I really HATE it that “all classes needs to operate in the same way”. It kills class identity and char identity. Of course a bowzon is more dependent on ammo than a skelimancer who is more dependent on corpses and is less mana dependent than a energy shield sorc who is less gear dependent than a barbarian.
Game mechanics should reflect the class fantasies. That said, the arsenal idea is a amazing to make the Barbarian feels more unique.
I would also make the Druid skills more dependent on the environment. Having a hurricane/tornado with bigger radius, duration and damage when he is on the southern part of Patagonia/northern part of Alaska compared to the same spell casted in a dry hot desert would be so amazing. Will make the druid completely different than a sorcerer and his magic feels much more primal/“natureish”
That is the difference between good class fantasies and implementations and poor “everyone is a generic AOE DPS and eqqualy gear dependent”
The important thing about this is, balance.
It’s hard to make the overall gameplay completely different for every class because they all need the same chances of beating or losing the game. And if you wanna do that properly, you would need like 5 times the worktime and money, to achieve that
This sounds awesome tbh. I would really implement this feature for PVE and PVP/PVE areas where depending on the weather, if its stormy, raining the druid gets a personal slight buff… and area as well for example in forests he also gets a slight buff and on desserts he may get a slight debuff, and so on.
By having tomes with even rarer rolls, say you could have them anywhere between +1 and +5
Heck, might even make the +1 tomes semi/normal drops (with similar drop rates as legendaries), but the +3, +4, and +5 an endgame material… Could be cooler if there were “limited” number of slots to have these active per character (up to 3 for ex). i.e. being a part of “further” character customization
Actually on a second thought I think we found the PERFECT ENDGAME artifact, a book shelf that you can put any 3 tomes you like and have them bonused-out onto your character… You might end up using a Barb with Meteor, Trample and Rain of Vengeance if you’d like to (IF you had the Tomes to do so)
I kinda also like the idea cause there might be a special type of Tomes (Tome of Empower, provided there was no skill named “Empower” lol), that consumes a spot within the 3 slots on the shelf and it’s job is literally to “Empower other Tomes by anywhere between +1 and +3”
So, IN THEORY you could gain something like +5 to Meteor, and another +3 Empower tomes, giving you a +11 to a non-class skill, say you chose Meteor, (THAT’s a HECK OF A LOT for an off-class build), BUT you have to farm the heck out of everything in order to make it … Aand ofc. you might end up wasting all that energy/strength on fire skill and end up into a FireRes dungeon, so might wanna change it for that particular dungeon run or so
The ONLY thing that remains is for us to give a proper name of that Shelf artifact… Heck, might be a library for what I’d care tbh
EDIT: Here’s a topic I just created inspired by this talk
Yes, that is right if we got skills only with tomes but the tomes are an addition to skill points obtained by leveling (i guess). In this case, you still can do the build you want, but it will be hardder to max the skill as it is hard to get the perfect item.
If we can go up to skill level 10 with skill points and to level 15 with the books, then those last 5 levels won’t be that easy to get but you can still get them.
But ofc, it is hard to talk about this without know what they want to do, bcs there are many posibilities depending of when and how we can start to use the books.
I see them as a good thing to perfect a skill we alredy leveled. Ofc, there are other options like be able to unlock and fully level a skill only with books but that isn’t my favorite idea atm, except maybe for the shared skills idea.
im kinda ok with the idea to find special book that grant you an insight to the ultimate mastery of some combat skills
but it should not be a way to “max it all”
say, you DID max a skill to what ever, 10 points, THEN you will be able to use this book and increase the level even more
some kind of skill-paragon that only happens after you finished your mastery of a combat art
Yes, at the end it will depend on how they do it. I hope it is one of the things they want to share with us for feedback. I would like to see a new dev’s post soon of this or any other topic.
Replayability and immersion are far more important than balance. Mainly in a SP game.
Then why have different classes in the first place?
No, is not. Even in classic WoW, Warlocks had access to a unique resource(soul gems), mages could create food, hunters could tame beasts(…)
If you look to more “cult classic” RPG’s like VtMB, nothing was harder than beat the game as a Nosferatu. Why? Nosferatus are cursed with deformation. The worst possible curse for a extremely social game, where you gain no xp on combat. While another vampire can dominate prostitutes and seduce woman in night clubs to turn then into blood dolls, the nosferatu can’t even be seen by the same woman. People only by seeing a nosferatu flee in terror and is a masquarede break that will lead to a lot of unanted consequences and possibly a game over.
I suggest this video. Most examples are RPG’s(5/7). Different choices leading to different difficulty is what i expect in any game.
I agree. That limitation will be artificial but would lead to more customization.
The only thing this would really accomplish in the context of Diablo 1 is making most spell books irrelevant to Warriors and Rogues.
The main difference between those two Sorcerers however is that the one with 220 MAG hasn’t farmed spell books.
There is no thought process to spell books in Diablo 1. You find it, you use it because there is no choice you make as with enough effort you can max out every spell.
An Elemental and Werewolf Druid in Diablo 2 were different down to their fundamental builds because the skill point system forced them to make choices. They could not have every spell maxed out like you can in Diablo 1 or automatically get in Diablo 3.
This is part of why the skill point system is superior to what Diablo 1 or 3 did.
The end state of Diablo 1 spell books is what we had in Diablo 3 where you have everything maxed out and made no real choices along the way.
Only you don’t even have runes or a limit of 6 active skills at once.
Even if they end up with everything maximized, AT least the “journey” is different. At least before they learned all spells and maxed all attributes, they had different spell casting capabilities and attributes.
a mmorpg is not an arpg
in a mmorpg, noone can beat the game alone
in an arpg like diablo, everyone is supposed to do that because its a singleplayer game
But having a harder or a easier game depending on the player choices is a quintessential RPG element. That said, on DS3 someone who starts the game as a DEPRIVED with a plank shield and a club will have a much harder time compared to a knight that starts the game with good weapon, good armor and the best initial shield. Or a pyromancer that starts with ranged spells, axe, armor and shield.
When i did a pyro run on DS2, i had a lot of trouble on Iron Keep and on Shrine of Amana and it makes sense. Enemies resistant to fire, enemies submerged in water are a far greater problem from a pyromancer than from anyone else.
