A Critique of Diablo 2-Style Skills & Trees

[Desiderius]

Paladin - Charge, Holy Shield (works well with partial investment), Redemption, Salvation...

Just remembering how stoked I was by the skill names (and experimenting with builds using them) when the game first came out.

Top notch gaming experience that year.

 

[Faarbaute]

The part you're referring to is the application of the character to slay the monsters and resolve the quests. Combat, exploration, and questing. That's the gameplay. The character is the means to do that. The game isn't determining what tools presented to you are false or trying to minimize traps built into the system.

Lord forgive them. They know not what they do.

Stop doing that shit.

I am referring strictly to the part of the game that is relevant to this discussion: the character build system.

It's not controversial to say that the way you build your character in an RPG should matter, and not just creatively.

 

[ciox]

A large part of the fun of playing Diablo 2 way back then, was that journey of discovery, of trying out different skills, figuring out what works and what doesn't, what's weak and what's strong, what's a trap and what's not, attempting to game the system, all that good stuff.

None of that would have been meaningful, none of it would have mattered, without these elements that, on their face, only seem to cause frustration, but are in fact vital to making character building matter at all.

You have to be able to fail. You have to be able to make mistakes. This is not a rollercoaster ride, and gameplay is not merely a formality.

The only critique I agree with is that the introduction of skill synergies was a mistake, because they were an attempt to fix something that wasn't a problem in the first place. (In response to a critique much in the spirit of this thread.)

It was obvious that synergies were really a kind of extra system for granting stat boosts to certain skills, it was just quickly implemented with what they already had on hand, rather than creating new concepts and new UI and calling it 'talents' or something.
Synergies are definitely very important for keeping skills relevant in Nightmare and Hell difficulty, there's just a bit of awkwardness since you can tell what they really had in mind vs. what they implemented.
Obviously this makes you think about what could have been if Nightmare and Hell were balanced to be less about HP/damage bloat, then you wouldn't have to worry about skills losing relevance, or adding synergies.

 

[ciox]

Paladin - Charge, Holy Shield (works well with partial investment), Redemption, Salvation...

Just remembering how stoked I was by the skill names (and experimenting with builds using them) when the game first came out.

Top notch gaming experience that year.

There was definitely a reason to be stoked, all the skills were very original at least in that realtime action context, and were ripped-off like crazy, including by Blizzard with their other games like Warcraft 3 and WoW, then Mobas and so on.

 

[luj1]

Also, for Might aura it could be cool if it added some fixed damage, letting you kill weak enemies faster than the more advanced damage auras, if it scaled properly with difficulty somehow then it would always be useful.
You could also tweak the auras a little more so it's obvious that Might is about scoring 1-hit kills, Concentration is about consistent damage output and Blessed Hammers, and Fanaticism is less about damage and more about triggering on-hit procs and elemental damage more often.

Fixed in Project Diablo

 

[luj1]

A large part of the fun of playing Diablo 2 way back then, was that journey of discovery, of trying out different skills, figuring out what works and what doesn't, what's weak and what's strong, what's a trap and what's not, attempting to game the system, all that good stuff.

None of that would have been meaningful, none of it would have mattered, without these elements that, on their face, only seem to cause frustration, but are in fact vital to making character building matter at all.

You have to be able to fail. You have to be able to make mistakes.

So many people can't understand this. Even some devs such as Sawyer.

Good skills, bad skills, utility skills (1-pt wonders), all should exist. They all have their role. Just like in life.

 

[luj1]

The game is when you're adventuring and combating monsters. Builds are your chosen method to do that. They're tools for the fun. A means, not an ends. You guys act like a hammer isn't worth using unless the grip is covered in sharp spikes that you have to suffer through.

You sound like someone who believes players should never be punished for their choices.

This new breed of gamers wants to experiment BUT without consequences. Josh Sawyer based his whole Pillars design philosophy on this. We saw how that turned out (two times). Sorry but reality doesn't work that way, why would games?

 

[destinae vomitus]

People seem to overlook the fact that Diablo 2 more or less pioneered this type of skill tree and is very much a product of its time (not to mention it had a long tumultuous development cycle), i.e. its shortcomings ought to get excused at least somewhat instead of being subjected to pedantic nitpicking by way of a "modern" critical eye.

The biggest problem I for one have with it is that the barbarian, amazon and paladin clearly got the short end of the stick with those passive and aura trees, as a result they simply have less going on than other classes. The expansion classes on the other hand showcase obvious development in how each tree is both a distinct playstyle and can synergize with one another, so there's that.

 

[luj1]

Paladin - Charge, Holy Shield (works well with partial investment), Redemption, Salvation...

Just remembering how stoked I was by the skill names (and experimenting with builds using them) when the game first came out.

Top notch gaming experience that year.

There was definitely a reason to be stoked, all the skills were very original at least in that realtime action context, and were ripped-off like crazy, including by Blizzard with their other games like Warcraft 3 and WoW, then Mobas and so on.

For better or worse, Diablo II revolutionized system design. Skill trees, the red and blue mana "blobs", item modifiers...

You can't blame Diablo or Blizzard because everyone is still copying them. No one came up with anything different to this day.

 

[PlanHex]

Also consider when the other stuff like synergies and respecs were introduced.

Synergies were 2003, but LoD released 2001 and original game in 2000.
Respeccing came way late in 2010.

In the original, I don't think you had to have an optimal build and gear to play on Hell, but you really do now. Not sure when that started, probably snowballed across several patches. I think introduction of synergies and extra runewords in 1.10 were one of the big offenders.

 

[kalemonvo]

I did have tons of fun trying to make unusual builds back when I first played through D2. Something like max Thorn aura on Paladin, getting as many skeletons as Necro, etc.. It didn't make much sense and it wasn't very optimal, but it was fun. It wouldn't have been the same if I could (or in my case, knew how) to re-spec, as I think the fun part was being committed to a build, figuring out if it's any good or if it's just awful, and seeing how far you could go while trying to find items that enable it.
At the time I also didn't have access to any meta guides or anything - the only other source of info was what my friends who could run the game were doing.

I'd say I had the complete opposite experience to OP's point with regards to discouraging experimentation, but I think this is due to having a different end-goal. I wasn't aiming to make the best character to farm on Battlenet or to beat Hell with a character, the fun experiment was the goal from the start. Granted I did have a "good" character (iirc Necro) where I took my time and tried to make a good build, but I never made it farther than mid-nightmare since I had more fun with the 'bad' builds.
I think I approached the game from that angle due to how I compared the game to D1, where this style of character building was completely absent.

Looking at it now I'd still say it's a fine system and I think it's fine to have some skills be weaker or only require one point for being useful. If I would propose an improvement, I thought about having some sort of spell/skill customization system that gets expanded with the more skills of the same type you unlock. You'd start off with Fireball and unlocking Firebolt would grant you a toggle to enable/disable AoE on the fireball explosion instead of it being two fire-based projectile spells. Another skill would add a firewall after the explosion, etc.. This is mostly because I do think it's boring to have a new skill be a previous skill with just one improvement. While I think the customization a fun idea, it would probably be ass to control on the spot and would require too much preparation time for a game that's based on clicking to cast.

 

[luj1]

Also consider when the other stuff like synergies and respecs were introduced.

Synergies were 2003, but LoD released 2001 and original game in 2000.
Respeccing came way late in 2010.

In the original, I don't think you had to have an optimal build and gear to play on Hell, but you really do now. Not sure when that started, probably snowballed across several patches. I think introduction of synergies and extra runewords in 1.10 were one of the big offenders.

The game got way more complex and difficult with 1.10, especially on Hell. I'm a big fan of 1.09b.

 

[Beans00]

Also consider when the other stuff like synergies and respecs were introduced.

Synergies were 2003, but LoD released 2001 and original game in 2000.
Respeccing came way late in 2010.

In the original, I don't think you had to have an optimal build and gear to play on Hell, but you really do now. Not sure when that started, probably snowballed across several patches. I think introduction of synergies and extra runewords in 1.10 were one of the big offenders.

The game got way more complex and difficult with 1.10, especially on Hell. I'm a big fan of 1.09b.

When did 1.10 come out?

I never paid attention to versions of diablo 2. Maybe I played the masochist version and tortured myself for no reason lol.

 

[luj1]

Google says 2003

It wasn't that hard (mostly), you just had to highly optimize your build to survive and pierce immunities. HP bloat also got insane (Hell Cow had 691-1480 life, after 1.10 it went to 8872-10889) and many monsters could one-shot you.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

The game is when you're adventuring and combating monsters. Builds are your chosen method to do that. They're tools for the fun. A means, not an ends. You guys act like a hammer isn't worth using unless the grip is covered in sharp spikes that you have to suffer through.

You sound like someone who believes players should never be punished for their choices.

This new breed of gamers wants to experiment BUT without consequences. Josh Sawyer based his whole Pillars design philosophy on this. We saw how that turned out (two times). Sorry but reality doesn't work that way, why would games?

When one goes to a buffet, the intent is to eat. That is the ends. The means is the food. Having the ability to assemble a meal of your preferences is part of the enjoyment. Is the buffet enhanced if 25% of the food is ill prepared? Is there joy in discovering which food is spoiled? Should all those dining be forced to consume a minimum amount of inferior food before they can dine on what is good and desired? Does this improve the buffet? It's astonishing that I have to explain this.

I'm not calling for all things to be equal or the same. I'm stating that skill trees like Diablo 2 are an inferior form of character and ability development.

 

[Faarbaute]

The game is when you're adventuring and combating monsters. Builds are your chosen method to do that. They're tools for the fun. A means, not an ends. You guys act like a hammer isn't worth using unless the grip is covered in sharp spikes that you have to suffer through.

You sound like someone who believes players should never be punished for their choices.

This new breed of gamers wants to experiment BUT without consequences. Josh Sawyer based his whole Pillars design philosophy on this. We saw how that turned out (two times). Sorry but reality doesn't work that way, why would games?

When one goes to a buffet, the intent is to eat. That is the ends. The means is the food. Having the ability to assemble a meal of your preferences is part of the enjoyment. Is the buffet enhanced if 25% of the food is ill prepared? Is there joy in discovering which food is spoiled? Should all those dining be forced to consume a minimum amount of inferior food before they can dine on what is good and desired? Does this improve the buffet? It's astonishing that I have to explain this.

I'm not calling for all things to be equal or the same. I'm stating that skill trees like Diablo 2 are an inferior form of character and ability development.

Everybody understands the point you're trying to make with these clumsy analogies.

What we have is a disagreement, not a misunderstanding.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Everybody understands the point you're trying to make with these clumsy analogies.

What we have is a disagreement, not a misunderstanding.

Thanks for clarifying. I guess I am the one who misunderstood. Some people want to eat shit and think the meal is incomplete without it.

 

[Faarbaute]

Everybody understands the point you're trying to make with these clumsy analogies.

What we have is a disagreement, not a misunderstanding.

Thanks for clarifying. I guess I am the one who misunderstood. Some people want to eat shit and think the meal is incomplete without it.

No. It's quite obvious that we have different views on this, but that's no reason to try to misrepresent my position (or anyone else that shares it) or to make me out to be an idiot, by suggesting that I don't understand what you're about.

You want to consume. I get it. You don't have to be a little bitch about it though, when people disagree with you.

 

[Just Locus]

I've been replaying D2 with a Holy Fire Paladin and it's been simple, and straightforward fun.

I don't care how inefficient or how lacking in presentation D2's skill system is, it's so fun despite frequently being trial & error but the journey is the destination!

 

[luj1]

I don't care how inefficient or how lacking in presentation D2's skill system is, it's so fun despite frequently being trial & error but the journey is the destination!

There is a reason why most of the industry is mentally still in the Blizzard meta 20 years later

 

[luj1]

When one goes to a buffet, the intent is to eat. That is the ends. The means is the food. Having the ability to assemble a meal of your preferences is part of the enjoyment. Is the buffet enhanced if 25% of the food is ill prepared? Is there joy in discovering which food is spoiled? Should all those dining be forced to consume a minimum amount of inferior food before they can dine on what is good and desired? Does this improve the buffet? It's astonishing that I have to explain this.

You just want a forgiving system. That's okay but I'll never support it. And that doesn't auto-translate to "Diablo II-style skill trees are bad."

 

[octavius]

I find it odd to be overly critical of a game's skill system when you can create 35+ unique characters with different play styles. I can't think of another CRPG with such replayability, at least among non Rogue-likes.

 

[Castozor]

A large part of the fun of playing Diablo 2 way back then, was that journey of discovery, of trying out different skills, figuring out what works and what doesn't, what's weak and what's strong, what's a trap and what's not, attempting to game the system, all that good stuff.

None of that would have been meaningful, none of it would have mattered, without these elements that, on their face, only seem to cause frustration, but are in fact vital to making character building matter at all.

You have to be able to fail. You have to be able to make mistakes.

So many people can't understand this. Even some devs such as Sawyer.

Good skills, bad skills, utility skills (1-pt wonders), all should exist. They all have their role. Just like in life.

I agree with most of what has been said here, but you'll have to clarify to me my "bad" skills should exist. Niche ones, sure, weaker ones okay, but actively bad? Just to filter casual players or make you go whoopsie? If a skill is just bad with no use it just shouldn't exist, it adds no value except for trapping a new player into having less fun.

 

[luj1]

I agree with most of what has been said here, but you'll have to clarify to me my "bad" skills should exist. Niche ones, sure, weaker ones okay, but actively bad?

Weaker ones is what I meant

 

[coldcrow]

Also consider when the other stuff like synergies and respecs were introduced.

Synergies were 2003, but LoD released 2001 and original game in 2000.
Respeccing came way late in 2010.

In the original, I don't think you had to have an optimal build and gear to play on Hell, but you really do now. Not sure when that started, probably snowballed across several patches. I think introduction of synergies and extra runewords in 1.10 were one of the big offenders.

The game got way more complex and difficult with 1.10, especially on Hell. I'm a big fan of 1.09b.

This is a fucking lie, or you are a scrub. It simply changed by invalidating physical attackers, and massively empowering anything magic AoE. Add to it the planned obsolescence of like 80% of uniques in lieu of OP runewords. all of that was not counterbalanced by lowering the AI delay on nightmare and hell. And having some random demon bat enemy (gloams) which you can gear for if you want.

Edit: It even added a "I want to win button" for newbs ti get all the gear you want: Summon/CE Necro