Right, with the traditional trees there’s definitely a lack of depth to playstyles and often a lack of or limited choice. That can be ameliorated when you enable players not only to take more actions but to choose between options in-combat, all on the same buttons. Actually the structure of it may facilitate play. It’s clever if nothing else. Implementation is concerning considering this goes directly into animations. It is possible to simplify it by breaking each level to a basic action.
I want to come back to this thread later when I’m out of the office but I wanted to point out an example for readers.
Guild Wars 2 has a dynamic skill system, albeit a very simplistic one. When you acquire certain skills on your bar and use them, the icon is replaced with another and that key press now does something different. I said basic, as in most cases it’s limited to 1 alternate action or summon/unsummon, but the general concept is there for people to see in action. Dynamic sounds like a big scary word to some but it’s not particularly scary once you have a reference point.
I believe the OP -after only skimming the post- is suggesting a similar concept but you get to pick or focus on that alternate mode. So it’s not necessarily a combo system directly but more of a way to get additional skills on your hot bar. Sure, it could work with combos but I suspect the OP means something more akin to Death Must Die where doing something has an impact on the next thing. In DMD, you can curse enemies through death abilities and then a fate ability can resolve the curse instantly, etc. while that is a combo it’s not a traditional combo as step 1 through 4 or whatever.
Basically, a dynamic skill system would allow a more active playstyle rather than burying yourself in CDR or waiting for timers. This won’t change that there will of course be metas and some things will always be stronger than others but it’s about the frenetic play over passive play. Personally, I enjoy frenetic play enough that I tried to design a class within the D4 structure and style that just dives headfirst into action nonstop. It’s very rough as D4 is designed around cooldowns but it’s available to see in the creations forum.
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I think that is what the devs were trying to do with bleed mechanics. Do this thing to get bleed and then bring it all to a head for big damage and consume the bleed. The problem is it is too slow to stack and underwhelming when consumed. Would be neat to see more than just direct damage be worthwhile in this way.
Yeah, but like you say, when things are slow to apply and very short it doesn’t work well. I mean, a 3 second bleed applied by a weapon with .75 second attacks isn’t really that much damage or that many targets.
In DMD, curses don’t really do much individually, just a small damage over time that stays on for a long time or something that doesn’t do anything until they die, etc. It’s when you do other things that curses become effective. Plus it applies very easily, either on every hit or like one ability is 5 ravens flying around doing nothing but applying curse to every enemy they can and the higher the skill level and rarity the more ravens there are.
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You dont you add more hotbar space. Also did you need to put that jab in there insulting intelligence???
Right, the underlying button remapping is not unique. Apparently Path of Exile has it if you hold down Ctrl. The unique thing here is that we’re talking about an entire structure. I don’t want just one button being pressed turning into something else or a conditional aspect in skills. As was pointed out by you and GrumpyKitten (who are apparently running a cat theme), these are simplistic and often underwhelming things. What I envision is one button being pressed refreshing half of your skill slots, repeatedly. That’s why I refer to trees as this is progression through a skill containment structure, which I think should be built out through endgame loot drops. Two birds with one stone.
A more varied and player-empowered playstyle. What the base game currently does is limit players to playstyles that are extremely basic, to the point where I believe these games will look terrible in hindsight. I think the ceiling is ludicrously low - it really is idiocy, which can be experienced personally as well as by watching Twitch streams or freaking Elon Musk of all people - but what this also means is there is much room for improvement, the potential for a big step forward in this stagnant genre. It probably won’t be easy but it seems too obvious, to me at least. I also believe it can be implemented in such a manner that people who enjoy the traditional extremely basic ARPG playstyle don’t have to be dragged into it kicking and screaming. I suspect many will figure out the point in practice, if it turns out well.
And yet according to you “only 6 skills is very limiting”. What a conundrum. Let me quote another post of yours:
That was addressed to carrotfeets in particular. This one is addressed to you. I expect some minimal effort.
Ok maybe start putting in some names on the ppl you are insulting in the future. Or you know be an actual human being with empathy and dont do that???
What are you trying to say here? Only 6 skills is limiting. Its limiting to 6.
This is a jab at myself because I always write walls of text.
It’s a test. If you don’t pay attention it’s doubly problematic.
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In fairness, I think I actually misread your recent comment. Yes, you add more hotbar space. You can do that on the same buttons, kind of an important premise of the post. The original question was how do you put more than 6 skills on 6 buttons.
Until we get an actual skill tree instead of a skill twig we are going to be stuck with boring repetitive combat. We need more slots and more choices. We need to get rid of builder/spender philosophy of play and work towards a more dynamic system with less cooldowns and more action beyond mashing one button until one of the other 5 is ready.
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You’re going to be stuck with boring repetitive combat because it’s the ARPG way, not your way. How do you not know this already? Also, they’re not going to get rid of resources and cooldowns. That would, remarkably, make gameplay even more ridiculous.
Cooldowns are fine, but 60 second cooldowns on ultimate skills that you have to invest legendary aspects, gear affixes and the new unique boots to reduce by half for a skill that hits for a fraction of damage as a core skill is just poor game design.
Additionally none of the skills should have cooldowns of more than 10 seconds, this is forcing players to hunt for CDR making it a must have for any builds that require cycling through skills that require cooldowns.
Affect class needs to have an inherent resource regeneration plus regeneration from builders if they want to keep the builder/spender gameplay. Resource costs should also be reduced and putting extra levels into basic skills should yield more resources.
A third option should be made for each skill currently in the tree offering more choice in how to play and the least used options need to be given buffs for players to take them seriously. I’m sure there are skills that see less than 2% use in the overall game meaning the choices we have are mostly just the illusion of choice.
Speaking of illusion of choice many of the builds are taking the exact same passives and exact same paragon glyphs, just as they all take the exact same seasonal powers in spite of all the other options on the table. It’s 47 flavours of vanilla and one with chocolate sauce and the other with sprinkles. I know which one I am taking.
My biggest worry here is that whatever variety gets added comes only in the form of expansion and not as part of the base game. I expect more from the developers and you should too.
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Agreed OP, nothing like a stale repetitive hand fed old skill system with new graphics - Diablo 4.
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So let me get this straight. Your biggest worry is that I’m asking too little out of the developers? That’s fresh. 
What you want is ultimate skills on 20-second cooldowns, other skills on no more than 10-second cooldowns, and to not run out of resources spamming a core or mastery skill? And you want them to buff stuff that their metrics are telling them is not used much…
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The biggest demand you make is the addition of a third twig at the very edge of the skill tree?
What more can I tell you than their designers and developers just aren’t very good? It’s not a put-down, it’s merely an observation. But people love making excuses for them. I’m trying to give them what I think is a really good idea that has the potential to break them out of a rut. I’m no designer or developer myself by any stretch of the imagination, but I’ve been watching true idiocy in gaming for so long it eventually dawned on me you simply aren’t dealing with terribly smart people in this sphere of life. This should be a surprise to no one, but we are united by a liking of games.
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Okay, I’ve read the post mostly, focused on your barb example and sorc example tree. I have a few thoughts.
I want to start with some of your underlying assumptions about D4. While it’s true that a lot of people left before S1 even started, I would challenge the idea that it’s because it was too stagnant. The biggest audience increase to the Diablo series prior to D4 was when D3 launched. The obvious conclusion should be to look at the differences between D3 and D4. I’ve argued prior to this that D4 reverts too far to D2 in a way that the larger audience that enjoyed D3 was turned off. Particularly with the finite progression system, even if they don’t articulate it that way.
We see the arguments on the forums each day with ‘nothing to do after level 100’ and ‘why is eternal stagnant’, etc. The answers generally lie with ‘D4 is fundamentally different at the core’. This brings me to the conclusion that people like the familiarity of classic ARPG systems, at least the majority of people anyway. It kind of makes sense that this is the 5th iteration in the series and hasn’t changed much. If people expected differently than prior versions then they could play another series or genre. I can’t really place a value judgement on whether or not a significant innovation would be a benefit in this case. I personally like the idea of a more active combat system but there is clearly a significant number of those who don’t.
In looking at your examples -which are very well thought out- I see where your system is strong but also see a weakness in ARPGs that might have a negative impact on your system. You specifically state that you want to offer more variety to combat but the universal problem with ARPGs is that they’re a math game. This leads, seemingly always, to a specific set of actions being done. In D4 is having a primary ability, a generator, buffs, and escape. Generators get used and then the primary with the buffs and escape being reactionary to the content. As long as the math and desire to get biggest numbers don’t change in any ARPG it will invariably result in ‘this is the best, must use’. I don’t even mean a meta, I mean down to the specific class and build.
In your design, the real change is that you will have more buttons to press more often. The problem isn’t with your idea, it’s just a problem with ARPGs in general. I think to have any functional innovation it’ll have to start with the other combat systems design first or in tandem with implementing a change like you suggest. Whether through enemy mobility changes or scripted mechanics, it needs to change enough that restarting a rotation isn’t a net loss. Even in the current system, if you run out of resource then everything has to restart until you have enough, causing a net loss in dps. The system should not be held back arbitrarily by systems we’ve inherited. Your design could be a part of alleviating that problem but it won’t be a complete solution.
I am curious, perhaps this was me not seeing it since I’m in the office and keep getting interrupted, how does the player choose which of those skills are used? For instance in your sorc example you have complete cycling skill series but were they default or player picked? I don’t think either would be difficult to code, as you’d have a state machine for the damage effects and calculations associated with it, separate from the states of the player character. This would allow reuse of animations easier so there would be means of expanding and changing things far more efficiently than having a single state to have every possible permutation. Ugh, that scares me to think about. Lol. I assume they did it with multiple states already though, only an idiot wouldn’t.
I also found thought of another example of the dynamic skill system, by Blizzard even. Warcraft Rumble has a mini named Raptor which summons 1 raptor for 1 gold. When you deploy the mini it automatically fills in the slot with another raptor, but it’s 2 gold for 2 raptors. And after that you get 3 raptors for 3 gold. If you deploy anything other than a raptor during this cycling it will remove the raptor and replace it with another random mini.
I mention this because seeing your system in the sorc example, it doesn’t seem to have a reset other than completing the cycle. So does it go 1-1-2-3-1 then 1-1-2-3-2 then 1-1-2-3-1 and just repeat over and over to account for the cooldowns? Do they reset after leaving combat? Yes I realize I just typed numbers and didn’t put any thought into a rotation here. 
. The point being is what level of access to different abilities do you get, like in that example you get access to some neat features but I didn’t see a any escape or anti-CC abilities. If they were in there, do you have to wait until the cycle starts over to access it if you’ve skipped it already? Since you’re cycling only 3 slots from the looks of it, does that mean you’ve planned to have the other slots on the action bar as static abilities? I find your system intriguing and would like to hear about some more of the specifics. Forgive me if I was just distracted and overlooked something.
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I think the skill trees in this game are fine, build freedom overall sucks and that comes from a lot more than just the skill trees (equipment being a huge factor). An issue that the game really has right now is that tons of skills are literally just Skill Traps ~ dead ends because they’re too weak to really compete with others or there aren’t aspects or build interactions for them.
Skill traps (nodes or skills you just shouldn’t take, probably ever) suck but nearly every game has them. Sometimes that’s just more of a balance issue and you can fix the skill trap by just buffing the thing that sucks, which I hope they keep doing for Diablo.
I have to be honest with you that this kind of mixture of high complexity skill tree combined with a super low complexity base game is exactly why I don’t enjoy Path of Exile ~ After you’re done mathing out your super optimal build, it’s literally still just brainless gameplay of move around and click stuff while you avoid the colorful stuff.
As much as I think D3 was pretty mediocre, I really did like the Skill Runes idea ~ some of the ways you could set up your character were really fun, Wizard had some really fun modifiers for their stuff like reflecting projectiles or making Teleport behave differently. Being able to play around is fun, it would add a ton of replay value in this game if that was just easier to do and there weren’t as many skill traps.
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Not a fan of skill trees overall. Skill webs are better. At least PoE got that one right.
Skill trees are too linear, skill webs allows you to pick different routes to the same nodes.
However, the right approach for an A-RPG imo, is to give each skill their own skill tree/web.
And then have a separate passive web system for cross-skill synergy choices. Both PoEs skill web, and D4s paragon boards, are reasonably fine examples of that. PoEs makes things a bit too complicated imo, Wolcen kinda made a more streamlined version of the same thing.
Paragaon boards are nice enough as a concept, but there is not enough interesting choices to make, the nodes are a bit too passive/stat boost focused. There are not nearly enough boards either.
Yeah, as much as I think D3 is a bad game, the skill runes were better than what D4 has done. We have basically moved from ~100 skills per class, due to the rune effects, to ~25 skills per class.
I wouldnt say runes were the right way to offer these skill modifications though. I’ød still go for a skill web, with both passive changes to the skills (like D4 offers a little bit), and then with the big skill modifiers at the end of the skill tree (or outer ring of the web structure), as a “pick one of these” type nodes, that might drastically change the skill.
Also, bake in most item affixes that affects a single skill into these skill webs. That would solve so many of the issues with both the skill modification choices, and the itemization, tbh.
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Frankly, I think most of D4’s audience didn’t know or didn’t recall how it is different from D3, or it didn’t matter to them. A big Blizzard release is an event - you can’t read too much into the initial numbers. The stagnation I’m referring to is profound - whatever differences there are between these games going back to D2, and between D4 and other ARPG games, they are relatively inconsequential to the lack of innovation throughout. This is compounded by how basic ARPG combat is, which comprises most of the gameplay. It’s literally what a player does virtually the whole time. I believe this big-picture stagnation is a key part of explaining that once you get past the event of this game’s release you see a precipitous drop. The whole game is too old, too unoriginal, too basic, too insufficiently fun. Combat lies in the middle of this, and I believe it can be innovated on. You figure a few things out, have resources to expend, and suddenly a previously untapped dimension opens up simply because you thought of it and implemented it first. I think Blizzard are in a position to innovate, make something pique people’s interest and take an actual step forward.
I think, to the contrary, that the people who are fixated on what this genre has been are actually the minority. You make way too much of your past. I think you really misinterpret the circumstances, and are naturally over-represented in a D4 community. I will concede, however, that in my opinion people don’t actually know what they want, or can’t articulate it anyway. You have to offer it to them. You have to show them what they want.
I recognize that, certainly within this community. That’s why I emphasize these newer trees are modular, people can be insulated from them. But I expect they’ll be simple and interesting enough that it will turn out a lot of those people didn’t know what they wanted.
And that overwhelming emphasis on the math is exactly the problem! Most people don’t play video games because of math! Math should never be an excuse to make the actual game suck! You use math to make things make sense, to control what happens, and to provide progression. You never rely on math to carry an entire ACTION game, an entire ACTION genre, unless you want to be stuck with a subset of dorks for your playerbase. This premise is the difference between pretentious nerdlings and actually smart people. So, yes, I absolutely want to expand this game in another direction, delve into it. As I wrote in another post, action > math. That should be common sense in the context of a video game. The absurd thing is that despite the reliance on math, which is associated with higher intelligence, the gameplay experience is described as mindless and brainless by people who partake in it, and understanding the math isn’t even necessary! So what do you have in the end!? One hell of a paradox.
I don’t know about that. If you look at the sorceress example, as it’s most convenient, you have options on one level to either deal some damage over a wide area, deal more targeted damage, or crowd control. Without changing anything you have three different options that you can legitimately be using at different times. You also have a starting ability that is protective rather than damaging - Mirror Image - which can clearly be used at different times relative to the other two options. There are a number of different combinations going all the way down that tree that would be competitively useful. However, you are correct. The best result will involve making enemies more dynamic as well, there being various means for that (some easier than others). I think one of the things my trees enable is delving deeper in that direction too, taking combat to an entirely new level for an ARPG. With PoE 2 right around the corner likely whooping this game’s butt in at least a number of aspects if I’m working at Blizzard I would be paying attention to ideas just like this. Don’t be surprised if that game pulls a shocker and upstages this one. Those people apparently had backing now. It’s not quite the same I-can-do-absolutely-nothing-new-and-still-win market, even within this lower tier genre.
I’ve seen Blizzard make the same casually-minded mistake before with Heroes of the Storm. What they have never figured out is that rather than drowning in the math and bullcrap complexity of competitors there is an avenue for them to move ahead in making these games more fun. That’s what these ideas are ultimately about. Fun. From what I’ve read this is what they did with WoW back in the day.
You press a button to execute a normal ability on a longer cooldown. If the dynamic tree is placed on this button and it’s off cooldown 4 of your standard buttons are automatically remapped to the first level skills of the tree, which you build out through endgame loot drops. Three of those buttons become three new skills, one is reserved to exit the dynamic tree that you have to reenter and complete through the button of the initial skill. Then you execute a skill from level one and are automatically moved to level two with button remapping until you finish the tree. I don’t know what these states you’re referring to are. The way I picture it this is a user interface or mechanic for a player to access and execute more skills while using the same buttons. You have to have that functionality as well as to implement all the skills the tree could contain. Usually when I suggest something consequential for a Blizzard game I’m informed by posters that Blizzard actually can’t do jack sht. How that is the case with so many resources I don’t know, but if it’s true they’re a disgrace and there’s little that can be done to help them.
So far I have deemed it necessary only for the entire tree structure to have a cooldown, which I generously start running in the background from the execution of the first ability. Once you are in it you can do what you want. At the moment I don’t have a strong opinion on how it should actually be.
In that tree you have an option to go through it entirely defensively with Mirror Image and Friendly Territory Warp. Once you commit to an initial ability you have to execute its corresponding levels so if at the start you go with one of the two damage abilities then you’ve got three levels of them, although you have a crowd control variant at level three for a more defensive option. Furthermore, if you press the button reserved for exiting the tree you get access to three of the four normal abilities on those buttons. You can pop out of the tree for a normal ability and come right back inside. The two buttons I keep away from these trees I imagine being the basic and core skills, but perhaps it should be all configurable by the player.
Crucial difference. These trees are not Path of Exile’s passive constellation. To the contrary, they are actually simpler than Diablo IV’s base tree. You can picture them as a number of blocks across multiple levels within a container. Actually the dynamic dependent sorceress one might be a mess - I think you rely on words for that one to some extent. I think in practice people will find this quite intuitive, especially when they get used to the concept.
What is the difference? Each of these things is a literal active skill you can access and choose between in-combat, not one of 1500 passive modifiers. That means the whole point is to improve the brainless gameplay that defines this genre.
The difference between D3 and what I propose is empowering players to choose between variations to execute in-combat. Big difference. That is effectively innovative. In fact, you just made me think of another possibility for how to apply this concept, one that may be an easier sell for initial adoption… hmm, well done! It appears I will have something else to keep myself busy with.
I don’t think you understand what these particular skill trees are (I can only write the difference). Think of these suggestions as skill trees you make selections from in-combat. Your skill webs don’t do that, and ironically despite their wonderful complexity, versatility, and flexibility the end-result turns out to be similarly idiotic, as Ioneye pointed out and as have others. It’s the preponderant idiocy of ARPGs I’m trying to target.
Yeah I got this part, sorry about my lack of clarity. I meant how do you get the skills, do you pick one from the tree like magic missile and you get all subsequent dynamic skills or do you use skill points to pick each one individually and they kind of piece together themselves?
Like, maybe you don’t want the ice version of it so you pick poison, fire and lightning instead. Or is it a pack where you don’t get the choice to choose.
I like this approach.
Components drop as endgame loot. The dynamic non-dependent choice skill trees are simple. There are containment structures, skills, and inter-level effects that drop individually. The dynamic dependent choice skill tree presents some challenges I haven’t really thought about, I focused just on making it as no one reads anyway. I think how you’d do it is provide an “item” - all of this stuff is special types of items in essence - for the skills at level 1 and 4. You would also provide an item for each of the three elements at level 2 damage. Then you could provide one to three items for the different variation types across elements at level 3. I don’t think level 5 would warrant an item but it’s optional. Level 6 should have an item to enable, or perhaps individual items. The defensive options will need their own variation of items. So you have this progressive item hunt in the endgame that as opposed to just augmenting your math enables you to take more actions. Big theme. This also eases players into expanded combat gameplay.
As for how the dynamic dependent choice skill tree options work it’s in the descriptions of the skills. The conditions of what has already been executed determine which three options can be available. With the dynamic non-dependent choice skill tree the player gets what the player has already chosen out of combat. It’s more similar to a traditional skill tree in that respect.
All possible options need to be accounted for in design. As this is sorceress and they have no poison option I chose not to include poison in the tree - that’s for rogues. Of course there is also a lot of empowerment of these elements through the traditional skill tree, traditional items, and paragon boards. That should carry over.
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