"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."
It doesnt really matter if all possible builds in Diablo are equal or not. As long as they are diverse and interesting, people are going to try them out, because they can and because they want the challenge. Thats what happened in Diablo 2.
Dont know what I should think about the removal of differentiated skill trees, tbh it probably shouldnt matter that much. It makes each class play a bit more like one class, rather than 3 main specs, which is both good and bad.
But in the end it only matters that Blizz manage to throw in enough interesting skills to pick, so people will want to try out different builds, even if they arent the 'optimal spec'.
(which obviously also means that while I think respecs should be possible, it cant be something you can do every other moment, as in WoW, as that will indeed lead to min-maxing of specs rather than different builds).
Blizz said it perfectly back at WWI, in Diablo all skills needs to feel overpowered, all active skills should be crazy enough to want trying them out. Then perfect balance is much less of an issue.
Heroes of Might and Magic V used it... sorta. http://heroes.ag.ru/heroes5/mods/jpg/wheel_5.jpg
BTW, they said they are going to remove redundant skills, so they're probably going to rearrange the whole tree.
A "undo" option imo is long overdue in Diablo.
QFT.
Anyone remember that skill that trails fire behind you or fire-enchant for a sorcy? Two totally garbage abilities they shouldve left out.
Yep.
The graphic style (colourful/bright), the style of gear (big shoulder pads), the ability to respec, the skill trees look and the yellow question mark 'quest indicator'.
All of it heavily reminiscent of WOW.
And I fucking hate WOW (specially the community).
In wow it cost 5gold for your first respec and it went up by 5g everytime you did it (maximum 50g).
Waiting a week with the same spec will decrease your respec costs by 5g, and continues week after week.
In WOW it was just to easy to respec, especially with dailyquests available. If you had no gold to respec you could just hop on your epic flying mount and in 15-25 minutes have enough gold to respec.
Way to easy IMO and thusly no comparisons should be made to WOW->D3 respeccing as it is just to easy to do.
Im thinking they should make you have to wait a week to respec again (flat rate) and you should have to complete some sort of quest or hard task in order to respec.
EDIT:
Apologies, are you referring to the respec totem? It wasn't around when I was on WOW, but I did hear about its development.
It is a relic or item you would hold or use and it would have a spec already programmed into it forgoeing a traditional respec?
I loved the idea when I was a paladin switching for holy->ret 3 times a day but for Diablo3 it deffinatly doesnt fit.
Said it better than I can.
That petition against the art development in d3 has surpassed 60,000 fyi.
Im just worried about all the wow-fags storming over and casualising D3 more than it already has been.
WOW didn't start off gay... it became that way from its casual-centric user base.
Heroes V uses a skill-progression system that is reminiscent of a skill wheel, with basic abilities in the rim, abilities with prereqs further in, and an ultimate skill in the center which was class-specic.
Don't know where you're getting "totem" from: http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?page=863
i think thats a pretty cool idea. kinda like it so far. cant wait to see the finish of it all. ild rather this then the way it is in wow. what say ye?
But this is also a huge help for balancing the different trees. Now we have access to utility and damage mitigation in other trees and as bashiok said they don't have to put these skills in every tree now that you can just hop to another tree and pick the skills that you like from there.
Everything is still a placeholder out there.. they will change as it has been said by bashiok.
Respeccing your skill tree so you don't really have to be that focused on building a character as if you make some dumb choices you can just undo it later on (RPG = Respec Playing Game?)
Bright colourful graphics that remind me of cross between wow and titans quest... nope nothing to make me think its casualized here. :rolleyes:
I liek everything put infront of me.
What if they made the skill trees look like actual trees made out of skills? How kewl would that be!
(They could even be really colourful with rainbow's criss-crossing them!)
But then again it is said that this is not final, so who knows what will happen?
Yeah I think prerequisites is a nice way to keep things balanced out a little.
I'm sure they'll come up with some more things also to keep it balanced. I hope we can get a look at them soon.
I forsee nerd-rage if they don't include a "oops, misclick!" button to undo my frequent misclicks.
(Or make it so you have to be out of combat to mess with your charpoints/skills)
also it seems like it's dumbing things down more.. removing more consequences.
if i want an end game skill of a given skill type, then i no longer have to sacrifice something else cool to get it. i can get them both (though maybe at reduced skill level).
i liked the idea of skill trees (like berserker tree for instance) because going down it meant that there were trade offs (if i went down the berserker tree couldn't get the end game battlemaster skills), important decisions that would impact later decisions and gameplay.
that said, as long as there's still important decisions to be had (for instance if skills get very little of their utility at low lvl, so that specializing is rewarded) it may end up being better.
edit: it's really hard to remark on any of these changes out of context of other systems in the game that could impact them.
so like i said, i don't really like the idea, but maybe it makes perfect sense within the game.
I had a nova sorc back in the day, it owned hell cows.
Anything we say about the changes they make are in context with Diablo2 which is a completely different game. I trust blizzard to make a fair and balanced game, they haven't let me down yet (well maybe with WOW but I blame that mostly on vivendi's greed).
Emilemil1 I guess as long as the shoulder pads dont look like this I will be happy.
So this post doesnt get deleted...
Man those skill tree's make me want to have sexual intercourse with a oak tree of similar awesomeness.