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Deep character build systems Poll included
tazarconan
Member Posts: 1,013
From the majority of the rpg's i played one of the things i valued most is a deep in advancement terms character system .Choises that matter that give specialisation or not, loads of different possible builds so if i start a new toon i would have plenty of possible choises in what i can go after in talents feats skills etc etc
I played the last months Path of Exile. It really has a huge talent tree and the ammount of possile specs are really a lot of them.Here is the question. The vast majority of player comments despice of if they liked the game or not about that huge ammount of possible talents tochoose were positive.
So how come we dont see that deep or even deeper if possible character advancment systems in the most mmorpgs that rule the scene so far ?
Comments
I think about this everytime I play PoE. I wish the character development of a MMO was as deep and complex as PoE. In PoE, there are endless builds. In AoC, WoW, WAR, EQ2, etc etc... there are only a few.
I honestly wouldn't mind a top-view MMO that is similar to PoE - huge lands, world housing, etc.
A quick run-down then:
In path of exile, when you level up you gain 1 skill point to put in your passive skill tree.
This is the passive skill tree:
http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree
All classes share the same tree, however they start at different points on it.
As you can see, it allows for a massive amount of character building and customization.
IMO, the best part of PoE is the Keystone Skills (They're the big circles that have some drastically game changing effects). They round a character instead of stacking them, which is something that is missing in almost every game these days. If anything is to be taken from PoE, it should be the idea behind those.
Edit: I should cover the active skill system as well.
You equip skill gems into the colored sockets on your armor. Each skill is a certain color and only fits into that color of socket.
Furthermore, each skill gem levels independentally of the character. (It should be noted that you can only hot-key 7 or 8 skills.)
Also, sockets can be linked to another socket, which allows you to augment that original skill with support gems. There are even remote gems which drastically alter the skill. For example, if you equip Frost Nova (PBAoE Frost spell) and connect it to a trap support skill. The resulting spell will become a trap spell, that you throw on the ground, and triggers when enemies walk over it.
ok I will ask this, that you the OP and others give ideas for what these areas of character building you would like to see.
so far we have (with a few I added)
*Talents
*Traits
*Skills
*Feats
*Racials
*Roles
*Theme
*Stats baseline
*Faction bonus
what would you add?
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!
Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!
Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!
Voted yes for the similar reasons.
I voted "Yes", but I'll tell you why you won't see an expansive skill system in any mainstream games in the future.
The majority of the players will not spec optimal builds.
World of Warcraft got rid of the Talent system altogether as a result of add-ons that would rate your spec. Before that, players would manually check your spec before allowing you into a RAID group. A lot of players were rejected for less than optimal specs and less than optimal gear.
I already know there are many players who have completely bungled their builds in Path of Exile. Heck, I realized that I really screwed up my POE build on my Shadow, which was my first character.
I would love POE or even Syrim type skill system in an MMO, but I'm not sure how it would go over with most players.
I should have elaborated more in my ealier post, as the skill system is exactly as you described.
You equip skill gems into the colored sockets on your armor. Each skill is a certain color and only fits into that color of socket.
Furthermore, each skill gem levels independentally of the character. (It should be noted that you can only hot-key 7 or 8 skills.)
Also, sockets can be linked to another socket, which allows you to augment that original skill with support gems. There are even remote gems which drastically alter the skill. For example, if you equip Frost Nova (PBAoE Frost spell) and connect it to a trap support skill. The resulting spell will become a trap spell, that you throw on the ground, and triggers when enemies walk over it.
Its the interwining of the passive skill tree and this active system that makes the skill system in PoE a fresh and memorable charcter building experience.
Because i can.
I'm Hopeful For Every Game, Until the Fan Boys Attack My Games. Then the Knives Come Out.
Logic every gamers worst enemy.
PoE's passive tree is huge, but it's also full of filler talents that would normally not even be in a skill tree, like +10 dexterity and the like. I think it's more obtuse than deep.
The best character development system I've ever seen is still the one Guild Wars 1 had. It doesn't have a huge skill tree or anything like that. Just less than attributes that go from 0 to 20 and a bunch of skills. It's simple to learn, elegant and hard to master.
The ideal would be for me 1 talent per lvl (in a really huge talent tree), 1 feat per 3 lvls, 1 trait per 10 lvlracial bonuses are welcomed if they exist in an rpg,stats i belive should be seperate and allocated manually by the player each time he lvls whereever he wants (str,,agil,dext,int,wis,con,end).
These are the musts i think .
This. The passive skill tree is deceptively huge but not that deep when you look into it. A handful of key build choices here and there. And I agree with GW1 as well. I liked the quirky, MTG style skills. Very well balanced too. Good for PvP.
OP makes the classic mistake of thinking the quantity of choices is in direct relation to depth.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
M
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but something like that would be a nightmare to keep balanced. In order for something like that to work, there would have to be no small scale content other than solo being the only form of small scale content. Everything else would have to be large scale.
no small scale arenas, or small scale party dungeons, or else the individual class balance would show for certain builds over others.
Can you handle that? No small scale content other than solo maybe, to mask the unbalance issue?
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
Playing POE has made me realise i miss a lot of old school things. Deeper character customisation and freedom, a proper punishing death penalty among others.
I messed up my first toon, a level 48 ranger who just isn't suvivable in merciless. His build was fun up till then and knowing what i do i have now rolled a frost witch. Funnily enough hitting a brick wall hasn't made me want to quit but makes me want to beat it. POE allows me to make my own mistakes and now its up to me to see if i can overcome them.
I may never reach max level but i'm having fun trying. The game isn't perfect but for an small indie company they have made a fun game that deserves to do well.
I ve had countless conversation with many friends about exatcly this subject.Here is the deal. All the above u mention are correct but only when u talk about a game like lets say wow. 3 talent trees few talents to pick iside the 3 trees yes,it should be very carefully designed and ballanced.
When u have a lets say huge tree with 700 talents inside with only 80 possible to pick during the lvl course its Impossible to calculate what could be the best combo of talent picks.Simply because a random combination of talents x player picked could be better vs your picks.
What u can say is that u could pick a good combo of talents that suit your tactical behavior during various combat situations or suit your playstyle better but in any case u cant calculate in huge talent trees best possible combo.You can only speculate it would favor u in some situations but as u can imagine in vast trees u cant even guess what the oppoents builds are like.The possibilities are chaotic.
Now in a case that i pvp 1v1 with a player that has a smarter build than mine bravo and grz to him.He made a smarter choise and he deserves a small advantage over me. That doesnt neceserilly gives him victory though cause during hte fight he must also use his abilities,the benefits from his specc well and also fight well. Amd since in a server or arenas,,or bgs,or open pvp exist aparently loads of ppl the chaos theory guarantees that noone will have a stronger build than the majority of players that play that game.
Conclusion: balance issues exist in mmorpgs that are using less chaotic systems with little choises from the player side. Chaos= unpredictable=impossible to calculate=completely indifferent to balance issues
P.S. One of the greatest benefits of such an advancement system completely terminates the idea go to x site and read whats the pawn x class best build.
No way does excess amount of choices make balance issues go away. I wonder what type of logic you have used to get to a conclusion like that. GW1 had well over a thousand skills, unimaginable amount of different combinations for an 8-skill skillbar, and still they had to actively maintain the balance.
Players do not just mash skills/talents together to randomly find an effective build. Usually it goes along the lines of finding an exceptionally useful skill/talent and exploiting that. Building the build around those key abilities. And thats not even the whole story; the objective plays an important role aswell. Afterall, sieges, deathmatches and capture the flags all require different builds to succeed.
I'm guessing you're not really understanding balance. If a build can gives you a "sure victory", either the game uses hard counters (which have ran out of favor recently) or the game is poorly balanced. What makes the best build the best is that it wins more times than the rest and/or has less sensible counters than the rest.
If you have ever played competitive PvP, you should know this.
Balanced games are balanced because they are designed carefully to be just that. Not because they give you many choices.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
More variety and the skill flow chart, definitely good things.
So much reliance on gem drops for core abilities, not so much.
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― CD PROJEKT RED
What u mean by balance?
Balance to player stats bonuses defined by your build? If yes why should we have the same stats in a huge tree, since its pratcically impossible 2 ppl to choose exactly the same talents feats traits in a supposely huge tree full of choises to be made.One of those 2 guys will make some smarter choises that will give him an edge and thats the way it should be. Unles ofc u prefer small trees thats pretty obvious whats best to pick simle by just checking the tree 10 minutes or by just visiting x site to check whats best for u then copy paste it to your toon.
Balance to players skills/moves that can be performed by players during combat? (cleavedeepwoundsmortal strike,frostbolts etc etc)? I wasnt referring to skills anwy but if that is the case yes tghe skills should be carefully designed so x skill of x class should be equal with a similar skill of x class but thats self-meant.
If u ask me the outcome of the combat it makes sense to be decided by these factors:
1.player skill in combat
2.player build
3.Ability of the player to fight well with the build he made, using well during combat the given skills and strenghts the build he mades provide him.
Aparently u think that the benefits from the player choises in character build should be restricted so it wont give an advantage to someone. here is our disagreement.I believe they should.I believe smart choises/builds should be awarded.Only way to do this is by making huge trees aka Poe or even deeper.
As to your question i understand balance very well. I played competitive pvp in wow's arenas and rated battlegrouds vanilla+lately in high ranking positions over 4 years. It helped me uderstand free player choises in character builds is way better than what blizzard did (and other devs not just bliz), practically guiding the player on what he should choose in order not to get massacred by others in pvp taking away free will on what to pick and succesfull experimentation from players.That simply sucks.
Aparently some players prefer that included you my friend..I just dont. I prefer chaos so smart player player builds can and will be awarded.
P.s. And by the way as i stated in my previous post there is no way in huge trees to make x build that beats most speccs around.Lots of ppl will make x combo build that beats yours .Its mathematically certain.The thing is to make a build that beats as many as possible but thats a hard task.
Voted yes. The more build diversity the better.
Copying a build is simple no matter how big a skill tree is.
The best skill systems aren't mathematical in nature, forcing you to choose between things like blinding an enemy and setting them on fire. That's why there's no "best" build in GW1 and the best players don't use sites with pre-made builds.
On the other hand, in PoE, Armor is mathematically better than Evasion at the moment. Because both make you take less damage, there will always be a mathematically best balance between the two. So, you either make a choice based on math instead of in-game logic or guess and hope you guess right. Most of the choices you make in the passive tree are similarly mathematical and dictated by arbitary game mechanics instead of clearly defined in-game logic.
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I don't think optimizing a path with numbers is that deep. The gem skill system, OTOH, is more interesting because it allows different synergies.
I am opposed to just being complex. That is not necessarily interesting.
I am more for a large number of skills that can result in different combinations and syneries. I am still early in PoE so i don't know how well the skill gem system play out.
BTW, i am all for MMO going more like action RPGs in terms of combat, skills use, and progression.
I like this train of thought...
IMO deep 'numerical' character development is a distraction from the lack of depth in core gameplay - IMO common in themeparks MMOs.
The depth of the build system in PoE (partially because of the semi-confusing graphical layout) is inconsistent with the simplistic hack 'n slash core gameplay. Of course one could always take the position that the build system becomes part of the core gameplay.
Since I prefer player driven content, PvP, sandbox type MMOs I kind of cringe at really deep build systems because they can lead to balancing challenges - unless they take the numbers out...