 6 decoy fog, 7 gas causing hallucinations
Go entirely in combat skill and you will receive the Amazon.
Combat skills (daggers) and smoke will give us a thief / assassin.
You want to have a summoner from a distance, combat and ghosts.
This is practically a necromancer and Amazon mix, I think this combination gives a lot of possibilities to create builds. It does not have to be exactly these skills, but giving them I just wanted to show the direction that by creating the right combination of skills you can get completely different characters still within the same class.
As for appearance, Lyndon folk style, a kind of Nordic or Slavic or Mongolian hunter, with Ofuda style accessories. Or may be Rogue from Sisterhood of the Sightless Eye with elements of a necromancer (blood raven). Or it could be a Valkyrie class, in a tone of holiness. Any fantasy ranger will be good.
Second is warrior with a shield and sword in plate armor, but still fast and agile. I would see him as a necromancer, paladin and assassin mix. This is best represented by three skill trees.
1 skill tree: combat skills - 1 stun, 2 dash, 3 quick blows, 4 wide strike, 5 block, 6 magic strikes: poison, fire, arcane power
2 skill trees: blood skills - 1 blood servant, 2 blood prison, 3 blood whip, 4 blood armor, 5 blood golem, 6 boiling blood
3 skill tree: mental skills - 1 psychic hammer, 2 vigor aura, 3 life tap aura 4 weakness aura, 5 iron maiden aura, 6 mind blast
I see no problem for him to have summons, but they would have to be mechanically different from the druid summons.
I always thought that the Witch Doctor should fill the druid archetype. He should stand straight and be muscular. He could transform into a monster similar to Swamp Thing. Instead of voodoo flavor should be âmycelium infectionâ. For me druid is the only option for jungle vibes.
A character based on dexterity and intelligence.
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/JlA6Gn
I would like to ask you what you think about the character class that instead of mana would have ammunition. You donât have to go to the blacksmith to buy ammunition but you have to âreloadâ. Reloading would be done during other skills, e.g. smoke screen. Different skills could give different types of ammunition, and one attack skill could work differently depending on the ammunition he uses. Similar in action to the skill runes in Diablo 3. This would create a character class in which proper queuing with skills is very important. Druid has his shape shifting, barbarian changes the types of weapons, the archer could juggle types of ammunition.
Now a bit about the game mechanics.
I am asking for a very relaxed approach to this, I am not omniscient, I am certainly wrong in many aspects. Therefore, please pay more attention to the situations and feelings that I would like to evoke than to specific solutions themselves. The solutions given here are only examples related to the feelings that I want to evoke in the player, so any other system or mechanic that will generate the following situations will be very happy for me.
Iâll start with the skill tree. We have been informed that eventually we will be able to get all the skills in one character, which I would not want, because all characters at the maximum level will be the same and there will be a situation that we will choose the skills for the items, and it should be the opposite.
If I want to see all attacks and abilities (animations) then I should do at least 3 characters of a given class and develop different skills on each character. It will allow me to focus on specific skills and get the most out of them, it will not overwhelm new players and over time you will be able to create your perfect combination.
I would like the process from level 1 to maximum was an adventure. The character after passing the campaign should not have a maximum level. Endgame is important but leveling should be equally important. It should be making up who our character is.
Striving for the perfect build for you can consist of creating many intermediate builds. Creating these intermediate builds should also be an adventure.
In addition, I do not want to undo the skills already purchased. If such a system exists, we will again choose skills to items. It will only be associated with more or less annoyance, which I do not like at all - either one or the other! And what to do in a situation where we bought the skill and then do not use it, what can we do to feel the feeling of a wasted skill point? My solution to this problem is that each skill has its passive and active version. We can only have 6 active skills (1,2,3,4, RMB, LMB) so every skill not assigned to the button goes into the passive version. For example, I bought a barbarian jump that as a passive skill strengthens his legs so he can increase his movement speed or increase his dodging length. I would like to see a situation in which you buy a skill just because you want to have a passive from it.
If the problem of a wasted point is solved by means of synergy of skills then each skill would have to be associated with every other skill. For example, the jump passive will improve the ability to charge, and if Iâm not using the charge, it is an unnecessary skill for me, and I would like to avoid feeling wasted points at all costs. That is why I would put synergies between skills in talismans. Such a talisman, in addition to information on what skills are associated with a given upgrade, may contain various upgrades, so for example, the skill of jumping will improve the charge skill by increasing its damage or increasing the area of destruction or the length of the charge or reducing the cost of use. The talismans would have a separate tab so that they did not occupy the same place as the items. In addition, there could be talismans containing what punishments we want to receive on death, e.g. you will lose level / gold / teleport you to a checkpoint in exchange for better finding gold or items.
Will this limitation of skills not cause that the whole campaign will do the same and because of this the game will quickly get boring?
And here I would like to present to you an idea on skill customization similar to how spell creation in The Elder Scrolls Morrowind worked.
To make it consistent thematically I will give it on the example of a fireball, the skill of a sorceress.
For example, you buy a fireball skill: when you click on a skill in the skill tree, a new window with information about the skill will appear. For example, 50 damage points, you can cast a cost of 10 mana once a second, no additional effects, and most importantly 0 points available for spending on the skill. You can increase the mana cost of this skill and you will receive skill points that you can spend for example on damage.
Increasing your skill level will earn you points for this skill and you will unlock additional effects.
This is an extended version of the Volcen skill system.
With such customization, you can create such variants of skills:
100 damage points, 1 attack per second for 20 mana
100 damage points, 1 attack for 2 seconds for 10 mana,
200 damage points, 1 attack for 2 seconds for 20 mana,
200 damage points, 1 attack for 2 seconds for 40 mana and burn effect,
200 damage points, 1 attack for 2 seconds for 50 mana and area damage effect,
200 damage points, 1 attack for 2 seconds for 80 mana, burn effect and area damage effect.
Another example: suppose the build is very popular in which the fireball skill deals large area damage and if you hit 5 enemies with one fireball, you deal an additional 10% damage for 15 seconds. The effect is applied 4 times, and we suppose you fail to apply them - you fail to maintain a combo of three overlays so the damage multiplier shows an average 20% of the maximum 40%.
Even if it is the best solution for others, you can make decisions to sacrifice something and adapt skill to yourself and achieve better results. For example, you can increase the multiplier which will overlap less times (e.g. 3 overlays, 12% damage) but you can change the number of enemies that are needed or the time it takes to keep the multiplier. These are just examples, it is certainly badly planned, but they give the general idea of how creating skills can be a lot of fun. On condition that system does not allow any exploits. And I donât know how much this customization should allow, but I would like it to give so many possibilities that in a situation where two characters somehow having identical items, they can still differ significantly.
In addition, I would like to have the same set of items almost impossible. This could be achieved by increasing the importance of ordinary affixes in items. Drawing the same set of affixes would be unlikely, to some extent preventing the use of ready builds.
The community will create videos and guides on how to create builds and what to look for instead of ready builds. It all boils down to finding pleasure in creating your own builds and testing them. I admit that I am a player who prefers to pass the game on the lowest possible level of difficulty without using any guides than to pass the game on the highest using the guides.
Sorting and searching for items would be a huge help. I donât remember the names of all legends, so I will ask for options such as sorting by item type, type of rarity, and specific statistics. For example, show me all two-handed swords with a socket, legendary, from level 30 on, sort by damage descending. Another example: show me all the items I have in a given set and another show me all the items that increase my chance of a critical attack.
And now the time has come for something half joking.
When I watched various recordings from the Diablo 4 demo, I noticed that frequent criticism was that the Diablo 4 demo didnât present anything new. For me, the most important was to simplify the statistics of weapons for attack and armor for defense. And of course I understand that it makes no sense to introduce dozens of affixes that do the same and you canât do anything interesting with them.
But such simplification takes what this item is. I would like to see something quite the opposite, for example on a sword I would like to find statistics such as weapon weight, length, cut damage, piercing damage, blunt damage. And hence I would know if it is better to inflict cuts or thrusts and animations would play a much larger role. Letâs go a step further, and as if the character and opponent models were physical objects, a strong attack could knock over the opponent, you could keep smaller enemies at a distance with a spear.
The idea seems interesting to me, but it is not feasible because we have already seen the engine that will be Diablo 4 and it probably does not allow it, but letâs skip this fact and get to the world of fantasy, where everything is possible even such a feature as the reflection of damage on models. The creators want Diablo 4 to be dark. For me, there is no better way to embrace the darkness than to cut off an opponentâs limb or two. And this is what can distinguish diablo 4 from other games of this genre instead of stationary hitboxes where life bars fall. We have a fight like in real life.
I really prefer good animations like the animation of colliding weapons, at the expense of fewer opponents on the screen.
To sum up, it would be nice if the game was more action oriented. Slower gameplay will improve the feeling of each playerâs blow, then each blow will cut meat, bend armor and break bones.
I would like the game to start at a really high level of difficulty and make the game throughout the whole campaign really difficult. I like to fulfill my power fantasy. I love to crush my enemies with the barbarianâs great hammer and donât want me to take away my fantasy and my fun but I donât want the first contact with a game called dark to start on easy.
In order for players not to complain that the game is too easy, all easier levels should be hidden in options as Elective Mode in Diablo 3.
We know that they want to introduce a system of Paragon, maybe this system should serve as points for which you can buy rewards such as weapon skins or other cosmetic elements.
I know that I went away with these animations and physics but at least in my head it creates a nice coherent whole. As we know on paper, it can look nice and how you play it is a completely different matter.
I donât want it to sound like any criticism, itâs just my fantasy about what would be nice to see in any of the future games happening in the universe of the sanctuary.
Thank you for reading such a long post.
Sorry for the mistakes, I donât know English well, I wrote it using Google translator.
What do you think about these ideas?