Come in and rate the class skills!

[Apocalypse]

I do think something like this could be very cool for the final game, once we actually get to try out all the skills and rune effects. People could create such spreadsheets for every class, and list all of the rune effects for individual ratings, with a request that you not vote on any you haven't actually tested out yourself. That would make for some interesting data crunching; what is the most/least popular skill per class? the most/least popular rune effect? I'm sure there would be oddities too; some skill that 4 of the rune effects are loved and one hated, etc.

maybe this is something you could post about a week after launch? or maybe you can be selective with the members who vote, say take 20-25 people or whatever and have them all fill out the sheet after they have messed with all the skills? they could slowly fill it out over time too. i think something like that would be really interesting to see. i vote you do it


edit: and to answer the question, i based my rankings on a few things. all of which are pretty much opinion based as of now

1. end game viable. this means, apoc's end game, not anyone elses. i dont like rushing so skills like wrath of the berzerker wont probably get used by me. some of the builds for it looks amazing but its not my game style.

2. would i plan the entire build around this skill/will it be included in every build

3. how much fun will it be to use. arcane orb was overpowered like crazy before, if left untouched all wiz would use it, me however found it to be a very plain and boring skill so even though its usefull it lost points

4. will i ever use the skill. some skills are ok, but other skills do the same thing only better, so whats the point

5. how good do i think it will be. this was mostly guess work and if its like d2 i am way wrong. i remember thinking poison nova would be the best skill ever for d2

6. looks. does not apply to all yet

[Capt Goodman]

I like the idea of this and when Elly sent me a link to the online spreadsheet a few days ago, I instantly poked all around it. I enjoy stats and quick comparisons of a numerical type.

Obviously this is a casual thing and we're not going to get into debates over methodology, but if I filled out one of these lists I'd have a lot of "NA" entries. Many skills we haven't gotten to test at all, and even those we have, the base skills are fairly irrelevant, since it's all about the rune effects. And we've tried even fewer of those, with no more than 1 or 2 per skill available in the beta. So what are you guys rating?

Seriously, literally... what are you ranking? I guess that's a different answer for everyone, but it's mostly kind of a "how cool I think X will be," right?

I do think something like this could be very cool for the final game, once we actually get to try out all the skills and rune effects. People could create such spreadsheets for every class, and list all of the rune effects for individual ratings, with a request that you not vote on any you haven't actually tested out yourself. That would make for some interesting data crunching; what is the most/least popular skill per class? the most/least popular rune effect? I'm sure there would be oddities too; some skill that 4 of the rune effects are loved and one hated, etc.

I toyed with the idea of only listing skills shown in the beta, just for this reasoning, but I figured:

A) people had seen most if not all skills in videos and whatnot
B) They could somewhat formulate an opinion off of the description
C) I didn't want to have to fix the spreadsheet on release date, because I'll be busy playing the game

To me, ranking each skill is the combination of the different rune effects so, for example you love all rune combos on a skill, and you think that skill rules in general, it's a 5, whereas if you only like a couple you'll have to rank accordingly.

And yeah, I could definitely branch out and make sheets for each class that contains the main skill + all the rune combinations, and then everyone could rank those accordingly, but as it stands right now, we get at most 2 runes per skill, so it's not quite as necessary.

[yovargas]

Flux - you do realize that tons of us super-fans (like me) have been wasting lots and lots of hours playing with the skill calc designing imaginary builds, right? People here were doing tons of them the second it went up and we had lots less info back then then we do now. Given that, it seems natural to ask people's opinions of the skills.

[Varquynne]

For me, it was pretty much an 'overall' ranking for each skill that factored in just about everything. Does the skill seem fun to use? Does it have cool visual effects? Is it something that I would make me want to play that class? Do other skills already do something very similar; is it redundant? Do the runes add a lot of nice variety to it or do they just nudge the stats around a bit boringly? Do I like the theme of the skill?

I didn't factor in balance or usefulness very much since that can easily change, although I did penalize skills I thought were significantly weak compared to others like it. Some skills I rated as 1 or 2 I would still actually use, but I rated lower because they were essentially passives in disguise. This applies mostly to the long-term buffing skills.

This was essentially my methodology, as well. And, of course, something can sound a lot better than it actually ends up being (especially when ordering stuff off a menu).

I looked at the skill videos for those that had them and tried to focus just on rating the skill itself (separating out class bias as best as I could). I was actually surprised that based on that the Witch Doctor was my highest rated class, even though I have my mind set on playing a monk to start.

Like Capt Goodman said, though, the groundwork is/can be set now so that this can be done with relative ease shortly after release of the game.

I would prefer that we set some kind of rubric for it, at least such that people have an idea of what a rating of 1 or 5 constitutes.

[Brak]

um, if there is a concrete definition of what constitutes 1-5, then there is no point in setting up a poll

[Capt Goodman]

So there is at least one joker keeps getting on the spreadsheet and randomly deleting averages and reorganizing the first sheet randomly. So, my solution to that is to create a page specifically for input of data, and I'll keep the main sheet locked down completely. So when people add information, I'll just copy and paste into the sheet that is locked down for them. The other alternative is to request everyone's email address who wants access, but I know I wouldn't feel comfortable dishing mine out online. So to prevent from future douche baggery that's what I've done.

[Flux]

Flux - you do realize that tons of us super-fans (like me) have been wasting lots and lots of hours playing with the skill calc designing imaginary builds, right? People here were doing tons of them the second it went up and we had lots less info back then then we do now. Given that, it seems natural to ask people's opinions of the skills.

Well sure, but like apoc detailed a couple of posts up, there are so many possible factors. For instance, looking at the spreadsheet I saw the DH's Bolo Shot had a pretty low score... and I'd have agreed with that in theory and early beta testing. But for a couple of patches bolo was like level 3, and the first rune effect was at 8 (IIRC) and it doubled the radius. And it was awesome!

Bolo went from "never use" to one of my top 2 or 3 DH skills, purely thanks to that rune effect. So how do I rank that skill: 1. That rune effect: 5. What's my total? 3? Or do I assume I'll be using that rune effect and therefore it's awesome?

And yes, I'm over complicating things at this "killing time" stage.

[z00t]

In my post, I just went with how I thought each skill would perform un-runed to make things simple . Naturally, that means some skills which may be awesome with a certain runed were rated lower than they otherwise may have, but that's the rating system I chose :P.

[Apocalypse]

what i did flux was take the skill and judge it based on the runes i personally would use. some skills are ok or skills i wont really ever use then a rune will change them all around and suddenly it finds a home in a certain rotation. ray of frost is a good example of this for me. so thats how i did it anyway.it would be bvery interesting to see how this goes after launch though, like you said earlier

[Varquynne]

um, if there is a concrete definition of what constitutes 1-5, then there is no point in setting up a poll

Sure there is. What does a rating of 1 indicate? That you wouldn't use the skill? That the visuals are terrible? That you don't like the name of the skill? What constitutes the rating is valuable to know. As it is, and as Flux pointed out, it is a "coolness" scale. It would still be based on your opinion, but you would know what went into giving it a particular rating.

Five point Likert scales are commonly used and each item tells you what 1 to 5 represent (typically a spectrum of strongly disagree to strongly agree). In this case, I'd imagine it loosely is 1 = Not cool at all and 5 = Super duper awesome cool.

One possibility would be to use a number of Likert items for a particular skill. Hypothetical example:

Multishot (Rune: Burst Fire)
-I am pleased with the visual effects on this skill.
1 through 5 (strongly disagree to strongly agree)

-This skill is fun to use.
1 through 5 (strongly disagree to strongly agree)

-I frequently use this skill in my class build.
1 through 5 (strongly disagree to strongly agree)

Therefore, an overall rating of 5 would indicate a person thinks the skill looks good, is fun to use, and something they include in their class builds. There are certainly problems with this approach (as with any approach), but at least the designation of 1-5 would be a bit less nebulous.