Passive Tree - Kind of Boring

After reading all of this I would like to point out, that if you screw up a build and need to reroll...you can delete that character. Why are you keeping a screwed character, why would you run out of slots? Delete the messed up ones store your goodies in your stash and move on.

My thoughts on respecs would be this: 1 respec in normal difficulty in say act 2. I like how it is set up don't get me wrong but it would save a lot of hassle of rerolling those low levels that we all 'love' so much. 1 respec in 100 levels isn't so much as to have people jumping ship to the newest trendiest build. There will still be a lot of rerolling going on.

Though I'm good with the system as is. I like that people should do a little reading and planning before they play a game so that they know how it works. They have a planner built into their website to build on, though I like the idea of a place on it that tallies up the bonuses on it for you.

I was always one to read the manual cover to cover before playing the game though. :P

You could quite easily plan your skill tree out while the game is downloading. It doesn't take 10 days of research to plan your character out. Look at the passive skill tree and mess around with it a bit. Get comfortable and plan your character out just in the time it takes to download the game. Easy peasy. I would be open to a total free respec at level 20 or so, but as other players have pointed out the respec system isn't difficult to figure out either and it can be accomplished. A micro transaction could be available for this as well because time = money in a F2P game.

"

Autocthon wrote:

D2 has tons of replay value if you consider just the number of builds and how generally difficult to respec it was/is. But the other part of the "replay value" mechanic is how actually FUN it is to replay that content. Replaying D2s leveling content is pretty boring and unsatisfying because you're locked into using weak skills for the majority of the process before you reach the skill you intend to use.

In Diablo 2 though if you had a few friends you could level to 60+ in a few hours skipping all the "boring" levelling and you started a character with a decent amount of skills.

I was enjoying the beginning of POE though but I could see that after a few characters that it would not be very interesting to go through 6 tree items before hitting something fun. At the beginning though you get new abilities from gems so at least you have this until you progress in the skill tree.

"

Forboding_Angel wrote:

"

Shagra wrote:

It's just that this game requires more than in-game attention.

And this is cost it many more players than it will gain.

to put it bluntly i would be glad of this, you tend to find that a slightly smaller community who can actually think with some common sense is far superior to a slightly larger community ruined by immaturity, no common sense and the attention span of a 2 year old.

The amount of free character slots you will get is insane, they are far more generous than i or other studios would of been. let be honest if you mess up 24 times this isnt the game for you. the skill tree took me 10 mins to look over and separate into distinct build areas. if anything i would like the tree to be bigger and have more distinct possibilities with more variety

i for 1 am glad of not being treated like an idiot when it comes to personalization of my characters like you do in 99% of other games for the generation which cant use their brains

While I agree the Tree seems relatively boring(Small stat bonuses don't really give the feeling of "power", however I understand in this current system it's necessary) it overall branches with enough complexity that it's engaging and leaves you with a reason to level. These are important things when making a game that you want to last for longer than a month. The complexity of the skilldrasil is much more than found in most games, yes. However it has a simplistic enough nature to it that can at least be comprehended by medicore gamers. Casuals are being slightly left out, but in my experience as a hardcore gamer since I was a young child, the most enjoyable games that have lasted the longest are the ones that have a solid realm of complexity in them.

As for people copying skill builds, well...that's going to happen in ANY GAME with skills of ANY sort. Hell, it still happens in Diablo 3 despite them trying to stop that. I'm sorry, but there will always be an optimal build that is better than others. People want to be on top, they want to dominate as such they feel forced to look up optimal builds to be powerful. That is on them, that has nothing to do with the tree itself.

eversorgod: I completely agree on your last few points. I agree it could use even more complexity, but that also risks alienating even more players, which isn't a statistically good business model.

The solution for a "less boring" Passive Tree is to leave it as it is - BUT - to create enough items and gem levels which would require A LOT of STR / DEX / INT.

People think STR / DEX / INT nodes are fillers just because they're spoiled with low prereqs for their equipment. Should they really need to pump up one of these attributes either to be able to carry a weapon, an armor or equip a newly leveled gem - suddenly they won't be seen as fillers anymore.

I don't preach on putting insane prereqs on ALL items, thus spoiling the fun of choosing diverse paths through the Passive Tree. But we could have it both ways:

1. Magic / Rare items with low prereqs. Equipping these will allow you to circumvent those dreaded "fillers" and have your blast dream build.

2. Unique low-tier items (even lower prereqs, see them as "twinks"). They could give more value to some builds in order to avoid EVEN MORE of those "fillers".

3. Unique high-tier items (extremely high prereqs), however they (over)compensate by offering some active / passive traits BY THEMSELVES in addition to possibly even more sockets, multiple auras and / or visual enhancements (cow armor, anyone?) - thus rewarding players who diligently hunted every STR (or DEX, or INT) node they got their eyes on (and consequently lack some flexibility unless they equip one of these burdens of attributes and blessings of skills).

P.S. Taking also gem levels into consideration - we might just assume that some skill gems utility be THAT high so common sense dictates to ditch versatility in order to be able to equip those uber-leveled gems. I cannot fathom either their specific level or which skill would that be (STILL got no beta invite) but I assume that moment WILL come... eventually.

"

People think STR / DEX / INT nodes are fillers just because they're spoiled with low prereqs for their equipment. Should they really need to pump up one of these attributes either to be able to carry a weapon, an armor or equip a newly leveled gem - suddenly they won't be seen as fillers anymore.

Yes, i think that would change a lot and let specialized skills feel "more special".

Had a suggestion awhile back about making high STR/DEX/INT more important, by making the good affixes and support gems augment the requirements. For example, +100% Weapon Damage would also cause the item to have +100% requirements, or Faster Cast support would give +50% Supported Gem Requirements.

"

Squidgyxombie wrote:

Had a suggestion awhile back about making high STR/DEX/INT more important, by making the good affixes and support gems augment the requirements. For example, +100% Weapon Damage would also cause the item to have +100% requirements, or Faster Cast support would give +50% Supported Gem Requirements.

I like this idea, particularly for support gems that don't currently have additional mana cost attached to them - they could increase the stat requirements of the gear they are slotted in by X% or a flat amount. Changing some of the support gems to stat requirements would also help mitigate the heavy mana problems when people start to mod out their skill gems. Currently, it just forces people to spam mana pots which isn't a good solution. It would add that extra degree to itemization, and make the base stats more relevant as a whole.

I have two issues with the tree personally.

1. Random Drops eliminate any planning

When I started my first character I had no idea what to expect in terms of the skills that would be available to me. I looked over the passive skill tree, read the character descriptions to get an idea of what I wanted, and had a pretty good idea from there. I'd roll a Shadow, make a dual wielding caster of some kind. Eventually I discovered, through random drops, was that a lot of cool stuff wasn't fitting my build and planning so I had to make changes on the fly. I like the auras a lot, but where I went into the tree didn't support that very well because of the mana reserve they impose. My personal favorite skill thus far, Lightning Strike, is a Strength gem, so I've had to branch out to ensure I have the appropriate Strength to use it. Admittedly, first character, that'll happen, but there are still a lot of skill drops I haven't seen and the amount of research it would take to fully cover everything passes my threshold of what makes a game fun to me.

Even as a dual wielder I can specialize in it, but not to the extent I want to. I'd like to go swords but there is no guarentee I'll get a good one handed sword. I could dump several points into those passives and then get a good dagger instead. It was the same issue I had when playing a Barbarian in Diablo II so I just stopped playing them. I don't think I can get away with this in Path of Exile as weapon type passives pop up everywhere. Even at later levels I can't see myself making the commitment to that level of specialization when all it takes is one drop to completely throw dozens of hours away. I imagine a better trade system will be implemented to alleviate that issue but I can't force myself to make that commitment when you can only respec so many times.

2. Underwhelming passives

So my second character starting out had a better grasp on the system. I'd make a melee templar with auras and minions, planned out his tree roughly and went off to play. After picking up some minion nodes I went to the center of the tree to grab the Leadership passive to increase the range of my auras. With a 50% increase from those passives the range still feels far too short with the minion AI being what it is. Also I'm grouped with a bow user, so if I want to melee anything she isn't gaining the benefits of the auras in some cases. Something tells me I won't see a difference until those aura skill gems are leveled much higher, so at this point I can either re-spec to grab other tools sooner or hope everything will just kind of work out in the end. Basically saving those points until I was a later level instead of dipping in so quickly. I could've grabbed more mana increasing passives to help with the mana reserve, or picked up more of the minion nodes.

So even having the ability to twink and plan out a character didn't help me too much. At this point I don't know what to do if I rolled a third character. It feels like I need to find the appropriate skill gems first and take safe bets with passive nodes to avoid similar disappointment to my second character. It seems silly that I feel this urge to fill up an entire stash page with gear and skill gems before rolling a new character to try again.

I enjoy thoerycrafting and planning a lot, but the crushing feeling from playing something "wrong" is a turn off. I'm not asking for Diablo III's level of respecs, but Path of Exile is very much a game you need to play and feel to get an understanding of what works and what doesn't. Orbs of Regret help a lot, as do the respec points from quests, but I do hope there are more means to fine tune our characters in the future.