Developer video on the new skill tree

(Posted this feedback in pod11's tread in Beta General befor seeing this tread here. Reposting here. Plese note this is intended as constructive feedback.)



I dont like the direction the devs went with the tree.
In a passive skill tree such as the one in PoE, obvious bad choices everywhere, including at the very beginning, are actually where the most awesome really interesting and different WTF builds come from. Finding a way to make something completely wrong... work!
And this comes mostly from a very chaotic skill tree, with lots of avenues and directions to choose from at nearly every node, and very little directed paths.



Now, on a completely different (and more superficial) matter: the overall look of it. I know its still a work in progress, but cunstructive feedback is always helpfull:

It looks really bad compared to the old one. I REALLY dont like the "square/rectangular" shapes everywhere. It would feel much better with spheres/rounds, or more organic curves.

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Qarl wrote:

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Torin wrote:

Looking at this tree my blood magic shadow will no longer be possible :(
I hope at least you made Blood Magic support more useful?!

The Blood Magic passive has moved since that video, but may not be in the right place.

Your character will not currently be supported by the tree as it stands.

Blood Magic for Shadow is not exactly a popular choice, but I might find one and give it a spin, and see what the build is like.

While I make no guarantee, I'll see what we can do!

Some builds will be lost with this change, but we certainly don't want to have awesome builds removed if we can avoid it.

Blood magic+claws's life per hit+claw passive life leech?! In addition to that Dual Strike is low mana cost as well as other options like Elemental Hit (my choice).
I though this was an intended hidden jewel in current tree. Shadow only lacked more +life % passives although those near Blood Magic were near but most of them are weak. It is a fun character to make, where you only need minimum Int and can focus on Strength but that Int still lets you supplement your char with some Int skills like Minions. This is the first character I took HP rewards for bandit quests.

Blood Magic is one of these keystones that can work well with all classes, no reason to move that keystone from the middle.

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Qarl wrote:

The Blood Magic passive has moved since that video...

That is good news.

Cause i can´t wait till Monday i made my way to the Theoretical New Build of Mine!


Ma Current Build

Ma New Build?

I Counted only lvl up Passive Points, no Quest Passive points included!

Red Numbers and Dark Red Way means is other my current lvl Range.

Also first i was thinking, those changes could weaken my Build but now i think its a easy way to lvl up fast and then concentrate on Specializing like in Fire Magic and Necromancy, hmm i will looking forward to Monday, to try those changes in-Game!

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StupidFatHobbit wrote:

I honestly think if you're getting feedback from players who say "oh god, the skilldrasil is too complicated" these are the exact players that you should completely ignore.

This is why I'm glad the professionals are designing the game and not the community.

I would rather a game that does well and makes money so they can keep updating the game and servicing the community.

Anyone that thinks they can start a business with the strategy "ignore this group of customers, they aren't important" is going to have a bad time.

After playing around with the new tree fairly extensively I find that build customization has remained largely intact. Obviously, this tree is different has introduced balancing changes which will make some builds worse and others better. It'd be kind of stupid, after all, to completely redo the skill tree just to keep it exactly the same as the old one. Also remember that this is just a first draft. Like the previous skill tree, this one will change regularly with each patch based on beta player feedback.

Personally, I see the new tree as an interesting challenge with new and exciting possibilities. Unexplored and wild territory.

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Takahiro86 wrote:

Ma New Build?

You wasted a point at the templar start area. You spent two points on stat nodes when you could have just spent one by going from the other direction.

Can anyone create a full skill tree from captures from the video?

Let's hold our judgment until we get to actually play around with the tree?

I don't like being limited to only two choices, but let's SEE what is offered to us first. Let's play with the new finalized tree for this week's patch and give feedback. If it sucks, they'll hear about it. But from what the video shows us, the choices they've made are absolutely sensible.

My personal suggestion, from not having looked at the new tree and under the assumption that it sucks: Give us 3 starting nodes, make the third starting node that "wild" one that quickly gets you access to other parts of the tree. Make it unique and perhaps not so attractive to new players but still generally useful for eccentric builds (like perhaps, -6% spell mana cost).

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Chris wrote:

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entomogant wrote:

Cant help it, but it looks a bit smaller. Maybe because there are a lot of nodes in the center now?

And is there a hint for a seventh class? In the middle?

It has approximately the same number of nodes as before (~1350?)

That much nodes? Awesome!
Can we get a bit more infos and spoilers about the new patch?

my first thoughts after watching the demonstration:

the better guidance for less experienced players are a good thing, no doubt! but on the other hand, it seems to me to have (beside the fact that all current builds have to prove their viability against the node changes after the patch goes live) a huge drawback on the creation of interesting builds aside the class cores (and IMHO thats where interesting builds came from, making things viable in an unexpected way): since you can only go for your classes "core routes" at the start, you'll loose even more passives being forced to take nodes not fitting your build (melee nodes for a bow, mana nodes for a later Blood Magic char...) This came on top of the increased route lengths for some key nodes (example again: Blood Magic - its not longer available for all classes within a comparable level range)

I'd like to have a third starting branch (as for the 3rd, "off" suiting element per char), that may addressed with a warning as a 'risky' path to go, and that avoids most/all of the more specific nodes, giving attributes only.

More detailed response after monday ;)