If there is one thing that I hope Blizzard learned from WoW, it's that replacing old spells with whole new ones that are simply stronger versions of them (or that only have small differences) ruins the skill progression system, as it encourages players to not spend skills at low levels, so that they may max out higher level skills of the same type later. In fact, this can be said of the skill tree system in general, if one does not make all of the abilities useful at any point in the game.
Blizzard's answer was the synergy system, which gave bonuses to other spells if you had skill points in the previous ones. But this seems like a rough fix. And you still have some abilities that you wonder why they exist. You get Leap at level 6, and Leap Attack at level 18. Why would you continue to use leap after you get leap attack? It's not just a matter of putting points into ablities, it's about making them useful at all. The same goes for many of the sorceress spells.
Basically, I would like the d3 devs to try the WoW spell method. Actually, for a better analogy, let's think of Diablo abilities like units in Starcraft 2. They always stress that they are trying to make each unit a niche unit, so that none of them are worthless, and they aren't tiered so that some will become useless in the endgame. Can we not do this in Diablo? Can every skill not be a niche skill, with the potential to be used throughout the game?
For an example, let's say I'm playing a sorceress. I have chosen to focus mostly on the ice tree, and as such have three (four, if you count frozen orb) projectile ice attacks. However, they are, for the most part, the same. You should an ice projectile, and units take damage and are either frozen or slowed. Frozen orb is a little different, but still tends to fill the same role as the other 3.
Why not just have ONE projectile spell, and simply tune it so that if one invests skills in it, it will stay useful throughout the game?
If each skill is unique, and will remain useful to the player for as long as they choose to invest points in it (not saying every point goes to this skill, but one every few levels maybe), then suddenly you don't have to save skill points while lower level. You still make choices about what to invest in, but there are no duplicate skills, and every one can be used at high levels if you put enough points into it.
Also, the progression part, with certain skills required for certain others, would either require careful crafting or removal. It's a waste of skill points and no fun to have to invest a point in one ability just to get another. You can maybe require X number of points on the tree, or a point in x,y, or z, to be able to get this ability, but if you make it too specific you are likely to end up with people investing the minimum and ignoring the skill. If you don't want to use an ability, you should not have to put points in it.
I probably typed way too much detailing this issue and how I hope they change it in D3 (I noticed that the barb used leap, but it dealt damage like a leap attack, so I think--hope--that they are onto this) But I know that the most important thing to me in this newest sequel will be the classes' progression system, and it seems like it ruins the fun of playing a new character if you have to gimp early on just to be good later.
Oh right, I should have known not to mention WoW, because some people are so childish that they cannot admit when something is an improvement. I like the Diablo franchise far more than WoW, but I accept that neither is perfect and that either can potentially learn from the other.
So please, if you are like this guy above, don't post in the damn thread.
To mrdoom
Agreed with your take on skills. Some things in Diablo II are totally strange and unbalanced. There is so much stuff in the game that is never used...
I agree, I didn't like the way that the skill tree worked once you were on a higher level, but I don't think that they should add a WoW version of the skills either. And you have to consider that Blizzard is BIG on balancing classes with the diffictuly of the game. Just imagine if D2 skills were more like the WoW skill trees. It wouldn't even be a challenge when you got to the end of the game since you would be so powerful.
Well, I didn't mean exactly like WoW I just liked that spells came in ranks (you can use your earliest spells at high levels, it's just a higher rank version.
This can be equated to pumping more points into a skill on the tree.
Other than that, the WoW system isn't all that remarkable. I simply like that one aspect.
Yes, I would love more WoW in my Diablo 3, shutup and go with the the way it already is
Wtf are you insane? This was a widely accepted problem in D2. WoW has this particular feature down right. Who wouldn't want all of the skills to be useful in different situations throughout the whole game?
I say, if a skill will become useless after another skill just like it is available, then don't bother wasting your time coding and animating it so we can get diablo 3 sooner...
If there is one thing that I hope Blizzard learned from WoW, it's that replacing old spells with whole new ones that are simply stronger versions of them (or that only have small differences) ruins the skill progression system, as it encourages players to not spend skills at low levels, so that they may max out higher level skills of the same type later. In fact, this can be said of the skill tree system in general, if one does not make all of the abilities useful at any point in the game.
Blizzard's answer was the synergy system, which gave bonuses to other spells if you had skill points in the previous ones. But this seems like a rough fix. And you still have some abilities that you wonder why they exist. You get Leap at level 6, and Leap Attack at level 18. Why would you continue to use leap after you get leap attack? It's not just a matter of putting points into ablities, it's about making them useful at all. The same goes for many of the sorceress spells.
Basically, I would like the d3 devs to try the WoW spell method. Actually, for a better analogy, let's think of Diablo abilities like units in Starcraft 2. They always stress that they are trying to make each unit a niche unit, so that none of them are worthless, and they aren't tiered so that some will become useless in the endgame. Can we not do this in Diablo? Can every skill not be a niche skill, with the potential to be used throughout the game?
For an example, let's say I'm playing a sorceress. I have chosen to focus mostly on the ice tree, and as such have three (four, if you count frozen orb) projectile ice attacks. However, they are, for the most part, the same. You should an ice projectile, and units take damage and are either frozen or slowed. Frozen orb is a little different, but still tends to fill the same role as the other 3.
Why not just have ONE projectile spell, and simply tune it so that if one invests skills in it, it will stay useful throughout the game?
If each skill is unique, and will remain useful to the player for as long as they choose to invest points in it (not saying every point goes to this skill, but one every few levels maybe), then suddenly you don't have to save skill points while lower level. You still make choices about what to invest in, but there are no duplicate skills, and every one can be used at high levels if you put enough points into it.
Also, the progression part, with certain skills required for certain others, would either require careful crafting or removal. It's a waste of skill points and no fun to have to invest a point in one ability just to get another. You can maybe require X number of points on the tree, or a point in x,y, or z, to be able to get this ability, but if you make it too specific you are likely to end up with people investing the minimum and ignoring the skill. If you don't want to use an ability, you should not have to put points in it.
I probably typed way too much detailing this issue and how I hope they change it in D3 (I noticed that the barb used leap, but it dealt damage like a leap attack, so I think--hope--that they are onto this) But I know that the most important thing to me in this newest sequel will be the classes' progression system, and it seems like it ruins the fun of playing a new character if you have to gimp early on just to be good later.
To mrdoom
Agreed with your take on skills. Some things in Diablo II are totally strange and unbalanced. There is so much stuff in the game that is never used...
Makes you wonder how much time, money, and effort was wasted coding and animating those useless skills.
I agree, I didn't like the way that the skill tree worked once you were on a higher level, but I don't think that they should add a WoW version of the skills either. And you have to consider that Blizzard is BIG on balancing classes with the diffictuly of the game. Just imagine if D2 skills were more like the WoW skill trees. It wouldn't even be a challenge when you got to the end of the game since you would be so powerful.
Well the enemy difficulty and stats can always be increased proportionally?
Well, actually it occurred to me that, should this be implemented, the fact that an ability is expected to be invested in casually, and that you would get other abilities, means that one who puts all their points into one of their bread and butter skills could potentially far outclass monsters his level.
The obvious solution is a cap on how many points can go into a skill before a given level, but that seems a little more restrictive than I would like. Maybe have power of a skill be affected by character level as well?
Okay, people, I am proposing a new idea, instead of saying in a particular game, just say "in that one game." This works much better, becuase then people don't bitch about you copying other games... This is how it works in a lot of MMO forums, because everyone relates everything to WoW... So, please, stop bringing up games in particular, and just the ideas in the games...
Okay, people, I am proposing a new idea, instead of saying in a particular game, just say "in that one game." This works much better, becuase then people don't bitch about you copying other games... This is how it works in a lot of MMO forums, because everyone relates everything to WoW... So, please, stop bringing up games in particular, and just the ideas in the games...
But then are we not just imitating all those MMO forums--I mean, that one group of forums?
The obvious solution is a cap on how many points can go into a skill before a given level, but that seems a little more restrictive than I would like. Maybe have power of a skill be affected by character level as well?
Oh, like some racial skill that are in that one game? lolz
Possibly. but I don't recall this from that one game, though I was not that avid of a player.
Basically, the idea would be that a character with one skill point in a given ability at level 99 would be better at it than a character at level 10 with one skill point in it. This way, if someone chooses to pick a skill and max it out as early as possible, it wouldn't necessarily be too strong for the level they are at, though it would still be of the right strength when they were at the level cap.
Possibly. but I don't recall this from that one game, though I was not that avid of a player.
Basically, the idea would be that a character with one skill point in a given ability at level 99 would be better at it than a character at level 10 with one skill point in it. This way, if someone chooses to pick a skill and max it out as early as possible, it wouldn't necessarily be too strong for the level they are at, though it would still be of the right strength when they were at the level cap.
Example: Dreinie (or however you spell it) racial heal spell gets more powerful the more you level.
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Blizzard's answer was the synergy system, which gave bonuses to other spells if you had skill points in the previous ones. But this seems like a rough fix. And you still have some abilities that you wonder why they exist. You get Leap at level 6, and Leap Attack at level 18. Why would you continue to use leap after you get leap attack? It's not just a matter of putting points into ablities, it's about making them useful at all. The same goes for many of the sorceress spells.
Basically, I would like the d3 devs to try the WoW spell method. Actually, for a better analogy, let's think of Diablo abilities like units in Starcraft 2. They always stress that they are trying to make each unit a niche unit, so that none of them are worthless, and they aren't tiered so that some will become useless in the endgame. Can we not do this in Diablo? Can every skill not be a niche skill, with the potential to be used throughout the game?
For an example, let's say I'm playing a sorceress. I have chosen to focus mostly on the ice tree, and as such have three (four, if you count frozen orb) projectile ice attacks. However, they are, for the most part, the same. You should an ice projectile, and units take damage and are either frozen or slowed. Frozen orb is a little different, but still tends to fill the same role as the other 3.
Why not just have ONE projectile spell, and simply tune it so that if one invests skills in it, it will stay useful throughout the game?
If each skill is unique, and will remain useful to the player for as long as they choose to invest points in it (not saying every point goes to this skill, but one every few levels maybe), then suddenly you don't have to save skill points while lower level. You still make choices about what to invest in, but there are no duplicate skills, and every one can be used at high levels if you put enough points into it.
Also, the progression part, with certain skills required for certain others, would either require careful crafting or removal. It's a waste of skill points and no fun to have to invest a point in one ability just to get another. You can maybe require X number of points on the tree, or a point in x,y, or z, to be able to get this ability, but if you make it too specific you are likely to end up with people investing the minimum and ignoring the skill. If you don't want to use an ability, you should not have to put points in it.
I probably typed way too much detailing this issue and how I hope they change it in D3 (I noticed that the barb used leap, but it dealt damage like a leap attack, so I think--hope--that they are onto this) But I know that the most important thing to me in this newest sequel will be the classes' progression system, and it seems like it ruins the fun of playing a new character if you have to gimp early on just to be good later.
Oh right, I should have known not to mention WoW, because some people are so childish that they cannot admit when something is an improvement. I like the Diablo franchise far more than WoW, but I accept that neither is perfect and that either can potentially learn from the other.
So please, if you are like this guy above, don't post in the damn thread.
Agreed with your take on skills. Some things in Diablo II are totally strange and unbalanced. There is so much stuff in the game that is never used...
This can be equated to pumping more points into a skill on the tree.
Other than that, the WoW system isn't all that remarkable. I simply like that one aspect.
Also, why do you have such a bias? Just because something is related to WoW does not mean that it is WoW.
WoW has aspects of WoW in it, look how that turned out.
Wtf are you insane? This was a widely accepted problem in D2. WoW has this particular feature down right. Who wouldn't want all of the skills to be useful in different situations throughout the whole game?
I say, if a skill will become useless after another skill just like it is available, then don't bother wasting your time coding and animating it so we can get diablo 3 sooner...
Cookie-cutter characters = lame
+1 good post I agree with you 100%
Makes you wonder how much time, money, and effort was wasted coding and animating those useless skills.
Naw, I had no idea that WoW was actually WoW! Zomfg give this guy a trophy!
Well the enemy difficulty and stats can always be increased proportionally?
The obvious solution is a cap on how many points can go into a skill before a given level, but that seems a little more restrictive than I would like. Maybe have power of a skill be affected by character level as well?
But then are we not just imitating all those MMO forums--I mean, that one group of forums?
True, and they did hiint at it that D3 will have a higher Difficulty setting than the other 2 games.
Oh, like some racial skill that are in that one game? lolz
Basically, the idea would be that a character with one skill point in a given ability at level 99 would be better at it than a character at level 10 with one skill point in it. This way, if someone chooses to pick a skill and max it out as early as possible, it wouldn't necessarily be too strong for the level they are at, though it would still be of the right strength when they were at the level cap.
Example: Dreinie (or however you spell it) racial heal spell gets more powerful the more you level.