I respect your opinions, but I simply do not agree with you on a lot of the ideas. Good thing this is a free country and I am allowed to disagree. I don't like forcing my ideas on people, but your arguments also cannot persuade me. So it's all cool.
You are perfectly welcome to disagree. I'm simply trying to impress on you how, the the fantasy sounds great, the mechanics simply don't translate.
Effectively the only way to make a skill point system fair is for all bonuses to be additive with the exact same scaling. For optimization the alternatives are...
Bonuses Same, Multiplicative: One point in everything that multiplies what you want to do, continue to spread points evenly to maximize multiplicative output.
Bonuses Different, Additive/Multiplicative - Cap each skill that affects what you want to do in order of highest total multiplier.
Yes; it's a great system for feeling like a special snowflake. No; the system has consistently shown itself non-viable for balance and offering actual choices to players.
There's games and games and games and even in the BEST skill-point systems there's no escaping the fact that the skill point systems provide far more false choice than they do real choice. Players like you who are looking more for "feeling" obviously gravitate toward the design as properly executed the balance is good enough that the baseline is usable. However for players looking for optimization the system only presents a simple math problem to pick the absolute best output for expenditure. This is also a core problem with itemization (though blizzard is trying its best to fix it, and for the most part has produced several roughly balanced output potentials within classes).
What you REALLY want is a reason to take those lesser used passives. And there are much better ways (objectively) to approach the problem than adding an at best net-neutral mechanic. Maybe add a ring with the effect "Gain (damage stat) based on health globe bonus" with a generous conversion. Suddenly that "bad" 50% health globe bonus that you want a reason to use becomes a viable replacement for another damage passive. And it does so without adding a thousand false choices to the game or adding an "optimization spreadsheet" situation. You add a single point of balance rather than changing 30 passives into 150 passives. You can now tune how desirable the globe passive is by supporting it with another item (Razor Strop fire nova build???) or tuning a skill to synergize with it (HotA - Birthright). Rather than adding a passive minigame you create an environment that asks the player to work toward items that synergize with each other or find ways to improve their weak spots that synergize with their build.
So for Pound of Flesh, it's either 0% HP bonus , or 50% bonus HP?... 30% bonus HP from health globe would be totally useless?
And what if I get extra 2 or 3 points at the end, after I have maximize all the passive skills I really want?
You're missing the part where you're choosing between 0% Health Globe Bonus + 50% damage bonus from another passive vs 50% health globe bonus 0% damage vs 30% globe 20% damage. Two of those three options are trash for anyone optimizing their progression. On top of that you'd need a COMPLETE MAP of all potential skill bonuses. Go ahead write your complete passive tree up and see how long it takes posters to turn it into a cookie cutter system.
And "extra" points don't count. They never have in skill point systems because you're being FORCED to take a non-maxed skill.
Do you think Coven's Criterion would help? 45-60% damage reduction on block, combined with the high block chance of the build could mean some pretty serious damage reduction, especially when combined with the high damage and uptime of Iron Skin.
You'll also have some serious wrath starvation issues. That will force you to run a cindercoat and RoRG giving up the damage boost from F+R. Piro is pretty much mandatory. The only shield that you could possibly consider besides Piro is Final Witness, but you will struggle to keep wrath up against lower numbers of targets and against tougher enemies where you need to keep bashing as much as possible.
Blood Brother provides a 30% damage reduction when you block as well as providing more block chance and giving a damage boost when you block too, making it significantly better than coven's
Theoretically the two would stack for even more DR, whether it's additive or multiplicative would mean a lot. Lose all the damage though. Might not result in total wrath starvation, but that's dependent on giving up more damage for RCR in a couple slots.
Might be worth considering in an attempt at Roland's Support though.
I don't see why not. That's how skill worked back in D2, you don't get to maximize all the skills you want because there is not enough skill points. And there are some skills where partial bonus is more enough.
So take Pound of Flesh as an example...
Right now the skill gives you 50% additional health from globe... well, personally I don't feel I need that much, so I can maybe just put 3 points in there so I gain only 30% bonus and I can put these 2 skill points in other passive skills..
My memory of D2 was that there were certain skills you wanted to pump to 20, and certain skills which you would put only 1 point in (because they had diminishing returns, or because you only wanted them as prereqs) and maybe pump with items.
I don't recall any significant amount of decision making going on beyond "all in" or "just the one".
And that Pound of Flesh example.. I still think some Barbs would go 5/5, some would go 0/5, and nobody would actually go 3/5. They'd look at it, look at the other passive they were considering putting some points in.. and go 5/5 on one and none on the other.
After synergies there were plenty of skills you pumped as high as you could get. But only because the one skill you really wanted to use got stronger when you pumped them up.
Of course you're still spot-on. Barring accelerating returns from passive interaction (multiplicative scaling everywhere, "set" passives, etc) players will always be 5 or 0, (almost) never inbetween.
LoH can only proc once per skill now and procs fro the full amount regardless of skill, yes.
Whether LPWS is better is actually dependent on your resource cost reduction IIRC. If you're reducing the cost of Sweep Attack to less than 10 consistently (if you're using it as your primary skill with no downtime against single targets then you probably are) the LoH is better.
Ty for the reply. From my understanding, no matter how fast you attack using sweep, you will always spend 18 (assume 10 from paragon) wrath per attack, and golden flense restore 4x amount of wrath (in my case) with x being number of target. So, unless I have insane amount of RCR on my gear, LPWS will always be better, right?
Assuming you use absolutely 0 additional RCR. Which means that your flense will be useless as a generator in a large number of situations. Which is not something you want if you're using it as your primary damage ouptut.
Realistically you'll most likely end up using at least Laws of Valor - Unstoppable Force, which will reduce your wrath cost to 9 which will significantly improve your sustained DPS against low number of targets. Assuming you use Roland's + Flense you'll probably be running Pound for single target and using Sweep for AoE clear, which means you'll most likely want to be able to use your sweep as a generator. If you use sweep only as a secondary skill for AoE then you'll be giving up a significant amount of potential DPS against small groups.
So the question becomes: Are you using Sweep + Denial with the intention of using Sweep as your sole Damaging skill? If you are you'll want Sweep to always be available and for that to happen you'll probably need at least 50% total RCR. In which case you'll want the LoH. If you're using Sweep as an AoE damage skill and Pound for single targets then LPWS will be superior if you use Denial over Piro Marella (in which case your pounds will cost a minimum 14 wrath and serve as your primary single target damage). If you use Piro over Denial then LoH will be superior assuming you Unstoppable Force (pound will cost 7 wrath with the law up)
tl;dr - It's complicated and very dependent on what you intend to run (also probably inferior to running fire bash, though I don't think anyone has done significant denial testing to confirm). It's complicated enough that I can't even say which choice is "safest".
Yes I am well aware of what you are talking about. I am actually one of the people who never complained about loss of skill point system in D3 because it's actually exhausting to figure out the optimal skill points to put in skills, especially the active ones. And the balance will become a big issue.
That's why I only mention putting points in PASSIVE SKILLS, but not ACTIVE SKILLS. Seriously sometimes I feel Pound of Flesh can be useful, but compared to other barbarian's Passive Skills, no way anyone is going to pick it. But what if we could just put a few points in that skill. Personally I feel the Passive Skills in D3 now is imbalanced anyway, and adding skill point system in there may help to improve the balancing issue. (e.g. more skill points are needed to reach the level cap for damage/defense improving passive skills.)
And about Legacy items... I just thought it can be salvaged in another way so you get reward for ever finding these legacy items before...
And about adventure mode.. people are farming for keys and rift keys anyway, I am just thinking giving some more rewards for doing those... and those rewards can be found in story mode as well... it's an incentive... but you can totally skip it...
And No, I will not move to other games... I love Diablo the way it is actually... I am just fantasizing how it can be improved, but thanks for your input..
I have actually written a detailed explanation in the official D3 forum... I will see what response I get from there..
if people are not irritated by it, I will post it here and we can all have our D3 improvement fantasy orgy.
With regards to passive skills: here's a revolutionary concept - Just balance the skills and/or provide items to support or alter them in some way *like the rest of the game design is built around*. Any skill point system will inherit the exact same flaws that are in any skill point system and will not, in fact, serve to balance the passive skills. Adding skill points will at best result in WoW's issue where skills are either no-brainer, filler, or a trap. Which is no different than the current system except you get to choose just how much trash each skill is.
That is not saying itemization is perfect. There are flaws with the itemization-based balancing but the way itemization works makes it easier to get things in rough parity because each slot has a theoretical purpose and each item loadout can be designed with specific synergies. This is not true of a skill point system.
With regards to legacy items: There's not even any guarantee you'll be "rewarded" for finding a non-legacy legend. Your reward for having a legacy item that's of no use is exactly the same as for finding a second copy of whatever BiS item you're currently wearing - a soul. There's no design disconnect or lack of reward, it's in the head of players.
With regards to adventure mode: The incentive for adventure mode is ubers. Which is the point. Rifts are for legends, greaters are for gems, and adventure mode is for caches/mats. They all have clearly defined reasons for playing them that do not step on the toes of the other modes.
With regards to story mode: There is intentionally no incentive to story mode (other than the bonus experience handed out by quests). This is because forcing or incentivizing story mode has shown to be consistently unpopular among the majority of the playerbase as the mechanics of story mode are generally viewed as less fun than sandboxing due to forced progression and act locking.
Feel free to have your fantasy improvement orgy. Just remember that your fantasy improvements are all fantasy there's no real potential for substance since the "improvement" doesn't address the core issue (which is passive balance) and is obnly really changing how much rope you get to hang yourself with.
LoH can only proc once per skill now and procs fro the full amount regardless of skill, yes.
Whether LPWS is better is actually dependent on your resource cost reduction IIRC. If you're reducing the cost of Sweep Attack to less than 10 consistently (if you're using it as your primary skill with no downtime against single targets then you probably are) the LoH is better.
..would you ever build a character with two separate passives each "half full"? Or would you just fill up the four you wanted full?
If not.. and I suspect that you would not.. then what's the point?
No, it doesn't have to be limited to be only four passives. You can put points in any passive skills. 3 points here, 4 points there. And you can get extra points from item attribute, possibly going over max points you can put in a passive skill, just like Diablo 2.
So for example if you put 5 points, which is the max points you can put in that skill, in Pound of Flesh, you will gain 50% additional life from health globe. But one of your item has +1 to Pound of Flesh, so your Pound of Flesh will be 6/5, and you gain 60% instead.
And if you feel like you only need additional 20% from health globe, then you can just put 2 points in that skill.
You misunderstand my question. I was saying: "Would YOU ever choose to only put, say, 2/5 in Pound of Flesh so you could have points left for another 'half full' passive?"
I don't think anyone would. I think everyone would pick the four passives they want most - same as they do now - and fill them up.
So the only interesting element remaining is that it becomes possible for items to grant partial passives.
I don't see why not. That's how skill worked back in D2, you don't get to maximize all the skills you want because there is not enough skill points. And there are some skills where partial bonus is more enough.
So take Pound of Flesh as an example...
Right now the skill gives you 50% additional health from globe... well, personally I don't feel I need that much, so I can maybe just put 3 points in there so I gain only 30% bonus and I can put these 2 skill points in other passive skills..
And if one day Bliz really goes nuts and decides to implement this system... they can easily make some modification to this passive skill to make partial bonus more tempting.. for example...
the new Pond of Flesh can be like... "You gain 10/20/30/40/50% additional health and 2/4/6/8/10 Fury from health globe"...
So for some barb, it may be useful to just have 3 points in this skill...
And about these items.. I actually have come up with new ideas that can help putting passive skill bonus on items while also making good use of legacy items and legendary items with crappy affix that's beyond hopeless even with the help of enchantress... and also maybe encouraging people to play more adventure mode or even story mode...
Because just like it has always been in almost all skill point system games it will take a few people doing a bit of math to cleverly break the system and reveal all the flaws. Skill point systems are by their nature flawed in aRPGs and MMOs. This is why many games are moving away from skill point systems to skill experience or something more complicated/less impact with less clear or impossible optimization.
Regardless D3 already uses a skill point system. You have 4 points to spend on passive slots chosen from whatever number of passives are available to you at your level. Maybe at some point there will be more gear which improves passives (Helskull), but there won't be a skill point system for many reasons. Not the least of which being that your power is intended to come from your gear not the 20 points you threw in frozen orb that will carry you from level 50 to level 99 (and you'll get nearly zero power increase in between because the system is broken).
Legacy items are not intended to be used. That's why they're legacy items, that's why there are seasons. Bounties are intended to be something players do before they rift or when they've run out of rift resources, they're not intended to be the core of playtime and more of a "I feel like not rifting" reward scheme (caches could be improved but that's an incentive talk and not about design intent). Story mode is designed, rightly so, to be something a player only ever has to do once. Doing it more than once defeats the purpose of adventure mode, think of adventure mode as new game + from many RPGs.
If you want a skill point system play Path of Exile or Grim Dawn. The former has one of the more balances point systems I've seen (it's still terribly imbalanced in terms of where you'll be spending your points) and if Grim Dawn learned from TQ it should have a solid progression of skill points (though once again it most likely has imbalanced expenditure targets).
I never said anywhere that the number of players was absurdly low (for D3 or XGFire)
Nah, you just jumped in to defend the fool who did say that.
Except it wasn't defense. It was relaying the most likely response. You simply assumed it was a defense (if you read my post you'd read IMMEDIATELY that I also said that there's a healthy playerbase, not a low one) and immediately responded with (passive) aggressive sarcasm.
Of course you're right the number of players on the game is a pretty healthy amount but that doesn't mean it's anywhere near the number of players who've bought the game.
Ah, of course. There is an absurdly low number of players - sorry, it's now increased to a "pretty healthy amount" of players (congrats, Blizzard!). And an absurdly low number of Xfire users. They just happen to be same people. What a coincidence!
I never said anywhere that the number of players was absurdly low (for D3 or XGFire) simply that the logical counterargument to "6th most popular game on XFire" is "XFire has an extremely biased sample pool because..."
Making any statement about player population beyond distinguishing between "release" "healthy" and "dead" is basically impossible without lifting usage data from blizzard directly. Third party programs by nature will bias any counts (and for the purpose of XFire just because something is 6 most represented does not in any way make it the 6th largest community, just that the community of XFire users play it more than whatever is in slots 7 and below).
Realistically
Active Playerbase < Peak Playerbase < Total Accounts <= Copies sold
Simply because of the way the population will evolve over time.
I'm sure you can come up with a baseless assertion as to why a game with an "absurdly low" number of players is currently #6 on Xfire's most played list, for instance?
Two words: Sample Bias.
Of course you're right the number of players on the game is a pretty healthy amount but that doesn't mean it's anywhere near the number of players who've bought the game.
O, that's great, so any kind of goblin can open the Vault, cool!
No. Rainbow Goblins cannot spawn the vault. They are the only type of goblin that cannot do this, and the Vault cannot spawn in a rift.
And another thing to note, if you kill a rainbow goblin and it opens a whymsdale portal then all the other types of goblins can't open a vault portal.
You can't have 2 portals in the same game, be it 2x whymsdale or 2x vault.
So beware if you are farming vault portals don't kill rainbow goblins.
But it seems you can have Rainbow and Vault portal in the same game, so if you kill Rainbow goblin it shouldn't lower your chances to get access to the Vault:
The actual mechanism is that you can't open a portal in a portal world. That picture is pretty good evidence that a whimsy portal doesn't lock you out of a vault in a game (also a vault shouldn't lock you out of a vault either, but that's a lot of RNG to work through to confirm)
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You are perfectly welcome to disagree. I'm simply trying to impress on you how, the the fantasy sounds great, the mechanics simply don't translate.
Effectively the only way to make a skill point system fair is for all bonuses to be additive with the exact same scaling. For optimization the alternatives are...
Bonuses Same, Multiplicative: One point in everything that multiplies what you want to do, continue to spread points evenly to maximize multiplicative output.
Bonuses Different, Additive/Multiplicative - Cap each skill that affects what you want to do in order of highest total multiplier.
Yes; it's a great system for feeling like a special snowflake. No; the system has consistently shown itself non-viable for balance and offering actual choices to players.
There's games and games and games and even in the BEST skill-point systems there's no escaping the fact that the skill point systems provide far more false choice than they do real choice. Players like you who are looking more for "feeling" obviously gravitate toward the design as properly executed the balance is good enough that the baseline is usable. However for players looking for optimization the system only presents a simple math problem to pick the absolute best output for expenditure. This is also a core problem with itemization (though blizzard is trying its best to fix it, and for the most part has produced several roughly balanced output potentials within classes).
What you REALLY want is a reason to take those lesser used passives. And there are much better ways (objectively) to approach the problem than adding an at best net-neutral mechanic. Maybe add a ring with the effect "Gain (damage stat) based on health globe bonus" with a generous conversion. Suddenly that "bad" 50% health globe bonus that you want a reason to use becomes a viable replacement for another damage passive. And it does so without adding a thousand false choices to the game or adding an "optimization spreadsheet" situation. You add a single point of balance rather than changing 30 passives into 150 passives. You can now tune how desirable the globe passive is by supporting it with another item (Razor Strop fire nova build???) or tuning a skill to synergize with it (HotA - Birthright). Rather than adding a passive minigame you create an environment that asks the player to work toward items that synergize with each other or find ways to improve their weak spots that synergize with their build.
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You're missing the part where you're choosing between 0% Health Globe Bonus + 50% damage bonus from another passive vs 50% health globe bonus 0% damage vs 30% globe 20% damage. Two of those three options are trash for anyone optimizing their progression. On top of that you'd need a COMPLETE MAP of all potential skill bonuses. Go ahead write your complete passive tree up and see how long it takes posters to turn it into a cookie cutter system.
And "extra" points don't count. They never have in skill point systems because you're being FORCED to take a non-maxed skill.
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It works with shield block. Which is basically the entire point of its design (offense for defense)
Theoretically the two would stack for even more DR, whether it's additive or multiplicative would mean a lot. Lose all the damage though. Might not result in total wrath starvation, but that's dependent on giving up more damage for RCR in a couple slots.
Might be worth considering in an attempt at Roland's Support though.
0
After synergies there were plenty of skills you pumped as high as you could get. But only because the one skill you really wanted to use got stronger when you pumped them up.
Of course you're still spot-on. Barring accelerating returns from passive interaction (multiplicative scaling everywhere, "set" passives, etc) players will always be 5 or 0, (almost) never inbetween.
0
Assuming you use absolutely 0 additional RCR. Which means that your flense will be useless as a generator in a large number of situations. Which is not something you want if you're using it as your primary damage ouptut.
Realistically you'll most likely end up using at least Laws of Valor - Unstoppable Force, which will reduce your wrath cost to 9 which will significantly improve your sustained DPS against low number of targets. Assuming you use Roland's + Flense you'll probably be running Pound for single target and using Sweep for AoE clear, which means you'll most likely want to be able to use your sweep as a generator. If you use sweep only as a secondary skill for AoE then you'll be giving up a significant amount of potential DPS against small groups.
So the question becomes: Are you using Sweep + Denial with the intention of using Sweep as your sole Damaging skill? If you are you'll want Sweep to always be available and for that to happen you'll probably need at least 50% total RCR. In which case you'll want the LoH. If you're using Sweep as an AoE damage skill and Pound for single targets then LPWS will be superior if you use Denial over Piro Marella (in which case your pounds will cost a minimum 14 wrath and serve as your primary single target damage). If you use Piro over Denial then LoH will be superior assuming you Unstoppable Force (pound will cost 7 wrath with the law up)
tl;dr - It's complicated and very dependent on what you intend to run (also probably inferior to running fire bash, though I don't think anyone has done significant denial testing to confirm). It's complicated enough that I can't even say which choice is "safest".
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With regards to passive skills: here's a revolutionary concept - Just balance the skills and/or provide items to support or alter them in some way *like the rest of the game design is built around*. Any skill point system will inherit the exact same flaws that are in any skill point system and will not, in fact, serve to balance the passive skills. Adding skill points will at best result in WoW's issue where skills are either no-brainer, filler, or a trap. Which is no different than the current system except you get to choose just how much trash each skill is.
That is not saying itemization is perfect. There are flaws with the itemization-based balancing but the way itemization works makes it easier to get things in rough parity because each slot has a theoretical purpose and each item loadout can be designed with specific synergies. This is not true of a skill point system.
With regards to legacy items: There's not even any guarantee you'll be "rewarded" for finding a non-legacy legend. Your reward for having a legacy item that's of no use is exactly the same as for finding a second copy of whatever BiS item you're currently wearing - a soul. There's no design disconnect or lack of reward, it's in the head of players.
With regards to adventure mode: The incentive for adventure mode is ubers. Which is the point. Rifts are for legends, greaters are for gems, and adventure mode is for caches/mats. They all have clearly defined reasons for playing them that do not step on the toes of the other modes.
With regards to story mode: There is intentionally no incentive to story mode (other than the bonus experience handed out by quests). This is because forcing or incentivizing story mode has shown to be consistently unpopular among the majority of the playerbase as the mechanics of story mode are generally viewed as less fun than sandboxing due to forced progression and act locking.
Feel free to have your fantasy improvement orgy. Just remember that your fantasy improvements are all fantasy there's no real potential for substance since the "improvement" doesn't address the core issue (which is passive balance) and is obnly really changing how much rope you get to hang yourself with.
0
LoH can only proc once per skill now and procs fro the full amount regardless of skill, yes.
Whether LPWS is better is actually dependent on your resource cost reduction IIRC. If you're reducing the cost of Sweep Attack to less than 10 consistently (if you're using it as your primary skill with no downtime against single targets then you probably are) the LoH is better.
0
Because just like it has always been in almost all skill point system games it will take a few people doing a bit of math to cleverly break the system and reveal all the flaws. Skill point systems are by their nature flawed in aRPGs and MMOs. This is why many games are moving away from skill point systems to skill experience or something more complicated/less impact with less clear or impossible optimization.
Regardless D3 already uses a skill point system. You have 4 points to spend on passive slots chosen from whatever number of passives are available to you at your level. Maybe at some point there will be more gear which improves passives (Helskull), but there won't be a skill point system for many reasons. Not the least of which being that your power is intended to come from your gear not the 20 points you threw in frozen orb that will carry you from level 50 to level 99 (and you'll get nearly zero power increase in between because the system is broken).
Legacy items are not intended to be used. That's why they're legacy items, that's why there are seasons. Bounties are intended to be something players do before they rift or when they've run out of rift resources, they're not intended to be the core of playtime and more of a "I feel like not rifting" reward scheme (caches could be improved but that's an incentive talk and not about design intent). Story mode is designed, rightly so, to be something a player only ever has to do once. Doing it more than once defeats the purpose of adventure mode, think of adventure mode as new game + from many RPGs.
If you want a skill point system play Path of Exile or Grim Dawn. The former has one of the more balances point systems I've seen (it's still terribly imbalanced in terms of where you'll be spending your points) and if Grim Dawn learned from TQ it should have a solid progression of skill points (though once again it most likely has imbalanced expenditure targets).
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Given he posted in Crusader and he's using a Blood Brother you can reasonably expect him to be playing Roland's.
0
Except it wasn't defense. It was relaying the most likely response. You simply assumed it was a defense (if you read my post you'd read IMMEDIATELY that I also said that there's a healthy playerbase, not a low one) and immediately responded with (passive) aggressive sarcasm.
0
I never said anywhere that the number of players was absurdly low (for D3 or XGFire) simply that the logical counterargument to "6th most popular game on XFire" is "XFire has an extremely biased sample pool because..."
Making any statement about player population beyond distinguishing between "release" "healthy" and "dead" is basically impossible without lifting usage data from blizzard directly. Third party programs by nature will bias any counts (and for the purpose of XFire just because something is 6 most represented does not in any way make it the 6th largest community, just that the community of XFire users play it more than whatever is in slots 7 and below).
Realistically
Active Playerbase < Peak Playerbase < Total Accounts <= Copies sold
Simply because of the way the population will evolve over time.
0
Two words: Sample Bias.
Of course you're right the number of players on the game is a pretty healthy amount but that doesn't mean it's anywhere near the number of players who've bought the game.
0
Normal rift runs on low to mid torment if you want blues.
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The actual mechanism is that you can't open a portal in a portal world. That picture is pretty good evidence that a whimsy portal doesn't lock you out of a vault in a game (also a vault shouldn't lock you out of a vault either, but that's a lot of RNG to work through to confirm)
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Last season myself and many of the players I played with received boon from GRs before we ever found a vault.