Leveling skill gems is boring.

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Vipermagi wrote:

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Simony wrote:

firstly it is a choice because you choose what type of benefits you want to give the skill.

Rahabs brought up TL2, so I rambled on about that and how TL2 doesn't feature much of a meaningful choice. This has approximately nothing to do with your branching-choices proposal :P

woops... XD

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Vipermagi wrote:

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Simony wrote:

(i haven't seen an increased range support gem have you?

Faster Projectiles or Increased Area of Effect, depending on the skill.

i haven't tested faster project like this but when i put it on my ice spear the spear didn't seem to go farther, just faster, to me.

AoE isn't range. if i have increased AoE on fireball the fireball doesn't go farther it just has a bigger explosion radius.

(yes i know the math... increased radius does mean it goes "farther" cause it explodes at the end which can be considered range. by increasing the AoE you therefore increase the "range". if someone says something like this the per say "range increase" would be miniscule. by range i mean the distance the ball or spear travels.)

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Vipermagi wrote:

I'm not much of a caster type, so I don't know if Ice Spear and Fireball even have a maximum range. All I know is they fly off-screen already so they hardly need it.
Freezing Pulse and Ethereal Knives both travel farther with Faster Projectiles.

AoE is range for skills such as Cleave, Ground Slam, novas and other nova-like AoEs. Hence, 'depending on the skill' :)

yeah they have a max range. can see this especially well with arctic breath cause it leaves a chilled area where it explodes at max range.

and as for the others I'll take your word for it. and yeah i'd agree it depends on the skill. lol anyways it was just an example :)

I made a comment about this topic a long time ago by suggesting 'skills that evolve.' I've seen similar suggestions time and time again, and here's why:

In most RPG-like games, replacement is a psychological reward for any system. For example in Borderlands you find a new gun, and while they could have just leveled up your current gun giving it the stats of the new gun you just found, they force you to find a new one... and it feels rewarding and totally different.

In POE the system is different, and replacement options are mostly for items themselves, which harbor a rich and complex system.

POE went for rich and complex combinatorics in both their itemization and skill tree. Because of this and other factors such as limited man-power, they have gone with simpler systems for combinatoric problems that require brute force production.

This means that the skill you get at level 1, can be the exact same skill you use at level 100 (more or less)... assuming you use similar support gems most of the way through.

While I do think that is a problem to a degree, it's really not so bad, because along the way, while a single skill doesn't always change much, your overall character does, by adding new skills and supports into the mix and choosing a build, getting new gear and new sockets to utilize.

So overall, they traded off production complexity for theoretical complexity in other areas... which is essentially a mandatory choice on their part to get a quality product out with a small Indie team.

Would evolving skills be awesome? Yeah.
Is it practical for them to do so, particularly in light of supports changing skills? Nope.
Do I think that they need more supports that TOTALLY change the physics of the skills involved? Yeah.
Do I think it might be worthwhile to consider 'tiers' of skill gems so you have an incentive to change your skills once in a while? Yeah, perhaps skill gems that only spawn from gems with sufficient quality and level. (ex. Scourge gem only comes from a 20% quality level 16 Fireball, and would be functionally a totally different fire skill that you can't just find, you must earn)

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zeto wrote:

I made a comment about this topic a long time ago by suggesting 'skills that evolve.' I've seen similar suggestions time and time again, and here's why:

In most RPG-like games, replacement is a psychological reward for any system. For example in Borderlands you find a new gun, and while they could have just leveled up your current gun giving it the stats of the new gun you just found, they force you to find a new one... and it feels rewarding and totally different.

In POE the system is different, and replacement options are mostly for items themselves, which harbor a rich and complex system.

POE went for rich and complex combinatorics in both their itemization and skill tree. Because of this and other factors such as limited man-power, they have gone with simpler systems for combinatoric problems that require brute force production.

this is true. replacements for armors and weapons are highly comples and do pull of of the skill tree for a portian of there benifits thus making it rewarding to get really good armors with the right likes and whatnot. this is not the problem however.

the sysyem they use is great in both terms of intracicy and utitility. so wtih this system being so complex and complementing so many different playstyles, why isn't the gem system like this?

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zeto wrote:

This means that the skill you get at level 1, can be the exact same skill you use at level 100 (more or less)... assuming you use similar support gems most of the way through.

While I do think that is a problem to a degree, it's really not so bad, because along the way, while a single skill doesn't always change much, your overall character does, by adding new skills and supports into the mix and choosing a build, getting new gear and new sockets to utilize.

This is the exact reaseson for this whole thread. the skills we have at level 1, as you say, are the same we have at level 100. the issue with this is that there is no progression with skills like there is with armor or even the skill tree. the skill tree for example has a sense of reward because you can make your character stong in the way you want it with tons of choices causing potential for numerous builds. armor can be customized with the right amount of sockets, links,and colors to fit what you need or want. you can even choose from over 5 types of armors you wish to custimize!

skill gems do not have anywhere near this level of complexity. the only things that affect them are support gems that allows for some custimization but it's still a linear system.

Now let's say you reach the max level of th gem, what them? it won't gain anything new! with a system, that builds off of the skill mods we have in the system already, that allows you to customize gems every so often will give players a reason to level their gems beside just pure damage increase.

these changes we have proposed will help the game in so many different aspects! in a sense of accomplishment when you level a gem to a certain level (cause right now it's just "oh it leveled..."), many different and unique builds possibilities, enhancement of old builds (like the crit witch, and resolute technique maruader), increase the usefullness of auras and party members dynamics because of chioces on them (read what i said for aruas), and it would give more meaning to how you build your character in both items AND in the skill tree! the possibilities are endless!

So why would we want to keep out a system that can add more depth to this amazing game?

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zeto wrote:

So overall, they traded off production complexity for theoretical complexity in other areas... which is essentially a mandatory choice on their part to get a quality product out with a small Indie team.

i get that their recources are limited and completely understand this. this still just a forum suggestion that can improve their product even further. this also does not have to be done before it leaves closed beta. why not in open? why not ask players if they would enjoy this system and then make a decision? you said so yourself:

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zeto wrote:

Would evolving skills be awesome? Yeah.

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zeto wrote:

Is it practical for them to do so, particularly in light of supports changing skills? Nope.

on it's practicality i would have to say that i would be worth if even if it is hard to do. with so many benifits it would be, in my opinion of course, a mistake to pass up making the skill gem system more intracate. I'm not saying you have to give them 100 choices for each one, just that they allow for custimization of skills every so often.

also i'm sure the community will help as much they can with this if GGG asks or even if they don't. (we are dicussing and statagizing about this afterall aren't we?

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zeto wrote:

Do I think that they need more supports that TOTALLY change the physics of the skills involved? Yeah.

again while this would help to aliviate the problem it still wouldn't solve the root of it which it that we are leveling for only dps sake and that makes it boring. allowing for custimization of skill gems (and even supports if they want to go above and beyond) will give a sense of reward to leveling them up and, again, all the other benifits this provides.

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zeto wrote:

Do I think it might be worthwhile to consider 'tiers' of skill gems so you have an incentive to change your skills once in a while? Yeah, perhaps skill gems that only spawn from gems with sufficient quality and level. (ex. Scourge gem only comes from a 20% quality level 16 Fireball, and would be functionally a totally different fire skill that you can't just find, you must earn)

or why not just give them the option of changeing the skill in some way with on their own? i'm not a programmer or a designer but couldn't they just apply dynamics from other skills and supports to change the way skills act? it would still require work but as much as some other things.

example:

Spark
1. 1 additional projectile, 10% reduced damage
2. 20% increased shock chance, 40% reduced damage
3. -2 projectiles, spark fires in a line

we can use mechanices from LMP and GMP for 1.
these mechanices are already in the tree and even on skills for 2!
and we can aplly some of the mechanics of ice spear for 3.

i see this as a way to improve it if they want to act on it fine by me, if not oh well.

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Simony wrote:

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Charan wrote:

So is the call for more predictable upgrades?

This does not make things predictable at all! I can't even fathom all the different builds this can spawn do how can this be predictable? The predictability comes from the build, not the skills. If you are doing a cookie cutter build then it may be but that's up to them, this just gives them options.

Skivverus understood what I meant here. Predictable upgrades means reliable upgrades. The build itself is irrelevant in this case. When I say 'predictable upgrade' I mean that once you hit level X, your fireball *will* be offered Y possible mutations, which can then be augmented or improved when you hit level Z, and so on. This is a predictable upgrade, much in the same way that the Skilldrasil offers predictable upgrades.

The skill gem system is far less predictable -- sure, you can refer to the quest reward list (and should!), but there's no telling when you might drop a skill or support gem that isn't in your predicted list of skill progressions per the reward list.

...The rest of my post remains relatively unaddressed, so I'll summarise it here: a level 1 req skill that can be used to level 100 with level 20-80 req support gems is no different to a level 80 req skill of a different name based on that level 1 req skill.

I won't lie and say that I'm immune to the shinies: I'd much rather level my way towards a level 80 ultimate skill called Infernal Conflagration which fires six fireballs, each with massive blast radius and increased chance to crit and ignite than use a level 1 skill called Fireball for the whole game and simply modify it until it functions precisely the same way as Infernal Conflagration.

It's just a weird bit of psychology.

I also understand that the main point here is a question of how much of the weight can be taken off support gems and placed into the leveling process of the gems. A fair query. What if support gems had skill level requirements?

For example, what if LMP required a level 5 Fireball? Sure, that adds a level of complexity totally unwelcome right now, and players would kick up quite a stink, but would that give people more incentive to 'level up' their gems?

Personally I just seem to level them up as they go, mindful of requirement increases. I don't really worry about the 'excitement' level of skill gem leveling because so many other things keep me busy.

Well, if skill gems allowed you to pick part of it to increase whenever it gained a level, many people will probably pick only 1 thing over and over. It would be very difficult to balance such a feature.

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Danny wrote:

Well, if skill gems allowed you to pick part of it to increase whenever it gained a level, many people will probably pick only 1 thing over and over. It would be very difficult to balance such a feature.

Read all of the discussions. Not saying every level, every like 5 levels.

I think biggest thing players want over Support gems is their gem having a bit more oomph and personality to them. Not just Cosemetic stuff that would be avaliable in Shop, but upgrades that make it work for them versus a different style of play.