Diablo IV’s skill “synergies” and slot limitation devolves the gameplay to be all about spamming TWO abilities vast, vast majority of the time: The Basic skill, and the Core skill. The player only makes one choice at the beginning (the Basic skill), and is then pigeonholed into a Core skill that has a slight synergy with the generator. Then the 4 slots left are just cooldowns based on personal preference.
I can already see the on-rails builds already: ex. If you take Frost Bolt, take the “ice” spenders. If you take Fire Bolt, take the “fire” spenders. Simple. Don’t even need to think.
At this point, why even have a skill tree? Just remove the entire skill tree UI, and just ask the player during character creation if they want to be an Frost, Fire, or Lightning sorceress, then just automatically assign the TWO skills corresponding to that element. Then, copy-and-paste the pre-Dragonflight WoW talent UI where the player just chooses from 1 of 4 of cooldowns for each of the 4 skill slots.
If the skill tree has devolved into such simplicity, the UX can easily be changed to match the lack of depth of the skill tree. Right now, the “skill tree” is just a convoluted UI to obfuscate the mindless simplicity.
D3 was no different the only difference is the fact skills were unlocked via a lvl system and not points. in current D3 season demon hunter is literally just hold right click and press 1/2 on cd
I felt this way about the Sorcerer for sure. It was not the same for me on the Rogue or Barbarian. The latter two felt like they had a much higher variety available to them, while the Sorcerer felt like I was choosing whether I wanted to use blue skills, very blue skills, or orange skills.
I knew this would happen. I felt it in my bones since I first heard about this edition of the game and what they were going to do with it.
Some of you have played MMOs too long. In an MMO, end game is where it’s at, and everything revolves around that. Having numerous choice and abilities is preferred. In an ARPG, they story is front and center. Mechanics are secondary to the story. They are designed to be beaten, finished, etc.
Once I heard they were going to add MMO elements into it, I knew immediately that the old school die-hard ARPG fans and the MMO fans were going to clash. And look, here it is. The “hack, slash, and loot, and nothing more” attitude doesn’t jive with ARPGs. But now, with MMO elements, it’s become a half-breed, and I’ll bet you anything, it’s going to struggle after launch. Not as in fall flat, but there will never be a time when people will agree on how it’s supposed to be.
Bad idea overall. They should have either made it an ARPG, or a full MMO.
The real question, why have two skill tress (class + paragon)?
As to you other points, its only relevant early where you don’t have the necessary affixes/abilities - options already exist to skip generators, or double down on them.
Got a 25 lightening. I have frost armor, lighting chain, lightening spear, teleport, and ultimate. Inuse tele port and frost armor for def. I hit l spear and spam when i have mana lighten chain then use the basic lightene skill when mana is out. Pretty sure thats more then 2 buttons.
I went Frost and Lightning on my sorcerer (happily as my original, D2 sorcerer had those elements) because I saw Frost would enable mana regen initially. As I got further in, I built to focus on crackling energy, which with enough investments shows up regularly and provides mana on pickup.
Yeah, you need to use the basic ability routinely, but it got to the point where it did not feel like my non-basic abilities were horribly constrained (level 25 if it makes any difference).
Rogue has options to stay in energy, but I admit I built a melee rogue specifically to gain benefit from being beneath half/out of energy. She spends as much as she can, as quickly as she can, so I can apply vulnerability and spread it.
I will not disagree with the claim of generate/spend a lot of the time but Shadow Stepping, Shadow Striking, and tossing up Shadow (shields) do play a definite part of the cycle.
As for being stuck to one element on a Rogue, for a period in the Rogue’s mid-teens I did lean on having a ranged attack for when it was not (yet) safe to always been in melee range. I honestly considered splicing in ranged attacks as a lesser part of her function but really actually wanted to be strictly melee focused.
I may give some thought before next weekend on how to divvy things up for a melee/ranged hybrid.
Does that involve:
1a) Frost Bolt with Frozen Orb
1b) Frost Bolt with Ice Shards
2a) Fire Bolt with Fireball
2b) Fire Bolt with Incinerate
3a) Arc Lash with Chain Lightning
3b) Arc Lash with Charged Bolt
My issue is not that the game gives little incentives to play different build, quiet the opposite, due to the many rare items that gives extra skill points. However I feel its really silly that I have to spend gold every 5 minutes, if I get a better stat rare, and adjust my skills toward that rare. Why can’t I just change the skills wherever I want why do I need to get penalized, even though the game wants me to swap around a lot?
Exactly. With the way the skills, limited skill slots, and resources are designed in Diablo IV, there is no need for a skill tree. It’s a skill trunk with no branches.
Not really. The talent tree is a facade of choices but doesnt’ actually do anything for your power level. Your power level is coming 100% from your items.
On the one hand, I can see the argument being made. On the other hand, it is kind of a meaningless argument. On the gripping hand…
Trees are about making choices. How those choices are graphically presented to you does not any more or less make the collection of choices a tree or not. Trees typically involve:
Having places where picking one choice locks out another
Constraints on the number of choices which can be made
In D4, both the above occur. It is not the complicated display of Path of Exile, but you make choices with limited resources and taking some paths excludes others (repeatedly).
But hey, one of my favorite restaurants on its lunch menu gives you four either/or choices. You have to take something from each choice presented and cannot have both items from a choice. It is a tree, just not presented with nodes and lines.