Diablo 1 skill system vs. Diablo 2 skill system

[mouseman]

Which should be used in Diablo 3? Or should they implement a whole another skill system?

I loved the Diablo 1 approach: you could find or buy books and get spells. The skill tree is a good approach, too, but it tends to make characters "builds" instead of unique characters. Could this be improved? Could we learn something from Diablo 1?

Which way do you want this to go?

[stillman]

Here is my idea:

Get rid of trees becasue it leads to skill point hoarding, obsolete lev 1 skills, and cookie cutter designs (and less importantly, a few wasted skill points for prerequesites). I would like to see a gem facet design where you have a gem representing each skill/spell and each facet is a component of the spell you can invest points into. So for example, chain lightning: You can drop points into the following facets:
one that increases the range of the lightning bolt(s)
one that adds more damage to the bolt(s)
one that increases the number of bolts
one that increases the AI of the bolt(s), for instance allowing bolts to bend around corners to hit monsters
one for increasing the jaggedness of the bolts such that they have a greater chance of occupying more space and thus hitting more monsters.

The brackets are used for bolt(s) because you may decide not to invest any points into the facet that adds more bolts, so you could have one bolt only that is very intellegent and practically tracks it's own targets (if you maxed out the facet for AI). Or, you could have one bolt that does the most possible damage by dumping every point into the damage facet. If you put points into making more bolts per cast, then right off the bat you have spent points so you can never have the most possible damage. If you put points into all the facets, you get many many slightly jagged, barely intelegent, low range bolts that do tiny damage. It is totally up to the player to design exactly how he/she wants the spell to behave.

So this system would be in place for every single spell. I know, it sounds like a lot of work to design, but players would get the spells to their exact specifications. More control means fewer complaints imo.

Another example: A cold sphere spell which is made up of a sphere of black outer space in which you can see random stars and galaxies. It emerges from the end of a staff and slowly wobbles towards the enemy. So the facets you could put points into include how far away the outter space region is (thus, more cold damage as it approaches absolute zero), how many spheres wobble out per cast, piercing ability of the cold damage for breaking immunes, longevity so the spheres can be used almost as gaurds for long durations, and so on.

I really hope the skill trees don't make a come back.

[konfeta]

The skill tree is a good approach, too, but it tends to make characters "builds" instead of unique characters

Fallacious. You will have builds as long as you have choosable skills. Diablo 1 and unique characters shouldn't exist in the same sentence.

[raleigh_565656]

D1 was this- Max fireball+Energy shield. D2 was basically the same but with more complexity. There will always be popular builds with or with out skill trees. In D1 everyone could use the same skills which really didn't make much difference in the class you chose. D2 the classes played a huge part in the skills you had. If a D1 style was used then there should be class specific attributes or skills that only that class has access to.

[Rashiminos]

Originally Posted by raleigh_565656

D1 was this- Max fireball+Energy shield. D2 was basically the same but with more complexity. There will always be popular builds with or with out skill trees. In D1 everyone could use the same skills which really didn't make much difference in the class you chose. D2 the classes played a huge part in the skills you had. If a D1 style was used then there should be class specific attributes or skills that only that class has access to.

D1 had stat caps, which eventually make a difference.

Repair Armor- losing max durability is yuck

Disarm Traps- Traps aren't using strong enough to justify it (when you can't dodge them)

Recharge - losing max charges is yuck

[amusingtugboat]

if you watch the gameplay vid, the tree is going to be like wow. Most skills said level 4/5 or level 1/1. Not sure how to explain it but its like wow. I like diablo 2 since there are many different types of chars but of course the main stream ones.

[FattyMcGee]

Originally Posted by stillman

Here is my idea:

Get rid of trees becasue it leads to skill point hoarding, obsolete lev 1 skills, and cookie cutter designs (and less importantly, a few wasted skill points for prerequesites). I would like to see a gem facet design where you have a gem representing each skill/spell and each facet is a component of the spell you can invest points into. So for example, chain lightning: You can drop points into the following facets:
one that increases the range of the lightning bolt(s)
one that adds more damage to the bolt(s)
one that increases the number of bolts
one that increases the AI of the bolt(s), for instance allowing bolts to bend around corners to hit monsters
one for increasing the jaggedness of the bolts such that they have a greater chance of occupying more space and thus hitting more monsters.

The brackets are used for bolt(s) because you may decide not to invest any points into the facet that adds more bolts, so you could have one bolt only that is very intellegent and practically tracks it's own targets (if you maxed out the facet for AI). Or, you could have one bolt that does the most possible damage by dumping every point into the damage facet. If you put points into making more bolts per cast, then right off the bat you have spent points so you can never have the most possible damage. If you put points into all the facets, you get many many slightly jagged, barely intelegent, low range bolts that do tiny damage. It is totally up to the player to design exactly how he/she wants the spell to behave.

So this system would be in place for every single spell. I know, it sounds like a lot of work to design, but players would get the spells to their exact specifications. More control means fewer complaints imo.

Another example: A cold sphere spell which is made up of a sphere of black outer space in which you can see random stars and galaxies. It emerges from the end of a staff and slowly wobbles towards the enemy. So the facets you could put points into include how far away the outter space region is (thus, more cold damage as it approaches absolute zero), how many spheres wobble out per cast, piercing ability of the cold damage for breaking immunes, longevity so the spheres can be used almost as gaurds for long durations, and so on.

I really hope the skill trees don't make a come back.

I would like to second the ideas in this post. Would make for amazing gameplay! Just think of the pvp possibilities!

However, I don't think Bliz would develop something as complex as this for the skill system (it was repeated over and over again how they wanted to make this game simple enough for the casual player to play successfully). I suspect amusingtugboat has a more accurate guess about what the skill system will look like.

-f

[abigmoron]

Originally Posted by stillman

Here is my idea:

Get rid of trees becasue it leads to skill point hoarding, obsolete lev 1 skills, and cookie cutter designs (and less importantly, a few wasted skill points for prerequesites). I would like to see a gem facet design where you have a gem representing each skill/spell and each facet is a component of the spell you can invest points into. So for example, chain lightning: You can drop points into the following facets:
one that increases the range of the lightning bolt(s)
one that adds more damage to the bolt(s)
one that increases the number of bolts
one that increases the AI of the bolt(s), for instance allowing bolts to bend around corners to hit monsters
one for increasing the jaggedness of the bolts such that they have a greater chance of occupying more space and thus hitting more monsters.

The brackets are used for bolt(s) because you may decide not to invest any points into the facet that adds more bolts, so you could have one bolt only that is very intellegent and practically tracks it's own targets (if you maxed out the facet for AI). Or, you could have one bolt that does the most possible damage by dumping every point into the damage facet. If you put points into making more bolts per cast, then right off the bat you have spent points so you can never have the most possible damage. If you put points into all the facets, you get many many slightly jagged, barely intelegent, low range bolts that do tiny damage. It is totally up to the player to design exactly how he/she wants the spell to behave.

So this system would be in place for every single spell. I know, it sounds like a lot of work to design, but players would get the spells to their exact specifications. More control means fewer complaints imo.

Another example: A cold sphere spell which is made up of a sphere of black outer space in which you can see random stars and galaxies. It emerges from the end of a staff and slowly wobbles towards the enemy. So the facets you could put points into include how far away the outter space region is (thus, more cold damage as it approaches absolute zero), how many spheres wobble out per cast, piercing ability of the cold damage for breaking immunes, longevity so the spheres can be used almost as gaurds for long durations, and so on.

I really hope the skill trees don't make a come back.

This is so awesome.

Are there any games that do this now?

[korialstraz]

Originally Posted by stillman

Here is my idea:

Get rid of trees becasue it leads to skill point hoarding, obsolete lev 1 skills, and cookie cutter designs (and less importantly, a few wasted skill points for prerequesites). I would like to see a gem facet design where you have a gem representing each skill/spell and each facet is a component of the spell you can invest points into. So for example, chain lightning: You can drop points into the following facets:
one that increases the range of the lightning bolt(s)
one that adds more damage to the bolt(s)
one that increases the number of bolts
one that increases the AI of the bolt(s), for instance allowing bolts to bend around corners to hit monsters
one for increasing the jaggedness of the bolts such that they have a greater chance of occupying more space and thus hitting more monsters.

The brackets are used for bolt(s) because you may decide not to invest any points into the facet that adds more bolts, so you could have one bolt only that is very intellegent and practically tracks it's own targets (if you maxed out the facet for AI). Or, you could have one bolt that does the most possible damage by dumping every point into the damage facet. If you put points into making more bolts per cast, then right off the bat you have spent points so you can never have the most possible damage. If you put points into all the facets, you get many many slightly jagged, barely intelegent, low range bolts that do tiny damage. It is totally up to the player to design exactly how he/she wants the spell to behave.

So this system would be in place for every single spell. I know, it sounds like a lot of work to design, but players would get the spells to their exact specifications. More control means fewer complaints imo.

Another example: A cold sphere spell which is made up of a sphere of black outer space in which you can see random stars and galaxies. It emerges from the end of a staff and slowly wobbles towards the enemy. So the facets you could put points into include how far away the outter space region is (thus, more cold damage as it approaches absolute zero), how many spheres wobble out per cast, piercing ability of the cold damage for breaking immunes, longevity so the spheres can be used almost as gaurds for long durations, and so on.

I really hope the skill trees don't make a come back.

Someone place this guy with Blizzard! If such a system would be implemented succesfully (which I belive Blizzard to be capable of) it would add so much variaty and uniqueness and not all the same cookie cutter builds like D2.

[Swiffer]

Originally Posted by Rashiminos

D1 had stat caps, which eventually make a difference.

The only overall difference each class saw with the stat cap was how powerful their spells could be. Fireball, Mana Shield and Stoneskin was all you needed, and all most characters went for.