Risingred
Diabloii.Net Member
Skill balancing and confusion
I'm a little confused as to how they're going to balance the skills while still making leveling rewarding and fun.
I am going to reference this screenshot since it is the latest we've seen of the skill tree (from Blizzcast 8):
http://diablo.incgamers.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=2649&size=big
Bit of a side-note:
I was a big fan of WoW when it was released. I played the beta and I thought, man, this is as close to Diablo III as I'm going to find for a while. I really like the talent tree setup, which was quite obviously based on Diablo II's skill trees. Even though I don't play anymore and haven't for a while, I still like making builds on the official WoW website for fun. I mention this because they are similar in function, not just looks. I think it's great but I'm confused as to how they are going to balance it.
The current "facts":
They've stated that the level cap will be around 99, maybe 100. We'll say 100.
You have to spend five points per tier to get to the next skill tier.
There are five tiers (max tier, you need to be level 35 to access).
My assumations:
You get 1 skill point per level at a total of 100 skill points.
Active skills have a point cap of 5.
Blizzard wants you to focus mainly on one tree, and then put extra points in a different tree(s).
Passives have a cap of 15, as seen in the last demo. You can probably already see an issue here.
I hated having to put 20 points into a skill to max it. Why? I know a lot of you liked it but it was a pretty lame reward for leveling up to get 1-2 more damage from a ice bolt or whatever. Tiny little incremental skill changes that were largely unnoticeable/negligible per level (not even including diminishing returns - WHY?). In WoW, when you spent a talent (skill) point you had immediate gains, and they were noticeable. That's rewarding whether you like WoW or hate it, it doesn't change the fact.
So we have our barb here from the screenshot, and his five tiers of skills. The last tier is a single skill. Assuming that the skills with the little black box beneath them are actives (for runes) we'll also assume that the last skill is passive.
Now, I love the way they designed the passives with the actives. They function as fun skills, powerful, but they also replace the needs for synergies. So you get two in one. They're designed solely to either re-purpose or support your active skills, with a few put in to support your character in general (ie, deathproof, +X% health per skill point).
How are you going to have a player spend, say, 70 points in a tree and still have it feel rewarding? I did a build of what I could figure out from the barbarian skills in the screenshot and I came up with about 75 points spent in the berserker tree. The other points overflowed into 2 passives in other trees, but obviously I can only max out one.
They stated that one of the big problems with Diablo II was that a player would just save up points for two or three skills and dump the points into them. Well, the way it is set up, I believe that'll happen now but the player will only be picking a few (ie, 3) active skills to max then whatever passives they want to support it (ie, a crit build). I don't see this really solving a problem, although to me, it is a huge improvement.
Am I looking at this wrong?
I'm a little confused as to how they're going to balance the skills while still making leveling rewarding and fun.
I am going to reference this screenshot since it is the latest we've seen of the skill tree (from Blizzcast 8):
http://diablo.incgamers.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=2649&size=big
Bit of a side-note:
I was a big fan of WoW when it was released. I played the beta and I thought, man, this is as close to Diablo III as I'm going to find for a while. I really like the talent tree setup, which was quite obviously based on Diablo II's skill trees. Even though I don't play anymore and haven't for a while, I still like making builds on the official WoW website for fun. I mention this because they are similar in function, not just looks. I think it's great but I'm confused as to how they are going to balance it.
The current "facts":
They've stated that the level cap will be around 99, maybe 100. We'll say 100.
You have to spend five points per tier to get to the next skill tier.
There are five tiers (max tier, you need to be level 35 to access).
My assumations:
You get 1 skill point per level at a total of 100 skill points.
Active skills have a point cap of 5.
Blizzard wants you to focus mainly on one tree, and then put extra points in a different tree(s).
Passives have a cap of 15, as seen in the last demo. You can probably already see an issue here.
I hated having to put 20 points into a skill to max it. Why? I know a lot of you liked it but it was a pretty lame reward for leveling up to get 1-2 more damage from a ice bolt or whatever. Tiny little incremental skill changes that were largely unnoticeable/negligible per level (not even including diminishing returns - WHY?). In WoW, when you spent a talent (skill) point you had immediate gains, and they were noticeable. That's rewarding whether you like WoW or hate it, it doesn't change the fact.
So we have our barb here from the screenshot, and his five tiers of skills. The last tier is a single skill. Assuming that the skills with the little black box beneath them are actives (for runes) we'll also assume that the last skill is passive.
Now, I love the way they designed the passives with the actives. They function as fun skills, powerful, but they also replace the needs for synergies. So you get two in one. They're designed solely to either re-purpose or support your active skills, with a few put in to support your character in general (ie, deathproof, +X% health per skill point).
How are you going to have a player spend, say, 70 points in a tree and still have it feel rewarding? I did a build of what I could figure out from the barbarian skills in the screenshot and I came up with about 75 points spent in the berserker tree. The other points overflowed into 2 passives in other trees, but obviously I can only max out one.
They stated that one of the big problems with Diablo II was that a player would just save up points for two or three skills and dump the points into them. Well, the way it is set up, I believe that'll happen now but the player will only be picking a few (ie, 3) active skills to max then whatever passives they want to support it (ie, a crit build). I don't see this really solving a problem, although to me, it is a huge improvement.
Am I looking at this wrong?