Bashiok just replied in detail to a question concerning customization in skill trees (or a lack thereof) in Diablo 3. Take a look at what he had to say:
"As you mentioned and I had said in that rather lengthy post (http://forums.battle.net/thread.html...40&sid=3000#48), we're under heavy iteration. The version shown off with BlizzCast was a prototype in many ways, and a jumping off point in others.
We're working with a modified skill tree system now of what we showed, under heavy testing and scrutiny. It's of course not final, the ideas it proposes are something we're happy with in their direction but they could very well change. In fact I would bet on them continuing to evolve.
So, the system we have now... you'll have to just picture it without any visual representation, sorry. They're not radically different visually except that the trees are all viewable at the same time. Taking the barbarian trees (berserker, battlemaster, juggernaut) and not tabbing them, but having them all viewable simultaneously. Side by side.
This is important due to how they are now apart of a unified tier progression. Instead of spending 5 points in the berserker tree to then begin spending points in the second tier of the berserker tree, the new design allows you to spend wherever you like. As long as your points in the first tier of skills adds up to five, the next tier for all trees is unlocked.
So, I could spend 2 points in Heightened Senses which is a berserker skill, and 3 points in Bash which is a Juggernaut skill, thus adding up to 5 points and granting me access to the second tier of skills for all of the trees. With this amount of freedom you can see how easy it is then to diversify yourself and your build. You're no longer gaining abilities through investment, but instead more through choice and personal preference.
It certainly diversifies the types and amounts of builds available to players, that's obvious. This style of a unified tier approach also helps in a few other areas though. Since all of the trees are open we can clean up the trees a lot more, removing redundant abilities. We don't have to throw in skills that are important, such as damage mitigation, all over the place. You will always have access to those skills no matter where you're spending, so they can instead be focused into a few key skills. Another way it helps is by allowing players access to the skills they want, and the skills we want them to have. Every barbarian is probably going to want whirlwind. And why not? What this tree style allows for, and one reason we're pretty keen on it, is that we aren't saying "You're a 'berserker' barbarian, you can't have whirlwind". Instead, you're a barbarian!, pick the key skills that define you and your character as you want them to be.
One important addition to this is the skill caps themselves. Currently we're envisioning the majority of skills to be capped at 5 points, to begin with. As a form of progression we're planning for players to be able to increase the point caps of skills. More than likely to a maximum of 15. It's a system that's still under heavy design, but the fact of choosing and increasing key skills beyond their initial cap is important to this new unified tier system.
So, once again these are things that are still under heavy design and iteration. They're changes we're testing, and while we like how they play there are certainly issues or flaws that could cause an entire switch to something else."
So what are your thoughts on the Diablo 3 skill tree issue?
Wow, that sounds great. I like the idea I can just be whatever type of barbarian I want to rather than sticking to a certain skill tree definition. It sounds like it could be very good once it's fine tuned.
I'm actually really excited now.
Before the trees were kind of predetermined how you could play. Battlemaster was shield/critical, Juggernaut was 2 hand/stun, and Berserker was speed/dual wield. Now I can be a dual wielder with heavy focus on criticals, or a two handed user who focuses on speed, or a shield user who focuses on stuns. It sounds wonderous. I hope it's like I imagine. It'll take some fine tuning and balancing but it should be really great.
I really like this, but then won't you have wizards with all three of the strongest attacks?
Good news that everyone gets teleport though. And I'm glad I can have mongrels as a witchdoctor without having to go completely summoning.
Hmmm... while I follow the reasoning behind the decision to make all trees integrated, does this not defeat the purpose of having multiple trees in the first place? I mean, effectively this makes all three trees into one huge tree... The trees are now just a glorified way of categorizing skills. I think they should have some skills in each tree that do require an investment into the tree -- something of a hybrid between the old and new system.
I really like this, but then won't you have wizards with all three of the strongest attacks?
Good news that everyone gets teleport though. And I'm glad I can have mongrels as a witchdoctor without having to go completely summoning.
I think the way they may solve some of the issues is by still implementing pre-requisite skills pretty heavily.
So you may still have to pick and choose a little, but it opens up a lot more freedom hopefully.
Sounds great to me...like they are letting us build the way we want to instead of forcing us to choose one tree. As far as other issues such as say all players having all the same skills; well he did say that they are still heavily working on it. So, I'm sure they will fix that issue in the process.
I just don't get the point of having separated skill trees now O.o
I understand that this may bring alot of good stuff, already said by bashiok. However, i'm not happy with this system =/ Separating in restricted trees makes it so much more easy to balance because you can balance a skill with restrict use in a tree with a very usefull and great one in the same tree. I just feel that open up all possibilities will just set those not so good talents to be completly forgotten and those good or popular one in a "must have". Of course, the ideal is every skill been good and everything been balanced, be we all know how this is hard to reach.
Don't get me wrong, i'm just saying that this new system looks like a double edge imo:
If it's not balanced (wich will problably happen because balance in RPG game is something noone could ever reach so far) they will get execly the oposite effect they are looking at - the game will have even more cookie cutters because everyone will choose the same key abilities. The own bashiok exemple: every barbarian will want to get ww. And why not? Because now every barbarian have one more skill in common, wich decrease skill customisation. Repeat the same process around 3 or 4 times and we get a cookie cutter.
In my mind, this new system can only work if all key abilities have EXECLY the same power, so you are free to choose the ones you like more. If not, you instantly loose your freedom and gotta use the best ones.
I also see a problem of coherence here: a wizard that have never get any arcane power, just knew how to control frost and lightning can now suddenly learn to stop time, one of the most badass arcane tricks.
It's like getting PhD in physics or biology after passing all your life in law schools.
Of course, i'm not arrogant or inocent enough to think that i can desing stuff better then blizzard, it's just that i was pretty happy with the idea of some barbarians use ww, other use ground slams and other use charges. Call me close minded.
That IS different. Really different. Not sure what I think about that. I'm very interested to see how they work in prereqs and prevent players from always choosing the 'best' skills at each tier immediately.
That's gonna give us soooo many choices though, which sounds fun
I like this, cause when you look back to Diablo II if you wanted to be a Frenzy Barb with whirlwind you'd have to spend poitns in pointless skills, for that build.
Of course a lot of people want to do MAX damage possible for PVP but some of us want to create very unique chars, so THANK YOU BLIZZ!:thumbsup:
So why is everyone ignoring the fact that you will STILL have a pre-requisite of points until you can advance to the next tier? You simply can't pick the skills from the bottom of each 'tree', because by the time you can spend there, you will not have enough points to spend in three places. Why is that so hard to understand. Another thing is that they are still trees. That means that skills will have branches and progressions. They just need to put a progression arrow from skills in 4th and 5th tier of skills pointing down to 6th tier of skills and there you go.
Why is everybody more worried about balance than Blizzard is? You didn't even have 10 minutes to analyze the concept from your own imagination since you heard the news, and they have been PLAYTESTING the thing for months now maybe. But you still know better even though you don't know almost anything about it and didn't even put thought into it.
I hate to say it. And true judgement won't be proper untill there is more information, but at this point it sounds like the worst idea blizz has announced. To properly balance builds sacrafices MUST be made to get your truely powerful abilities especially with a level cap of 100 and fewer points to be spent per skill.
Cookie cutter builds will reighn supreme more than ever before. This plus respec will erase potential varience in class unless.
In its defense if you do not unlock the bottom teir till very late game. Then it might work because that would disallow anyone from maxing every top rank ability
Hmmm... while I follow the reasoning behind the decision to make all trees integrated, does this not defeat the purpose of having multiple trees in the first place? I mean, effectively this makes all three trees into one huge tree... The trees are now just a glorified way of categorizing skills. I think they should have some skills in each tree that do require an investment into the tree -- something of a hybrid between the old and new system.
This could work, but then you might have people arguing that it's too similar to the WoW system. Plus, with spells that require points in specific tiers you'll end up with much more specific builds, which is pretty much what they're trying to avoid. Either way he said they're trying some different things, so we'll just have to trust Blizzard to do some testing and get it right
I LOVE IT!!!!!!!!! It's Brilliant! I can't wait to take it for a test drive.
Having alll the trees combined into one allows for all sorts of possibilities and makes everything less boring and more interesting.
Open up your minds you guys. You can't bash it untill you try it.
Wow, that sounds great. I like the idea I can just be whatever type of barbarian I want to rather than sticking to a certain skill tree definition. It sounds like it could be very good once it's fine tuned.
My only fear is that fundamentals of the game don't turn out flawed like in Warcraft 3 where Chaos Damage pretty much ruled out everything else and the Blademaster and the Demon Hunter were the only heroes people would predominantly pick in matches
What if it turns out that while it's true that mixing skills and runes has it's advantages, but it turns out that such things as an all Arcane Wizard is the most powerful build?
Now, it may just be paranoia and 3/4ths ignorance but those things are concerns when considering how popular PVP will probably be.
WC3 is pretty irrelevant here and chaos damage was included only in campaigns, wasnt it?
Anyway, I agree that people are too focused on the fact that everyone is going to pick skills from all over the skill trees now just because its possible.
Remember that there will still be lots of passives and probably other benefits that will make focusing on a particular build more appealing.
And most importantly remember that there wont be 75% completely useless skills like in D2 that will make skill picks an obvious choice for everyone. Im sure that Blizzard is working on a lot of cool and useful skills for all trees and going for a build that includes all trees will not neccesarily be better.
some good points. Just because people can now potentially pick for example 6 major skills doesn't mean they will be anymore effective or powerful than someone who just focuses on 2 major skills. If anything they will be even less effective because the person who only just focuses on 2 skills and maxed all the relavent passives may end up doing 4 times more dmg with their 2 skills compared to the person who has 6 major skills but none of them are at full potential.
So what are your thoughts on the Diablo 3 skill tree issue?
I'm actually really excited now.
Before the trees were kind of predetermined how you could play. Battlemaster was shield/critical, Juggernaut was 2 hand/stun, and Berserker was speed/dual wield. Now I can be a dual wielder with heavy focus on criticals, or a two handed user who focuses on speed, or a shield user who focuses on stuns. It sounds wonderous. I hope it's like I imagine. It'll take some fine tuning and balancing but it should be really great.
Good news that everyone gets teleport though. And I'm glad I can have mongrels as a witchdoctor without having to go completely summoning.
I think the way they may solve some of the issues is by still implementing pre-requisite skills pretty heavily.
So you may still have to pick and choose a little, but it opens up a lot more freedom hopefully.
I understand that this may bring alot of good stuff, already said by bashiok. However, i'm not happy with this system =/ Separating in restricted trees makes it so much more easy to balance because you can balance a skill with restrict use in a tree with a very usefull and great one in the same tree. I just feel that open up all possibilities will just set those not so good talents to be completly forgotten and those good or popular one in a "must have". Of course, the ideal is every skill been good and everything been balanced, be we all know how this is hard to reach.
Don't get me wrong, i'm just saying that this new system looks like a double edge imo:
If it's not balanced (wich will problably happen because balance in RPG game is something noone could ever reach so far) they will get execly the oposite effect they are looking at - the game will have even more cookie cutters because everyone will choose the same key abilities. The own bashiok exemple: every barbarian will want to get ww. And why not? Because now every barbarian have one more skill in common, wich decrease skill customisation. Repeat the same process around 3 or 4 times and we get a cookie cutter.
In my mind, this new system can only work if all key abilities have EXECLY the same power, so you are free to choose the ones you like more. If not, you instantly loose your freedom and gotta use the best ones.
I also see a problem of coherence here: a wizard that have never get any arcane power, just knew how to control frost and lightning can now suddenly learn to stop time, one of the most badass arcane tricks.
It's like getting PhD in physics or biology after passing all your life in law schools.
Of course, i'm not arrogant or inocent enough to think that i can desing stuff better then blizzard, it's just that i was pretty happy with the idea of some barbarians use ww, other use ground slams and other use charges. Call me close minded.
That IS different. Really different. Not sure what I think about that. I'm very interested to see how they work in prereqs and prevent players from always choosing the 'best' skills at each tier immediately.
That's gonna give us soooo many choices though, which sounds fun
Of course a lot of people want to do MAX damage possible for PVP but some of us want to create very unique chars, so THANK YOU BLIZZ!:thumbsup:
Why is everybody more worried about balance than Blizzard is? You didn't even have 10 minutes to analyze the concept from your own imagination since you heard the news, and they have been PLAYTESTING the thing for months now maybe. But you still know better even though you don't know almost anything about it and didn't even put thought into it.
Cookie cutter builds will reighn supreme more than ever before. This plus respec will erase potential varience in class unless.
In its defense if you do not unlock the bottom teir till very late game. Then it might work because that would disallow anyone from maxing every top rank ability
Having alll the trees combined into one allows for all sorts of possibilities and makes everything less boring and more interesting.
Open up your minds you guys. You can't bash it untill you try it.
Exactly my thoughts
What if it turns out that while it's true that mixing skills and runes has it's advantages, but it turns out that such things as an all Arcane Wizard is the most powerful build?
Now, it may just be paranoia and 3/4ths ignorance but those things are concerns when considering how popular PVP will probably be.
some good points. Just because people can now potentially pick for example 6 major skills doesn't mean they will be anymore effective or powerful than someone who just focuses on 2 major skills. If anything they will be even less effective because the person who only just focuses on 2 skills and maxed all the relavent passives may end up doing 4 times more dmg with their 2 skills compared to the person who has 6 major skills but none of them are at full potential.