"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."
Why roll a wizard at all then?
The Warrior couldent cast high level wizard shit becouse the warriors magic was limited. The only way that the warrior could have casted high level wizard shit by reading leet books is ushually by hacking (How Warriors used the Staff of Apocalypse) Just to point that out.
Choosing JUST active skills would end up being a very badly made character I'd think. A lot of the passives are very enticing when combined with a few active skills.
Well said. I would hate to see that happen but Im sure blizz has a awnser for it.
They would have to make alot of passive skills to do that and that is one of the things I remember them saying they didnt want to do.
(they combined the skill trees in order to avoid obligatory passives that each tree would need)
http://wiki.diablofans.com/index.php/Barbarian#Abilities
The current list includes quite a few passives. I didn't read anything about them combining the trees to avoid passives. Where did you see that?
And they didn't really COMBINE skill trees. They're still all there just viewable next to one another and the whole first tier will count instead of you progress down each one individually.
"We don't have to throw in skills that are important, such as damage mitigation, all over the place."
That is a passive and was a example of a skill they didn't want to throw in just because.
We all know they didnt combine the trees, its a figure of speech that is in context from the previous Diablo II skill tree.
I'm sure the current skill list is a lot different from what we all know of though anyway.
Gimme some links damnit! XD
Or our wiki here.
Those skills were all present during Blizzcon 2008 and reported by multiple sites.
I suggest the last skills to be versatile or extremely powerful in some areas, but weaker than the others in most. (Big flaw)
Instantlite it seems like you can post just fine, im confused dood.
Now I'm really not a fan of it.
IMO they should do a Skill Wheel.
Picture a circle cut into 3rds. THe outer part of the circle would contain the Teir 1 skills which will hold the most and as you get closer to the center the stronger the skill will get.
Diddo, just more pleasing to the eye but the same concept.
Whats TQ stand for btw?
EDIT: lol the second I hit save it hits me, titan quest. ive played the bloody game to! ><
EDITx2: The d3 skilltree is alot more similar to WOW except they arent seperate. I think TQ skill tree is more like d2 than anything.
Or you would have to jam in alot of mediocre passives. Can just see alot of unused skills to get to the center.
Suppose it could work but didn't blizz have that idea a while back and they dumped it?
Allowing for players to decide if they want to keep on using lower tier skills while having only 1 or 2 final tier skills.
Yes just a different way to do it.
Exactly. Though there would be approximately 5-6 tier levels each decreasing as you get closer to the center.
Its somewhat the same concept as a Skill tree or pyramid you still need X amount of skill points to unlock the next tier.
Where is it from I am not sure. I pondered it. I mean quite honestly I'm sick the skill tree do something different please.
Hmm it would depend what you put in? I guess you can put all the tier 1 skills that are on the Barb and make all those skills tier 1 on the circle for the Barb and so on. The last tier wouldn't have to be a 1 skill it could end being a 3 skill tier. Which would have 1 passive, 1 Buff?, 1 attack.
I believe they trashed the idea of a skill wheel they tried that in the early stages but I'm not sure how it was done.
With this new system we will have so many options because we can choose from 3 trees so even the 1 point you are going to put to every skill can make a big effect on your character. If you put shockwave and whirlwind for example and take 1 point for all the other skills you will spend quite many points to all skills. Instead you could pick leap and cleave along with shockwave and whirlwind and save rest of the points and use them to improve your character with passive or utility skills.
Whats the big deal if the low tier skills are so good that you will gladly spend some points to those? I would hate to spend 1 point only for a crappy skill that doesn't do much good just to get higher tier skills. Most of the low tier skills are probably some basic killing skills and passive damage boosting skills. For example why would anyone leave out damage mitigation or damage boosting skill from the very first tier?
You have 3 trees imagine all the options for those 5 points you need to pick from 3 trees. If tier 1 has like 2-3 skills for each tree that is 6-9 skills where you have to spend 5 points.. are you sure there isn't anything that you wouldn't want to spend those 4 extra points instead of only 1?
edit. ps. go play diablo 2 if your dream is that old crappy skill system.