On the skill gem system and how to recover the "X to socketed gems" affix mechanic.

This is based on a comment:

Why did skill gems lose depth? While the current gem system may seem better at first glance, it has one major flaw - it interacts worse with items. You no longer have "gems placed in this item get #name" and that's a problem.This is why Krip said that the gem system in the Poe 1 was the best in the history of the genre - you had systemic influence and co-dependency of your items with skill gems directly, which added a lot of depth.

from this thread:
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3623774

And I think I have a workable solution.

What if skill slots themselves were based on items?

Say you get 1 skill slot per gloves and boots, 2 skill slots per helmet, 3 skill slots per chest piece and 1-2 skill slots for onehanded and offhand weapons, 2-3 for twohanded weapons.

A fully geared character would have 8-10 skill slots depending on gear and you can add more with the new ring base.

Each skill slot is then associated with a gear slot and the item in that slot can have affixes which modify the associated skills.


In addition: If you want to go fully flavoured with it you could make the stat requirements for support gems be associated with the stat requirements of the item slot + any stat rolls from affixes. This way item bases provide some natural restrictions on support and skill gems unless you specifically get stat rolls outside of the normal requirements. This makes stat rolls on gear significantly more important for builds. This way you can also just fully unlock support gem slots and have the stat reqs and rolls on gear by the limiter for link depth.

I'd add stat boosting runes as well so you can mod strong items to be able to use links you need.

Thoughts?

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Love this for a big fix for feel.

I think it still doesn't address the fact that skills are locked to 1 weapon type, so we still lose fun customization there. trying slams with a staff, or spells with a two handed mace.
That is another part of what made the old system fun, you could do such stupid things, and SOMETIMES it went hard. most of the time it failed, but at least we could try. no amount of different base weapon types per category will fix this.

"

Love this for a big fix for feel.

I think it still doesn't address the fact that skills are locked to 1 weapon type, so we still lose fun customization there. trying slams with a staff, or spells with a two handed mace.
That is another part of what made the old system fun, you could do such stupid things, and SOMETIMES it went hard. most of the time it failed, but at least we could try. no amount of different base weapon types per category will fix this.

The 'fix' for this in PoE2 is weapon swap. You can mix spells and maces you just need a spell weapon slot and a mace weapon slot and have them swap.

I do know what you mean and I do wish there were more 'cross compatible' skills that could be built into weapon specific abilities but I will reserve judgement until all the weapon types are out.

I am currently running a crossbow and shield/scepter setup and I feel like I have lots of options.

Maybe we could look at some support skills being more weapon gated and some active skills being more generic? I'll have to think about it some more.



The main thing I am trying to address here is how to make the connection between equipment and skills retain the richness of PoE1 without the jank of linking and colouring sockets. We can use stats on equipment as the 'colouring' and have each skill slot associated to equipment so we can have stats and affix on gear that can modify 'linked' skills in interesting ways like PoE1 without the problems.


We could even explore certain skills having different 'modes' based on the type of equipment they are 'slotted' in.

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Skandell#0059 wrote:

Love this for a big fix for feel.

I think it still doesn't address the fact that skills are locked to 1 weapon type, so we still lose fun customization there. trying slams with a staff, or spells with a two handed mace.
That is another part of what made the old system fun, you could do such stupid things, and SOMETIMES it went hard. most of the time it failed, but at least we could try. no amount of different base weapon types per category will fix this.

How is doing the same slam with a staff vs a mace any different at all? PoE players just want the same outcome with different passive under the hood ways to reach it. You can already use spells with a mace.

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How is doing the same slam with a staff vs a mace any different at all? PoE players just want the same outcome with different passive under the hood ways to reach it. You can already use spells with a mace.

Well for one, different weapon bases have different base attack speeds and damage profiles which adds variance to skills. I do think there should be some skills that are available to a few weapon types. Like Blunt (Maces, Flails, Quarterstaves) and Cutting (Swords, Axes) and piercing (Swords, spears, daggers) or something like that which gives us more generic skill combo freedom across the weapon sets.

Not to get rid of the weapon restricted skills but as a addition to it.

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fouquet#0993 wrote:

The 'fix' for this in PoE2 is weapon swap. You can mix spells and maces you just need a spell weapon slot and a mace weapon slot and have them swap.

I do know what you mean and I do wish there were more 'cross compatible' skills that could be built into weapon specific abilities but I will reserve judgement until all the weapon types are out.

I am currently running a crossbow and shield/scepter setup and I feel like I have lots of options.

Maybe we could look at some support skills being more weapon gated and some active skills being more generic? I'll have to think about it some more.



The main thing I am trying to address here is how to make the connection between equipment and skills retain the richness of PoE1 without the jank of linking and colouring sockets. We can use stats on equipment as the 'colouring' and have each skill slot associated to equipment so we can have stats and affix on gear that can modify 'linked' skills in interesting ways like PoE1 without the problems.


We could even explore certain skills having different 'modes' based on the type of equipment they are 'slotted' in.

Nice to have a civil conversation here for a change. I see the point of weapon swapping. I still think it feels restricting, as it leaves me with 2 trees to chose from, not a huge variety. I don't have a fix, sadly, just know this feels restricting.

I do love your OP on sockets and those ideas. it would fix a thing I was thinking felt off without understanding what it was yet.
Your feedback is the best kind imo, defs props to it, for all the nothing its worth. your mind does the good work on this.
I will back off with my add on feed back.

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Nice to have a civil conversation here for a change. I see the point of weapon swapping. I still think it feels restricting, as it leaves me with 2 trees to chose from, not a huge variety. I don't have a fix, sadly, just know this feels restricting.

I do love your OP on sockets and those ideas. it would fix a thing I was thinking felt off without understanding what it was yet.
Your feedback is the best kind imo, defs props to it, for all the nothing its worth. your mind does the good work on this.
I will back off with my add on feed back.

Thanks I am trying to avoid the negativity and just offer alternative solutions to the problems we are finding.

I just thought of another feature of the system in my OP. You would naturally get 'weapon slot' skills slots from this system as the skill slots in your weapon slots would naturally by mutually exclusive. Only your non weapon slot gear would need to be specified for weapon swapping.

I really think this would solve alot of issues intuitively. New players would naturally be putting their mace skills in their mace epuipment skill slots and such so weapon swapping will be more naturally usable.

Commenting more for visibility than providing input. I 100% agree the skill gem system feels lacking and as I’ve posted in other threads, it is impacting me enjoying the game more than I thought. The skill gem system in POE 1 was pretty decent and a huge part of POE’s identity. This version is too homogenized with any other ARPG skill system.

Maybe over time they will add to it. But I remember being blown away in 2013 when I first played POE 1 and encountered the skill gem system

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