Atua Atua

The Great Skill Debate

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The Great Skill Debate

from Demigod Forums
There has already been a huge amount of discussion in separate threads concerning the skill style that Demigod should use for its Demigods.  From what I can gather, there seems to be two lines of thought:

Warcraft 3 style skill tree:  This focuses on a small group of skills, possibly with a rather large usage environment (by this I mean that the skill is depended on what it is used on, i.e. AoE for minions, direct damage for Demigods)

Diablo 2 style skill tree: A large range of skills where you have to focus on one or two of the three trees available to be effective.  Skill synergy between certains skills within the same tree apply (by this I mean that putting points into one skill can provide benefits to another skill down the track)

Now there is, I believe, legitimate reasons to go with either of these skill trees.  For example, the Warcraft 3 style explicitly defines the type of demigod that will be created, with item usage providing the customising factor.  This helps to (in sum instances) streamline the game play as you are not spending too much time in the skill tree choosing as well as having multitudes of skills to remember to use at any one time.

The Diablo 2 style provides more customisation, meaning that no two demigod will be the same in any one game (even if they are the same Demigod), without the out the need for particular items.

I could probably go on about both styles, but suffice to say, both styles are not wrong, it's more of a personal thing.

Something I would like to throw into the ring is the skill tree style that is implemented in Titan Quest.  I found that they really struck the nail of the head with skill synergy in that game.  For each tree, they have 3-4 major skills that are used throughout the game, which are improved by either putting more points into that skill, or selecting a more advanced skill that leverages off the existing skill.  For me, that is the shining light for skill trees that I have seen in games to date.

So in a way, the Titan Quest style is an amalgamation of the Warcraft 3 and Diablo 2 skill styles.

Anyway, on to the debate, what are your thoughts on the type of skill system that should be used in Demigod and why (please at least put in one sentence as to the why of your selection, even if it is repeating what others have said).

Also, if you have a different idea, put that down instead.

As can be seen in my post, my choice goes to Titan Quest style...  :D
116,341 views 79 replies
Reply #26 from Demigod Forums Top
but how is that skill activated if it isn't in the non-immolated list?
Reply #27 from Demigod Forums Top
I'm glad i'm wrong at least. :P

And i actually had searched gpg forums afterwards and found out beforehand i was.

Scathis had just said there is MORE than 4, and at the time there where some skills that had level requirements that could be considered like the "ultimates" but weren't nessisarily "ultimates".
Dunno where i got the impression for.


Now BBL while i go spew out more wrong information as if they are facts so Tyo will leak out actual correct information to correct me. =]
Galactic Civilizations IV
Reply #28 from Demigod Forums Top
I have a suggestion for a skill as a general Demigod will you have a resurrection skill or spell that can be casted to bring your fallen army back at say half hit points.
Reply #29 from Demigod Forums Top
Now.. i heard it is a FACT and Scathis said it, but i have no link showing proof that he said it, that there are 15 Demigods.

Tyo? :D
Reply #30 from Demigod Forums Top
I like the Titan Quest skill tree because you can be a cross class. For example let’s look at the Vampire Lord I would like to have him as a fighter – druid. Then I could have him morph in to a super strong Wolf man or Man Bat like from the Batman comics. This would give me the ability to fight a large number of army plus fly away if the fight goes bad. And as I mentioned in a previous post I could cast a res on my fallen army and bring them back at half hit points.
Reply #32 from Demigod Forums Top
Titan quests is silly.

Why not just level the skill to have it become chain-hitting, or whatever?

It takes too much reading in a game designed to last 15-40 minutes per round.

Titan Quests is like D2. D2 had 112 skill points availible at level 99 or something, with 30 skills and 20 levels each IIRC. that's 600 to point them in. So you could get 18.6% maxed.
It requires way too much reading, way too sharp a learning curve, and that was SEVEN CLASSES.

10 skills or so, being able to max 50%-75% or something, and more classes sounds better to me for this type of game.


Flexibility comes in having different demigods to choose from. Want to nuke? Pick Torchbearer I imagine. Want to tank and do high spike damage? I imagine Rook for that. Want AoE DoT's and snares? I think Unclean Beast is for that. Healing and Support? Sedna?
You don't take your paladin and spec it to DPS, or spike, or tank, or heal, or DoT.

I'm sure each Demigod will have some flexibility in how you can play it, and if two people on a team want to play a Torchbearer it'll be where they won't get yelled at since you can probably play either one two different ways enough to contribute to the team well, and you can attapt how you spec your Demigod based on who you are fighting(a very important part of strategy in an RTS. RTS is about scout and counter..). But I'm sure it won't be like WoW where you just pick which female has the best square low-poly ass to stare at while you run around in third person since you can make any class do any job.

It's a team game. You need to rely on each teammate to fill their nitch to win..
Reply #33 from Demigod Forums Top
Who says Skills need a limit on how many points they can have? If someone wants to max out 1 skill isn;t that their perogitive. Really destructive with 1 skill but completely lacking in versatility?
Reply #34 from Demigod Forums Top
It's much easier to balance.

Balancing out being able to put 20, 25, 30, or whatever points all into one skill would probably mean having to take away a lot of other nice things.

And it'd probably mean at level 30, for example, the skill would probalby be hardly better than at level 5 if 5 was made to be the max level.

If max level is 5, and at level 5 it does what happens to be roughly 1/3rd a demigods health in damage, do you think they're going to make that skill do more damage than most Demigods health at level 30, so you can instantly kill people?..
Of course not.
Which means at level 5 that skill is probably going to just be painfully weak, and the whole game will just seem watered down.

Not to mention, with most games that have high skill level caps the bonus you get per level is usually so low it's very very boring to level them up. "Ooo! Another 1% damage.. yay!..."
Reply #35 from Demigod Forums Top
Yeah in most skill based games it jumps by like 5-10% and then after a few levels it lowers to 3-5% then 1-2% so you get dimishing returns
Reply #36 from Demigod Forums Top
That's why I think the progression of a skill should be apparent before you put points into it, only to find that: "Oh, it's only useful until level 2, after that point extra levels in the skill are basically a waste, woot woot?" Or to see that the skill you thought was just "Meh." get's exponentially better once you sink points into it.

But to avoid skills having a mile-long list showing the level progression, It should just say something like (+100 dmg per rank, does splash dmg at level 5) Tells everything you need to know.

Reply #37 from Demigod Forums Top
Really I hate skills like that..

Skills are much more rewarding when it's like:
Level 1:
Shoot a bolt of fire at the enemy dealing 50 damage.
Level 2:
Shoot a ball of fire at the enemy, dealing 50 damage to the target and exploding on contact dealing 35 damage to all enemies within 2 yards
Level 3:
Shoot a ball of fire at the enemy, dealing 100 damage to the target and exploding on contact dealing 75 damage to all enemies within 3 yards
Level 4:
Shoot a ball of fire at the enemy, dealing 100 damage to the target and exploding on contact dealing 75 damage to all enemies within 4 yards and lighting all afflicted targets on fire for 10 damage/sec for 5 seconds.
Level 5:
Shoot a ball of fire at the enemy, dealing 100 damage to the target and exploding on contact dealing 75 damage to all enemies within 5 yards and lighting all afflicted targets on fire for 10 damage/sec for 10 seconds. Burning units fire spreads to nearby units(both friendly and enemy).

It's more exciting to level the skills when they they get additional nice effects. Much more exciting than a few % increases to all the things it does. While in the end it'd be the same if you started out with:
Level 1:
Shoot a ball of fire at the enemy, dealing 25 damage to the target and exploding on contact dealing 15 damage to all enemies within .75 yards and lighting all afflicted targets on fire for 10 damage/sec for 2 seconds. Burning units fire spreads to nearby units(both friendly and enemy).
It just FEELS like you're getting less per level getting another 25 damage, another 15 aoe damage, another .75 yards, and another 2 seconds to the burning instead of getting a whole new dynamic to the skill.
Reply #38 from Demigod Forums Top
Not to mention your second method is a monster to comprehend in the heat of battle.


Besides after a while you'll get to know the skills and their levels inside and out for certain demigods. that it will be second nature to know your DPS output and abilities
Reply #39 from Demigod Forums Top
innociv, let me provide a situation for you. If we assume that for your skills method at level 3 would be equivalent to my skill method at level 3, then both methods would allow you to have a spell that deals direct damage to the target as well as AoE damage. However, what happens if you don't want to deal AoE (say because you want to use the skill only to kill demigods). With my system, you can ignore the additional skill of AoE damage and concentrate only on direct damage, thereby improving your damage output for direct damage to more than 100 damage (say for example, 150 or 200) at the expensive of providing AoE. This means that is more customisable, you don't have to select an effect if you don't want to, and instead concentrate on the thing that you find more important.

I guess this is one of things themes of min/maxing, if you are allowed more customisation of your skills, you can min/max them the way you want, instead of being stuck with standard upgrades.

This also adds more flexibility in gameplay. Say, you select this fire bolt skill for the demigod killing power of it, but during the game you notice that there are alot more minions/creeps around (your enemy Demigods are general type demigods/your allied demigods don't use too many AoE spells). You would want to change your skill choice to add the AoE ability to take advantage of all the creeps. But, if in another game, this isn't the case (you enemy demigod's are mainly assassin demigods, your allied demigods are mainly general demigods), then you have wasted your hard earned skill points on a AoE spell which will be poorly utilised and can then concentrate the demigod killing power of the spell.

Anyway, just a few of my thoughts...
Reply #40 from Demigod Forums Top
Then you choose a skill that doesn't gain AoE after it levels up, clearly..

I have noooo idea at all why you thought because the one example I gave that I was saying that all direct damage ranged spells should grant AoE at a certain level.

And 10 skills, like the torchbearer has, assuming all demigods have that amount, is plenty to have a diverse amount of skills for different uses.
Reply #41 from Demigod Forums Top
God I hate work, I missed a lot of this debating.

Again, in regards to flexibility of a demigod, that will come from:

A) Playstyle

B) Order of skill leveling

C) Items

Early on the order you choose your skills will differentiate you from your opponent, later your items will, and both these decisions will affect your playstyle and vice versa.

You don't NEED skill choices (by which I mean permanent choices) to make two Demigods be able to have them play marginally diffrent. And having skill choices makes it harder to balance, makes it take longer per demigod, and could very easily be used to make a new demigod.

Also, on the point of skill descriptions, just say what changes each level or what this level and the next level do.
Reply #42 from Demigod Forums Top
"Now.. i heard it is a FACT and Scathis said it, but i have no link showing proof that he said it, that there are 15 Demigod"

I can neither confirm or deny the number of Demigods we will ship with.

What I can confirm is that at max level, a Demigod can have 83.33, repeating of course, percent of their total skills.

Additionally, that Legerdemain guy is a quick study. One of Innociv's posts is very close and Mooey, your questions hurt my brain dude.

Finally, I enjoy pie and tacos, as has been established in this thread.


Mike "Tyo" Marr
Demigod Lead Designer
Reply #43 from Demigod Forums Top
Is the catch all phrase engraved on the office door Tyo?
Reply #44 from Demigod Forums Top
YAY! for more info! 83.33% is pretty good at max level 25 thats 30 skills, that sounds like very good number and I am happy!

On the point of brain hurting:
YAY! I made a developers brain hurt!!! wait a second... they need that organ...
Sorry Tyo I didn't bruise it did I?

What I was trying to say is:

You can have 4 (I'm assuming activate-able) skills on your bar at once. You said TB has 4 non immolated and 3 immolated wheres the other 1 come in? (or 3 for that matter if passives are on this 'bar')

AND

Do we choose what skills are on the bar or is it automatic?
Reply #45 from Demigod Forums Top
m0oEy
For the Torchbearer it breaks down like this(From what Tyo said)

the TB has 10 skills,
4 Activate skills
2 Passive skills
3 Activate skills W/ Reliving the Immolation
1 Reliving the Immolation

For a grand total of 10 skills.
Reply #46 from Demigod Forums Top
Again your math makes it clear:

4 active (while non-immolated) + the ability to immolate = 5!
Reply #47 from Demigod Forums Top
Ahh you mean on the skill bar m0oEy? Well teh rough sketch had slots for 6 for the vamp lord...

If it is just 4 though then I woudl assume your Choices are 4 Skills or 1 Reliving the Immolation and 3 Immolation only skills or any combination therein. while still keeping you at 4.

and no passive would not need to be on the bar, they are passive, like once you get it you know know it and will take it with you forever and ever.
Reply #48 from Demigod Forums Top
That's 8 of 10 maxed with 33% to max lvl of a 9th skill i think.
I wonder which of my posts is very close to something, Lol.
The skills progression when you level? :P



Oh actually this leads me to believe the max level for skills is either 3 or 6.
8 skills at max of 10 is 80%.
3.3% remaining for the last, that's 33.3% of max level for that skill.
1 of 3 would be 33.3% to make the 83.3%

Now it COULD be 6, 9, 12, 15, 18 etc. But all those numbers would be rather odd. 15, maybe.
But if it was 15 that would mean in every game you maxed level you'd be assigning 125 skill points. This would be tedious, so I doubt it.
6 is a small enough number to be max level, but it's abit odd.
3 is a very "normal" number. It could also be giving you a big bonus for each skill level, while 15 levels would have to give small bonuses, which is more rewarding psychologically which makes sense for an action rpg.

And 8*3+1 would be 25.
Level 25.

So you have 30 skill points worth of skills, but 25 levels.

Max level of 25 also makes sense and is in line with that interview where he said "worked my way to level 25". That could of been taken as he reached that level, not necessarily that's the max level. But it makes sense as the max to me and this help make that the most plausible. :P


Though unless it isn't the intention to reach the max level in most games it would seem like you wouldn't have much build diversity that way. 73.3 would seem better to me but that's just me. :x But that all depends on if you max level in your average game.. You'd "only" max 50% on average if you only reached level 15 in the average game, after all.
Reply #49 from Demigod Forums Top
25 was also mentioned in the hands-on, if I recall correctly.

Yep:


I began climbing the ladder up to level 25 [...]


Which strikes me as meaning that 25 is indeed the maximum. On the other hand, speculation about the number of skill points per level strikes me as difficult to say. Anywhere from one to four or so wouldn't be too bad.

That said, I'm betting on either 25/30 or 50/60. >.>
Reply #50 from Demigod Forums Top
Or the fact that each demigod has a completely unique selection of skills mean that each skill has a diffrent max level, for diffrent demigods. (depending on Tyo's breakfast of course)