"Skill" System is kind of insulting isn't it?

[Raizuda]

Am I missing something? All skills wil be available? So basically you will have swap strategists and runewhores? Why not just call it "class powers" and be more truthful? A skill is developed and honed, often to the exclusion of others. These aren't skills. Slot jamming and situational choices might make for decent gaming strategy but it slaughters build variation doesn't it? I'm not trying to purposely be negative, but without being able to develop low level skills more extensively to compete with higher level skills, I don't see rune variants providing much variety or giving players reason to use any but the most recently selected skills. If I'm wrong PLEASE correct me, because I'm a bit worried...

[Caiada]

1) All skills are viable.

2) The point system was, though conceptually sound, completely inappropriate for Diablo, a game mostly about the damage you do. A non-maxed skill was basically a useless skill in D2 sans a few one point wonders, but I can't think of a build off-hand that put a skill at anything between 1 or 20 unless it was because you ran out of points. Changing Diablo to fit to the point system would be counter-intuitive.

3) Each class has 20-ish skills, 6 slots, and 6 variations of skills. The possibilities for a large amount of variety (their major design goal with this new system) is absolutely there, and it seems to be working out.


The point system (much like WoW's talents. Same company not known for innovation copied itself, heh) gave you the illusion of lots of choice with 99 points, but really, there was never any logical reason or benefit at leaving a skill not maxed or at 1 point. More importantly, there was no benefit. If I left Blizzard at 10 to get the prereqs for Meteor, you know what I had? A crappy sorc with two weaker skills. With the new system, I can get Blizzard and Meteor, and it's just as viable as if I did Blizzard and some other skill, or changed some rune. Every choice has a tangible benefit and detriment. Build variation should go substantially up.

[Dhurn]

As far as I'm aware, skills you receive at a low level are not necessarily inferior to higher level skills, but fill different niches and scale up as you level. Abilities like Weapon Throw for the Barb seem like they will have major staying power for high end PvP, and similarly the Monk's Deadly Reach looks to be an effective spirit generator throughout the game regardless of the fact that you're receiving it very early. These are just 2 examples but I'm pretty sure it's not setup where you're gonna run into a situation like Frost Bolt vs Frozen Orb where you have to be powerfully stupid to not choose Frozen Orb.

[Troll Sacrifice]

I guess inferno mode will reduce the amount of viable builds from thousands to hundreds, but that is still awesome. Everyone can work on his own skills/runes/passives(/items) setup to create a viable build.

[Raizuda]

If all skills really are equally viable, that's great news. It would be great if a beta tester could confirm this. It still would be great to have a simple mechanic that gives you a perk/perks or a training focus. A training focus could be an easy, respec modifier that allows you to focus on either mind, body, or spirit. Think of it as starting balanced - visually it would look like an equilateral triangle and you could grab a point and pull it and "weight" it heavy in one direction. It's basically a way to still include traits without arduous point assignment.

[Nerraw]

All abilities which do some sort of damage scale with your weapon speed and damage. So as long as your weapon is up to date, your skills will be too.

[Grassfarmer]

In D2 you can select a tree and chose your skills making it feel more of a customization.
Some moves were better than others however, so for example builds like hammerden and zeal pallys were the only viable options when creating a paladin in D2.

So with this new system It should make it so we won't see cookie cutters builds.... I hope.

[azuremyst]

i want to make something very clear to all of you.

its not like in diablo 2 hell mode you could just make any "viable" spec. if you didnt have certain skills, and the gear to match, you died.

nightmare and normal mode were always the "viable spec" routes i took. i had a dual dream zeal sorc, mf sorc, hammerdin, etc for hell mode.

if i wanted to make a molten boulder druid or something unique but also wanted it to be "viable" (which clearly would not work well in hell mode) i'd take it to nightmare.

that probably doesnt make sense to you guys, which is what im trying to explain.

i know you are all very excited to play the new inferno ...but lets be realistic. obviously certain play styles and builds simply will not perform as well as others. thats why they are adding all the runes, to change skills that might not have been so "viable" into something you'd actually consider using.

is shock pulse going to be better than electrocute in inferno mode? probably not. could you take it to nightmare (which is hell mode now) and have alot of fun for weeks, perhaps even months, especially with all the rune modifiers? thats for you to decide...

[zera]

1) All skills are viable.

2) The point system was, though conceptually sound, completely inappropriate for Diablo, a game mostly about the damage you do. A non-maxed skill was basically a useless skill in D2 sans a few one point wonders, but I can't think of a build off-hand that put a skill at anything between 1 or 20 unless it was because you ran out of points. Changing Diablo to fit to the point system would be counter-intuitive.

metaorb or what it's called kinda did that. mostly fire (not fully maxed like 10 in firebolt) and then 20 in frozen orb and 1 in frost mastery (relying on +skills to get it "capped"). Also I guess there are several paladin builds that used a 1point in smite for taking down uber bosses.
But before the diablo patch with syngergies building a character with several skill sets was viable and how the game was played (guess paladin with auras is the exception cause you used atleast 40point on the main skill and an aura).

[Chaoslux]

but I can't think of a build off-hand that put a skill at anything between 1 or 20 unless it was because you ran out of points.

Necromancer's Lower Resists and Summon Resist, A few of the Warrior's Passive skills. There were quite a few of those skills where they gave huge benefits at first, and then they got hit by diminishing returns HARD in the later levels. So it was a good strategy to put 5 points into them to get the bulk of the increase.

But without nitpicking, i completly agree with ya that the point system was... "fundamentally flawed and unfixable" right?

[Caiada]

Necromancer's Lower Resists and Summon Resist, A few of the Warrior's Passive skills. There were quite a few of those skills where they gave huge benefits at first, and then they got hit by diminishing returns HARD in the later levels. So it was a good strategy to put 5 points into them to get the bulk of the increase.

But without nitpicking, i completly agree with ya that the point system was... "fundamentally flawed and unfixable" right?

For Diablo, yes, for other games, no. It's a system that feels better than it actually is, and is much more suited to a game where there's more than just damage and defense to focus on, especially when damage usually overrides defense.

I remember the few skills with diminishing returns (now...), but that's still relatively insignificant, because those skills (Warmth, Masteries, Natural Resistance) were completely replaced by passives. Full benefits and they don't take up skill points or spots.

[Chaoslux]

I agree that most games with such a skill point system ends up with the Illusion of Choice, which is bad design down the road. I remember my father playing Diablo 2, spending 20 points in Magic Arrow, and then afterward putting points in Multishot, but he had a rough time in the later acts of normal, less alone even remotely touch Nightmare. Never got the courage to say "So yeah, your character sucks and very much underpowered to continue, you should reroll"
Good thing he ended up having fun just casually playing the game and clearing the same zones on a daily basis, looking for uniques and sets.

[bbr]

It'll be good to have a full range of choices on skills, rather than having to pick 1-2 skills to get "to the bottom of the tree" where the juicy bits are.
And then fill them up with +skill gear (as a sorceress).

[TheYufa]

The point system (much like WoW's talents. Same company not known for innovation copied itself, heh) gave you the illusion of lots of choice with 99 points, but really, there was never any logical reason or benefit at leaving a skill not maxed or at 1 point. More importantly, there was no benefit. If I left Blizzard at 10 to get the prereqs for Meteor, you know what I had? A crappy sorc with two weaker skills. With the new system, I can get Blizzard and Meteor, and it's just as viable as if I did Blizzard and some other skill, or changed some rune. Every choice has a tangible benefit and detriment. Build variation should go substantially up.

It's interesting that you mention Meteor while going up Frost, because Meteor/Frozen Orb hybrids where one of the most versatile and popular Sorc specs.

[Caiada]

It's interesting that you mention Meteor while going up Frost, because Meteor/Frozen Orb hybrids where one of the most versatile and popular Sorc specs.

That was before synergies, I was aware of that. Before synergies 50% of your skill points were useless anyway, which was even worse.

[rezoacken]

Diablo 2 system had its time, now retrospectively it is a very bad tree system for the reasons some people have already showed:
- A lot of uselessness
- No reason to not max a skill
- Synergies increased the build idea, you had to pick things and their synergies you end up with 2-3 spells and that's it this is your character.

Is Diablo 3 better ? yes. Was there a way to make a good tree system or customization where you must commit ? Maybe. The thing a game with tree would have been a Diablo 3 where you commit to a build and specifics skills. This come back to "what is effective ?" and then you have sometimes to trade fun skills for more effective skills. This is close to impossible to make a game where every skill is balanced. Blizzard definetly said: "ok let's give people all the skills so they can play with the skills they want and it won't matter much if one is better than an others, to be effective they can just swap."
I like this decision, I think old RPGs character developments, where you search for efectiveness before what you feel and enjoy because when you invest points you cannot go back, are old systems and boring.

[Wildmoon]

1. You can only swap your skill in town.
2. High level rune will be very rare so if you have to decide what build you will buid your character. 3. D3's skill system will have more viable build than D2 because there are much more variaty in skill than D2.
4. High level rune will make you commit to your build.

[Th3D0n]

Am I missing something? All skills wil be available? So basically you will have swap strategists and runewhores? Why not just call it "class powers" and be more truthful? A skill is developed and honed, often to the exclusion of others. These aren't skills. Slot jamming and situational choices might make for decent gaming strategy but it slaughters build variation doesn't it? I'm not trying to purposely be negative, but without being able to develop low level skills more extensively to compete with higher level skills, I don't see rune variants providing much variety or giving players reason to use any but the most recently selected skills. If I'm wrong PLEASE correct me, because I'm a bit worried...

Yes you are wrong. This skill system reminds me of Guild wars where the same class had like 20-30 skills but you could only use 5 at a time. the combinations were tonz, the number of specs u could get were totally based on your team composition and on the thing u wanted to do at a given time. Personally i loved it, it turned out to be very awesome. I don't see how Diablo's system is a failure in these circumstances.

[Willfox]

1) All skills are viable.

2) The point system was, though conceptually sound, completely inappropriate for Diablo, a game mostly about the damage you do. A non-maxed skill was basically a useless skill in D2 sans a few one point wonders, but I can't think of a build off-hand that put a skill at anything between 1 or 20 unless it was because you ran out of points. Changing Diablo to fit to the point system would be counter-intuitive.

3) Each class has 20-ish skills, 6 slots, and 6 variations of skills. The possibilities for a large amount of variety (their major design goal with this new system) is absolutely there, and it seems to be working out.


The point system (much like WoW's talents. Same company not known for innovation copied itself, heh) gave you the illusion of lots of choice with 99 points, but really, there was never any logical reason or benefit at leaving a skill not maxed or at 1 point. More importantly, there was no benefit. If I left Blizzard at 10 to get the prereqs for Meteor, you know what I had? A crappy sorc with two weaker skills. With the new system, I can get Blizzard and Meteor, and it's just as viable as if I did Blizzard and some other skill, or changed some rune. Every choice has a tangible benefit and detriment. Build variation should go substantially up.

Ice Sorcs normally put more then 1 point in frost mastery(don't recall exact skill names). Also Auradins put however many points into conviction(I think, the -resists aura) to get them to lvl 25 with +skills. So there are 2 cases just off the top of my head where you put more then 1 and less then 20.

Then of course there were the 1 point wonder skills like static, tp, etc. I'm pretty sure there were more skills that you didn't necessarily max out(mana shield maybe? Think it was more effective to put more points into telekenesis).

Also to the person saying their dad put 20points in magic arrow. I've seen a hardcore no stamina build with 20points in it(Frost maiden) basically just so it could take out cold immunes(Of course the rest of his skill points would need to be spent appropriately though).

Personally I think D2 had a TON of customisability, but some of the more out there builds required a crap ton of wealth, because they don't really shine without certain items. I really liked all the different builds you can make on d2 and am really hoping the new system is just as good in its own way.

[Caiada]

Ice Sorcs normally put more then 1 point in frost mastery(don't recall exact skill names). Also Auradins put however many points into conviction(I think, the -resists aura) to get them to lvl 25 with +skills. So there are 2 cases just off the top of my head where you put more then 1 and less then 20.

Then of course there were the 1 point wonder skills like static, tp, etc. I'm pretty sure there were more skills that you didn't necessarily max out(mana shield maybe? Think it was more effective to put more points into telekenesis).

Also to the person saying their dad put 20points in magic arrow. I've seen a hardcore no stamina build with 20points in it(Frost maiden) basically just so it could take out cold immunes(Of course the rest of his skill points would need to be spent appropriately though).

Personally I think D2 had a TON of customisability, but some of the more out there builds required a crap ton of wealth, because they don't really shine without certain items. I really liked all the different builds you can make on d2 and am really hoping the new system is just as good in its own way.

Well, I mentioned 1 point wonders, and I think anything in between (All 3 elemental masteries, weird math things like avoiding resistances, etc.) was the exception, not the rule.