First off, let me say that I agree with blizzard's reasons for removal of skill points, as the reasons they gave all make complete sense to me and I think its a great idea to remove them having skills unlock and be freely assigned. Though I also agree that once everything is unlocked at lvl 30, there is a gap from 30-60 where not much really changes except for incremental increases of power. So i've come up with an idea that i think could allow for intresting progression while still keeping the same freedom of choice.
Bring back skill points. Lets say you get 2 skill points per level. These skill points will be used for either passive or active skills.
Here's where its different, each skill could have a skill point cost. So each of the two active skills you start with might cost 1 skill point. Even at level 1 this could provide choice. Lets say at level 1 you have 3 or 4 skills available. two 1 point skills, and a two 2 point skills. Obviously the 2 point skills would possibly be a bit more useful or powerful, but to use it at level 1, you have to give up having 2 skills out of the gate. This is a real choice. The same swapping applies, so you can switch between skills, etc...
Once you are at level 30, all the skills are available, but you only have 60 points to spend. So while you can use the most powerful skills at this point, Maybe one of them might cost 40 points, leaving you with fewer to spend. This might be a skill more oriented towards the end of the game, but its available none the less. The feeling of progression is kept in tact and even rewarded, when you finally hit lvl 60 you can now afford to get that one cool skill without sacrificing anything else.
Using this model, the 2 skill points per level was just a suggestion to show how it might work, maybe it would be 1 point ever level, or every other levels. And skill costs would have to be balanced to allow for the most variety of builds. It would also be a mechanism to encourage variety of skills beyond just having spammable vs cool-down skills, since you will want to not stack all top tier skills since that might cap you at 4 skills. There could even be a mechanism built into this that any extra unspent skill points could be converted to the stat of your choice(attack, vitality, etc...) This would give some additional customization by allowing us limited ability to customize our character attributes, while making sure that players don't feel punished for not spending every last skill point they have just because its there. So if you find that perfect set of 6 skills at level 45, you would still have 30 points left over to pump into the attribute of your choice. If this can all be changed on the fly the way skills can be dragged and dropped now, it would still solve the problem that Blizzard has set out to solve from D2, and would carry over some of the customization that we all loved so much, though this time in possibly a much more meaningful way.
First of all, a gap between levels 30-60 where "nothing changes except incremental increases in power," exists either way. All you're doing is choosing WHICH skills feel incrementally powerful. This fixes nothing. Current System: You unlock final skills at level 30, and you just note that they get stronger until level 60. Your System: You unlock final skills at level 30, and you just note that they get stronger until level 60.
Second of all, we have a problem here. At level 30, you can afford maybe that one powerful level 30 skill, and almost nothing else. So what you're doing is creating vacuums at each major level benchmark as far as skills go. A clearer way to say that might be to say "at level X, you can only use one strong skill and all your previous skills are nerfed by pure merit of not having enough points to devote." You can only exist as a "whole" character at level 60. That's a problem, since you won't hit 60 until you're near the end of Hell difficulty. Current System: You progressively feel more useful until level 30 and then you proceed to feel stronger until level 60. Your System: You progressively unlock skills until level 30, but if you get a level 30 skill at level 30, you will not be able to use all your other skills effectively, meaning you have to rely on that one strong skill, or admit the fact that you can't use that level 30 skill until you're maybe level 40-45, making that level 30 skill into really a level 40-45 skill, which will frustrate the pace of character development.
Third, it seems that you want these same points to also apply to our passives/attributes. This means that people must further dedicate fewer points to low-level skills. Why apply points to magic missile when you've got that one big skill and you can just toss points into the traits that complement that big skill perfectly? Current System: Allows the use of low-level skills, high level skills, and passives; all in one big sexy bundle. Your System: Affords people the use of skills OR the use of passives, which will result in people psychologically erring toward high-level skills and complementary passives.
In conclusion, if this is truly an attempt at recovering customization in some way, I'm afraid to say that this is not the solution. In my personal opinion, there's no problem present, and the current system doesn't even NEED a solution. But opinions aside, the reality is that every system I've seen or read about that involves skill points in ANY WAY AT ALL will inevitably result in what some people call "optimal" builds, which almost always revolve around one or two high level skills, and a few complementary skills or passives thrown in as an afterthought. Oh, those other things might be used plenty, sure, but not in any significantly meaningful way. They just fill the cracks of a build that is really built on that one big skill. Current System: Forces growth on all six skills present, so the only "optimal" way to play is to choose 6 that you can actually use. Customization high. Your System, or any other skill-point based system: "Optimal" immediately falls on that skill that has the highest amount of points dumped into it. Customization limited to number of skills worth optimizing.
Ska it's like you took the words right out of my mouth........ which both impresses and REALLY creeps me out. What were you doing looking for words in there anyways?
Ska it's like you took the words right out of my mouth........ which both impresses and REALLY creeps me out. What were you doing looking for words in there anyways?
I wasn't looking for words at all. Wink wink, nudge nudge.
First of all, a gap between levels 30-60 where "nothing changes except incremental increases in power," exists either way. All you're doing is choosing WHICH skills feel incrementally powerful. This fixes nothing. Current System: You unlock final skills at level 30, and you just note that they get stronger until level 60. Your System: You unlock final skills at level 30, and you just note that they get stronger until level 60. I would add that this suggestion I had would also make each level up to 60 make new builds become available that would have been impossible prior to recieving enough skill points that could be budgeted.
Second of all, we have a problem here. At level 30, you can afford maybe that one powerful level 30 skill, and almost nothing else. So what you're doing is creating vacuums at each major level benchmark as far as skills go. A clearer way to say that might be to say "at level X, you can only use one strong skill and all your previous skills are nerfed by pure merit of not having enough points to devote." No skills would be buffed or nerfed in any way, not sure I understand why you think this? Magic missle would still be magic missle scaled to your level. Its simply a cheaper skill to choose. The only real limitation here is that you wont have enough points to stack cooldown abilities. Maybe this is actually a bad thing? I only posted this as an idea I had to see what others thought.
You can only exist as a "whole" character at level 60. That's a problem, since you won't hit 60 until you're near the end of Hell difficulty. This is a point that I hadn't really considered. Perhaps by having your "whole" character available there actually isn't a gap at all from 30-60, but rather this is when you get to play the game as it was intended with everything available to you. Current System: You progressively feel more useful until level 30 and then you proceed to feel stronger until level 60. Your System: You progressively unlock skills until level 30, but if you get a level 30 skill at level 30, you will not be able to use all your other skills effectively, meaning you have to rely on that one strong skill, or admit the fact that you can't use that level 30 skill until you're maybe level 40-45, making that level 30 skill into really a level 40-45 skill, which will frustrate the pace of character development.
Third, it seems that you want these same points to also apply to our passives/attributes. This means that people must further dedicate fewer points to low-level skills. Why apply points to magic missile when you've got that one big skill and you can just toss points into the traits that complement that big skill perfectly? Current System: Allows the use of low-level skills, high level skills, and passives; all in one big sexy bundle. Your System: Edited since you misunderstood my idea: Affords people the use of low-level skills, high level skills, and passives; Points not spent out of your skill point budget would be allowed to be spent on character attributes. So if out of 120 skill points at lvl 60, you only spent 96 points, you would then be able to assign 24 points to attack, defense, vitality, etc... The reason for this feature would be so that players who's chosen build doesn't use all 120 points won't feel punished for not optimizing by making sure to spend every last point.
In conclusion, if this is truly an attempt at recovering customization in some way, I'm afraid to say that this is not the solution. In my personal opinion, there's no problem present, and the current system doesn't even NEED a solution. But opinions aside, the reality is that every system I've seen or read about that involves skill points in ANY WAY AT ALL will inevitably result in what some people call "optimal" builds, which almost always revolve around one or two high level skills, and a few complementary skills or passives thrown in as an afterthought. Oh, those other things might be used plenty, sure, but not in any significantly meaningful way. They just fill the cracks of a build that is really built on that one big skill. Current System: Forces growth on all six skills present, so the only "optimal" way to play is to choose 6 that you can actually use. Customization high. Your System, or any other skill-point based system: "Optimal" immediately falls on that skill that has the highest amount of points dumped into it. Customization limited to number of skills worth optimizing. There would be no optimizing of individual skills since you either have the skill, or you dont have the skill(same as it currently is), but rather chosing an optimized build. "optimal" builds will come out of the game no matter what, skill points, or not.
Sorry, brother, but my vote is "nay."
I guess the problem i'm tackling, which may not even be a problem, is what happens from 30-60. It just seems like from 0-30 you are unlocking new skills, new passives, new skill slots and passive slots, until you hit 30. Then from 30-60...your magic missle will hit slightly harder each time you level up, but you brought up a great point about having your "whole" character available before lvl 60 and actually getting to use it for 30 full levels this way, which with hitting a bit harder each level might be enough on its own to make this "problem" actually non-existent. Time will tell i suppose.
Apologies for misunderstanding. But if your system is really based on the idea that you would have a mix of high and low level skills that scale with your level, what's even the difference between it and the current system, aside from adding the negative aspect of not actually being able to use your character properly until level 45-60?
Apologies for misunderstanding. But if your system is really based on the idea that you would have a mix of high and low level skills that scale with your level, what's even the difference between it and the current system, aside from adding the negative aspect of not actually being able to use your character properly until level 45-60?
The point of it was that you would have different options opening up even past level 30 even though all skills are available. at level 30 you might have enough skill points to use 1 big cooldown. but at level 45+ maybe you can afford two, or just stack some of the stronger skills, whereas before the later levels you just won't be able to do so viably. Also by having left over skill points able to be added to regular character attributes, if the skills you enjoy all happen to be low level skills, the extra points could be used to augument your stats so that even with low level skills you could have a viable build.
We both know this system, or any other suggested system isn't going to actually be implemented in the game, just thought it might be fun to discuss possibilities, and just shoot the shit, so to speak.
Remember you're also playing around with runes and gear every level as you find new ones. You know, a rune that splits your magic missile might not seem fun when it splits it into 3, so you might not use magic missile, but then someone gives you or you find a rune that splits it into 6 and that all of a sudden seems a lot more fun so you try that ability.
The scaling and varied effects of runes should be enough to make people a lot more interested in their character, combined with increased strength and the free experimentation model that exists... I think that 30-60 is going to be more fun than the first 30 since you get to just PLAY around with everything.
Bring back skill points. Lets say you get 2 skill points per level. These skill points will be used for either passive or active skills.
Here's where its different, each skill could have a skill point cost. So each of the two active skills you start with might cost 1 skill point. Even at level 1 this could provide choice. Lets say at level 1 you have 3 or 4 skills available. two 1 point skills, and a two 2 point skills. Obviously the 2 point skills would possibly be a bit more useful or powerful, but to use it at level 1, you have to give up having 2 skills out of the gate. This is a real choice. The same swapping applies, so you can switch between skills, etc...
Once you are at level 30, all the skills are available, but you only have 60 points to spend. So while you can use the most powerful skills at this point, Maybe one of them might cost 40 points, leaving you with fewer to spend. This might be a skill more oriented towards the end of the game, but its available none the less. The feeling of progression is kept in tact and even rewarded, when you finally hit lvl 60 you can now afford to get that one cool skill without sacrificing anything else.
Using this model, the 2 skill points per level was just a suggestion to show how it might work, maybe it would be 1 point ever level, or every other levels. And skill costs would have to be balanced to allow for the most variety of builds. It would also be a mechanism to encourage variety of skills beyond just having spammable vs cool-down skills, since you will want to not stack all top tier skills since that might cap you at 4 skills. There could even be a mechanism built into this that any extra unspent skill points could be converted to the stat of your choice(attack, vitality, etc...) This would give some additional customization by allowing us limited ability to customize our character attributes, while making sure that players don't feel punished for not spending every last skill point they have just because its there. So if you find that perfect set of 6 skills at level 45, you would still have 30 points left over to pump into the attribute of your choice. If this can all be changed on the fly the way skills can be dragged and dropped now, it would still solve the problem that Blizzard has set out to solve from D2, and would carry over some of the customization that we all loved so much, though this time in possibly a much more meaningful way.
Thoughts?
Current System: You unlock final skills at level 30, and you just note that they get stronger until level 60.
Your System: You unlock final skills at level 30, and you just note that they get stronger until level 60.
Second of all, we have a problem here. At level 30, you can afford maybe that one powerful level 30 skill, and almost nothing else. So what you're doing is creating vacuums at each major level benchmark as far as skills go. A clearer way to say that might be to say "at level X, you can only use one strong skill and all your previous skills are nerfed by pure merit of not having enough points to devote." You can only exist as a "whole" character at level 60. That's a problem, since you won't hit 60 until you're near the end of Hell difficulty.
Current System: You progressively feel more useful until level 30 and then you proceed to feel stronger until level 60.
Your System: You progressively unlock skills until level 30, but if you get a level 30 skill at level 30, you will not be able to use all your other skills effectively, meaning you have to rely on that one strong skill, or admit the fact that you can't use that level 30 skill until you're maybe level 40-45, making that level 30 skill into really a level 40-45 skill, which will frustrate the pace of character development.
Third, it seems that you want these same points to also apply to our passives/attributes. This means that people must further dedicate fewer points to low-level skills. Why apply points to magic missile when you've got that one big skill and you can just toss points into the traits that complement that big skill perfectly?
Current System: Allows the use of low-level skills, high level skills, and passives; all in one big sexy bundle.
Your System: Affords people the use of skills OR the use of passives, which will result in people psychologically erring toward high-level skills and complementary passives.
In conclusion, if this is truly an attempt at recovering customization in some way, I'm afraid to say that this is not the solution. In my personal opinion, there's no problem present, and the current system doesn't even NEED a solution. But opinions aside, the reality is that every system I've seen or read about that involves skill points in ANY WAY AT ALL will inevitably result in what some people call "optimal" builds, which almost always revolve around one or two high level skills, and a few complementary skills or passives thrown in as an afterthought. Oh, those other things might be used plenty, sure, but not in any significantly meaningful way. They just fill the cracks of a build that is really built on that one big skill.
Current System: Forces growth on all six skills present, so the only "optimal" way to play is to choose 6 that you can actually use. Customization high.
Your System, or any other skill-point based system: "Optimal" immediately falls on that skill that has the highest amount of points dumped into it. Customization limited to number of skills worth optimizing.
Sorry, brother, but my vote is "nay."
I wasn't looking for words at all. Wink wink, nudge nudge.
I guess the problem i'm tackling, which may not even be a problem, is what happens from 30-60. It just seems like from 0-30 you are unlocking new skills, new passives, new skill slots and passive slots, until you hit 30. Then from 30-60...your magic missle will hit slightly harder each time you level up, but you brought up a great point about having your "whole" character available before lvl 60 and actually getting to use it for 30 full levels this way, which with hitting a bit harder each level might be enough on its own to make this "problem" actually non-existent. Time will tell i suppose.
The point of it was that you would have different options opening up even past level 30 even though all skills are available. at level 30 you might have enough skill points to use 1 big cooldown. but at level 45+ maybe you can afford two, or just stack some of the stronger skills, whereas before the later levels you just won't be able to do so viably. Also by having left over skill points able to be added to regular character attributes, if the skills you enjoy all happen to be low level skills, the extra points could be used to augument your stats so that even with low level skills you could have a viable build.
We both know this system, or any other suggested system isn't going to actually be implemented in the game, just thought it might be fun to discuss possibilities, and just shoot the shit, so to speak.
The scaling and varied effects of runes should be enough to make people a lot more interested in their character, combined with increased strength and the free experimentation model that exists... I think that 30-60 is going to be more fun than the first 30 since you get to just PLAY around with everything.