i agree but at the same time i dont want the skills to be as good at low lvls...i like synergies because sometimes its a skill that is lvl 18 that you use, and sometimes its a 30...but i do have a problem with the beginning skills being as good as lvl 30 ones....that RUINS progression in power. diablo 2 hit the nail on the head for the most part, although certain peoples skills needed to be rebalanced as some of them used to be cheap and with patches they are now downplayed (bows, bone skills, and so on).
Synegies, skill tree style, and the ability to create many different builds.....these are the things i really want to be in the game. especially the one i bolded, underlined, and italicized lol..because without that style (oh and that means little or no respecing), half the fun is taken away...actually more than half.
as long as it is a tree (has progression) and allows for MULTIPLE BUILDS I'm cool with it. oh and i know they are trying to do things like make the skills cool, such as the monsters drop a their shield when used, but i hope there isn't too much of that, because those tend to be one point skill choices and then you take away from the options of multiple builds.
i agree but at the same time i dont want the skills to be as good at low lvls...i like synergies because sometimes its a skill that is lvl 18 that you use, and sometimes its a 30...but i do have a problem with the beginning skills being as good as lvl 30 ones....that RUINS progression in power. diablo 2 hit the nail on the head for the most part, although certain peoples skills needed to be rebalanced as some of them used to be cheap and with patches they are now downplayed (bows, bone skills, and so on).
Synegies, skill tree style, and the ability to create many different builds.....these are the things i really want to be in the game. especially the one i bolded, underlined, and italicized lol..because without that style (oh and that means little or no respecing), half the fun is taken away...actually more than half.
ah, you missed the point >_< The idea is that the power progression IS there, as well as the variety in skills available and thus variety in character builds, but to do away with redundant abilities (like the 4 seperate sorceress ice projectiles) and restructure the trees so that one will not often (or never) be forced to put a skill in a point they don't want to access one they do.
Hm i thought about this kind of thing: You have a frost spell, now you start investing to it at low levels. And every 5 levels you will get some extra bonus to it.
Lets think you start with Ice Bolt first 5 skills.. then it evolves to ice blast. After 10 skill points in it it becomes a Glacial Spike and at 15 it will be Frozen Orb. Last 5 skill ups will be damage increase only.
Well I doubt anything like this will ever come but it would make the low rank skills usefull..in the start of the game at least.. It could also be that you get to keep the earlier versions of the final spell. So you have glacial spike and Orb too.
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 think this is the only part of your argument that I disagree with. I think that it is only natural that certain skills would be needed before attaining new ones. This ensures that the player does not overlook anything on the lower tier, and master them.
I think the crux of my argument, however, is that it seems natural to start with basics skills as a new character due to the natural course of development.
However... I think it would be interesting to level up skills independently from each other, beyond the use of skill points. It seems realistic, to me, that the more you use a skill, the better you would become at it. Gained accuracy... hits... etc, etc. Perhaps this is treading too much on WoW ground, due to the necessity to increase your weapon skill.... but this isn't exactly weapon-wielding I'm talking about. I'm thinking that with increased mastey of these skills would actually develop how the skill looks and is executed.
And it would be even more key, I think, that if you were to make all of these skills available from the get-go. Not only would this bring a whole new depth of character development, but it would free people from needing prerequisites.
Perhaps there is a compromise that can be reached.
Well, my concern might be a bit unique, as I was early on a fan of the story, who liked to play for fun single player with all the classes. When I started playing online, I soon embraced the way people progressed early on, but I was always a little disappointed that so much of the skill tree was wasted.
As the for the other response, I'm not 100% on the lack of specific prerequisite abilities. It is, in fact, the part of my post I'm least sure about. I do think it better to have more general prerequisites than specific abilities, but I also didn't find the D2 skill progression to be terrible.
There seems to be a little confusion on the part of the niche ability concept though, so let me try to state it better.
1.) abilities do not overlap on a given class
2.) abilities are scaled so that even early game abilities may always be useful if you continue to invest in them
3.) as you advance through the game, you gain access to the more specialized of the class's abilities: so like with the barbarian, you might start with some simple moves like cleave and ground stomp, but these moves would remain viable throughout the game with enough points on them. Later in their progression, they would gain access to some of the moves like whirlwind and leap, which would be superior but proportionally more costly (in terms of mana/fury/etc) and more specialized in addition (cleave being simply a powerful and wide area melee attack, something to be used against single tough enemies, while whirlwind is more of an anti-enemy blob attack, and leap is a specialized mobile attack that allows for maneuvering). All abilities have their place and scale, but some are better at very specific situations, and are gained late in the game.
oh, well i am starting to understand the point and am liking some of it. all i truly care about is that there are many different paths you can take, as to allow many different character builds. can you imagine if all the paladins ran around with hammers over their head and conviction under their feet and THATS ALL? that would suck lol.
I think rejam's idea of "clicking on fireball to upgrade it in different ways" and things like that, could be implemented VERY well as long as it isnt to linear and allows for unique builds...NICE IDEA!
Having abilities *like in that one game* that only require one skill investment really helps the diversity amongst builds within a certain class. Think about it, if the skill is very useful and it only requires ONE SKILL POINT investment, NO ONE WILL GET IT! (sarcasm). There should be no skill in D3 that requires 1 skill investment, period. If there is one thing that was successful in D2, it was that skills required huge investment, which meant that there was much more variation within classes because you may or may not get certain powerful abilities because you couldn't get them to max potential with your build. Perhaps you could lower some skills below 20 point investments, but 1 is a horrible idea.
I'd definatly like to see a bit more balance and common sense from the d2 skills, the tree's in d2 were so bloated so many useless skills. Maybe a bit more uniqueness between spells.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
So while it's a subtle nod to that one game (very subtle) it actually enhances those things that you mentioned, rather than lessening them.
Synegies, skill tree style, and the ability to create many different builds.....these are the things i really want to be in the game. especially the one i bolded, underlined, and italicized lol..because without that style (oh and that means little or no respecing), half the fun is taken away...actually more than half.
ah, you missed the point >_< The idea is that the power progression IS there, as well as the variety in skills available and thus variety in character builds, but to do away with redundant abilities (like the 4 seperate sorceress ice projectiles) and restructure the trees so that one will not often (or never) be forced to put a skill in a point they don't want to access one they do.
Lets think you start with Ice Bolt first 5 skills.. then it evolves to ice blast. After 10 skill points in it it becomes a Glacial Spike and at 15 it will be Frozen Orb. Last 5 skill ups will be damage increase only.
Well I doubt anything like this will ever come but it would make the low rank skills usefull..in the start of the game at least.. It could also be that you get to keep the earlier versions of the final spell. So you have glacial spike and Orb too.
RIP: Demon Hunter: lvl 50 | Barb: lvl 60 (plvl 5) | Monk: lvl12 & lvl70 (plvl 200)
I think this is the only part of your argument that I disagree with. I think that it is only natural that certain skills would be needed before attaining new ones. This ensures that the player does not overlook anything on the lower tier, and master them.
I think the crux of my argument, however, is that it seems natural to start with basics skills as a new character due to the natural course of development.
However... I think it would be interesting to level up skills independently from each other, beyond the use of skill points. It seems realistic, to me, that the more you use a skill, the better you would become at it. Gained accuracy... hits... etc, etc. Perhaps this is treading too much on WoW ground, due to the necessity to increase your weapon skill.... but this isn't exactly weapon-wielding I'm talking about. I'm thinking that with increased mastey of these skills would actually develop how the skill looks and is executed.
And it would be even more key, I think, that if you were to make all of these skills available from the get-go. Not only would this bring a whole new depth of character development, but it would free people from needing prerequisites.
Perhaps there is a compromise that can be reached.
As the for the other response, I'm not 100% on the lack of specific prerequisite abilities. It is, in fact, the part of my post I'm least sure about. I do think it better to have more general prerequisites than specific abilities, but I also didn't find the D2 skill progression to be terrible.
There seems to be a little confusion on the part of the niche ability concept though, so let me try to state it better.
1.) abilities do not overlap on a given class
2.) abilities are scaled so that even early game abilities may always be useful if you continue to invest in them
3.) as you advance through the game, you gain access to the more specialized of the class's abilities: so like with the barbarian, you might start with some simple moves like cleave and ground stomp, but these moves would remain viable throughout the game with enough points on them. Later in their progression, they would gain access to some of the moves like whirlwind and leap, which would be superior but proportionally more costly (in terms of mana/fury/etc) and more specialized in addition (cleave being simply a powerful and wide area melee attack, something to be used against single tough enemies, while whirlwind is more of an anti-enemy blob attack, and leap is a specialized mobile attack that allows for maneuvering). All abilities have their place and scale, but some are better at very specific situations, and are gained late in the game.
I hope that is clearer.
I think rejam's idea of "clicking on fireball to upgrade it in different ways" and things like that, could be implemented VERY well as long as it isnt to linear and allows for unique builds...NICE IDEA!