I rely like the new skills and Talisman stuff for next league. But this...
On first read I just shrugged and thought "hm.. ok, why not, sounds cool" but then the actual effect seemed pretty lame (especially spectral throw) regarding the cost of JEWEL SLOT (dmg + def + utility) and the additional cost of extra, otherwise unoptimal skillpoints, (of which one already never has enough), thus probably sacrificing EVEN MORE damage/defensives.
But yeah, maybe the new Skilltree has an almost auto 50stats within medium range around jewels, but still, to me it was an instant : "maybe some people will be happy about this and enjoy it and i wish them good, but I'l just stay with a skill that is already good by itself"
Then I read through the comments and I see a lot of others have even more concerns and I share those.
I really dislike the idea of putting jewels OR ANYTHING in the game that only works with one skill. It's just a REALLY bad design choice. I hope that this mechanic will not make it into the game.
1) If skills are lackluster then rework the skill. Why not give fireball an implicit AoE increase the further it travels? Interesting mechanics keep skills relevant and increase build diversity.
2) PLEASE NEVER ADD SOMETHING WHICH ONLY WORKS FOR ONE SKILL. It takes away any process of exploration. Tinkering with support gems and the tree to figure out good combinations is a big part of the game and lots of fun. Bind a mechanic to one skill and you destroy that. It's a really boring concept from a build-planning perspective.
Please, just change the mechanic of these jewels. I've seen items or passives which only improve one skill in many games and it is just so damn bad 90% of the time. Things like this are bound to become either completely mandatory (at that point you could have just added the mechanic to the skill itself to make it more interesting again) or completely useless (then you could have saved the time you worked on it).
I've seen the concept go wrong so many times and I have no idea what drove GGG to add these things.
Edit: Formatting.
Quoted For Truth.
"
More words I am in agreement with: https://redd.it/3tb7q1
These jewels might be interesting in the future, but right now they need to fix the busted skills before messing with them in this manner. If Heavy Strike needs the chance for double damage to be viable, then build it into the gem. If Burning Arrow needs to drop burning ground to be viable, then build it into the gem.
This current approach is questionable at best. Fix the bad skills. Then start coming up with weird threshold jewels to modify bits about them.
Also think about, that it takes a few levels until one gets to a jewel slot and quite some levels to even reach 2-3 (Or are the jewels that can only be used whith a special skill desigend to be only used by scions ?).
Then one needs to get the jewels. Since when starting, you probably woun't have these options yet so there is no motivation to keep on leveling with the gem (cause they are inferior ) and once u got used to the better skill while leveling, why should one switch back to the bad one to use with some no-life/es jewels which make the gem a little less bad.
Just rework the skills please, make them good/interesting/viable.
Make Tresholdjewels work with general mechanics. This would be much more POE, alot of variables to think and build around with, just like support gems. If you want tot stick to effecting only 1 skill, then don't just give them a small buff for the highcost, but rather give it a whole new twist. The gem needs to be goo without the jewel, and with it it becomes more like a new skill, on which in best case you even build around a little else then the original version.
ign: UpForJava
Last edited by Upforsale on Nov 20, 2015, 6:40:23 AM
I also feel these jewels are not good for overall design of the game.
1. We are wasting one jewel socket in tree just to make inferior skill work, that could be used for many other useful stats.
2. The game is all about using different skills together and create nice build, now these jewels bring static nature to the game casuse they are skill specific.
3. If in case one jewel that is making inferior skill better applies to stronger skill then that skill will be balanced. Which forces players to waste jewel socket just to play stronger skill.
Overall I don't feel this is a good addition to game, it would be better if we add these properties as implicits to the inferior skill as they gain levels.
Just rework the skills please, make them good/interesting/viable.
Make Tresholdjewels work with general mechanics.
Skill specialisation is extremely essential to an ARPG.
Just about every phys melee build in existence is better with cyclone than the skill they actually use. Just about every melee build is better with an AOE skill than it is with a single target skill. Just about every ranged build is better with an AOE or prolif skill than it is with single target.
These facts are fine, until you end up with the impossibly difficult task of balancing each and every skill to have identical clear speed for the thing they were designed for (mobs vs bosses).
You end up with spells or skills that are just flat out better than the others.
The instant you try to correct for this without explicit specialisation, you either end up with something that is still worse, or becomes the new BIS for just about every build with that kind of setup.
Specialisation means that what is best for each build is not going to be the same skill every time. It means you're not going to build a chaos-based viper striker with some phys bonus and end up with Poison Arrow simply outclassing you. It means you aren't going to build an aoe phys converstion skill build and having cyclone simply outclassing you. It means you aren't going to build a spark or lightning trapper build (with some spark-specific things like proj speed or pierce/fork) and then having something like arc or ball lightning simply outclass it.
Every time you make a build specifically geared towards one skill, only to have another be better at single target, mob and survivability - the game has failed to let you specialise.
Untie your panties and actually look at what happens in the game, and how skill specific abilities are going to fix it.
They require investment. Like all skills should. Unique investment that sets your character using similar skills, like glacial cascade and ice nova, apart from one another.
Build-enabler uniques are great, and have worked well. And so will build specific jewels or skill-enablers.
Last edited by ihasmario on Nov 21, 2015, 12:20:07 AM
I really dislike the idea of putting jewels OR ANYTHING in the game that only works with one skill. It's just a REALLY bad design choice. I hope that this mechanic will not make it into the game.
1) If skills are lackluster then rework the skill. Why not give fireball an implicit AoE increase the further it travels? Interesting mechanics keep skills relevant and increase build diversity.
2) PLEASE NEVER ADD SOMETHING WHICH ONLY WORKS FOR ONE SKILL. It takes away any process of exploration. Tinkering with support gems and the tree to figure out good combinations is a big part of the game and lots of fun. Bind a mechanic to one skill and you destroy that. It's a really boring concept from a build-planning perspective.
Please, just change the mechanic of these jewels. I've seen items or passives which only improve one skill in many games and it is just so damn bad 90% of the time. Things like this are bound to become either completely mandatory (at that point you could have just added the mechanic to the skill itself to make it more interesting again) or completely useless (then you could have saved the time you worked on it).
I've seen the concept go wrong so many times and I have no idea what drove GGG to add these things.
personally i think if you are going to try to make jewels that effect only one skill rather then trying to fix older skills they should be used on skills people use alot or are almost good enough to be used and rather then just a buff make them change how the skill works so you could have a new playstyle option like
: changing the movement pattern of the skill
adding a curse like effect or some other factor to the skill so that it effects enemies differently
or some effect you wouldnt see somewhere else like a chamr ability on something to sometimes turn enemies against each other
or maby some form of skill charging (not sure about this just trying to thing of different options)
1) these jewels will only effect skills GGG considers "starter skills"
2) the aim of these jewels is to increase complexity and viability when moving to the end-game
3) currently all starter skills fall off when their counter-part is introduced
(fire ball = flameblast in design progression relative to content/complexity and as a result viability)
Going from these pointers i was musing a bit while walking my dogs.
And i came to a different implementation scenario then currently proposed/revealed.
Suggestion
1) limit these jewels to 2 max
2) allow these jewels to manipulate skills based on character level
3) add a special perk if the max jewel limit is attained at character lvl 80
Let's go over these and i will try to address their relevance.
The first suggestion imply's a max floor limit. This has multiple advantages(and probably disadvantages) one of the most obvious ones is a power-floor which eases up balance.
It also limits the potential strain on the creation of a character using these. I can easily see people fitting in one of these on a path they are likely to travel true(meeting the stat requirements to activate it) so the second one becomes a cost to get but also imply's the limit is attained.(more on the relevance of this later on)
The second suggestion allows for GGG to manipulate a skill based on the relevance to the content it is performing in.
I suggest a manipulation progression of 4 steps.
lvl 20
lvl 40
lvl 60
(limit 2 achieved lvl 80 perk) <-- this one would be optional for the player to get. It would highlight the "specialization aspect" of the character.
This directly flows over in my third suggestion, GGG could utilize the "max limit" i am suggesting and turn it into a defining attribute/condition.
An example of my suggestion
Fireball threshold jewel
requires 50 int to be allocated in the radius to activate (<- this limitation remains its important for balance concerns)
lvl 20 : radius of fireball is increased by 5
lvl 40 : radius of fireball is increased by 50% depending on range(current attribute)
lvl 60 : fireball leaves a trail of burning ground equal to 40% of its damage as burning
lvl 80 : condition = max limit is attained : jewel now functions with vaal variant of the skill burning damage is 50% faster.
Hope you enjoyed the musing.
Peace,
-Boem-
Hope you enjoyed reading.
I believe this direction would more aptly encompass the therm "threshold" and be much easier to balance.
Since it offers a more direct, yet limited progression relative to content and personal investment.(1 jewel vs 2 jewel progression)
Peace,
-Boem-
Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes
1) these jewels will only effect skills GGG considers "starter skills"
2) the aim of these jewels is to increase complexity and viability when moving to the end-game
3) currently all starter skills fall off when their counter-part is introduced
(fire ball = flameblast in design progression relative to content/complexity and as a result viability)
Going from these pointers i was musing a bit while walking my dogs.
And i came to a different implementation scenario then currently proposed/revealed.
Suggestion
1) limit these jewels to 2 max
2) allow these jewels to manipulate skills based on character level
3) add a special perk if the max jewel limit is attained at character lvl 80
Let's go over these and i will try to address their relevance.
The first suggestion imply's a max floor limit. This has multiple advantages(and probably disadvantages) one of the most obvious ones is a power-floor which eases up balance.
It also limits the potential strain on the creation of a character using these. I can easily see people fitting in one of these on a path they are likely to travel true(meeting the stat requirements to activate it) so the second one becomes a cost to get but also imply's the limit is attained.(more on the relevance of this later on)
The second suggestion allows for GGG to manipulate a skill based on the relevance to the content it is performing in.
I suggest a manipulation progression of 4 steps.
lvl 20
lvl 40
lvl 60
(limit 2 achieved lvl 80 perk) <-- this one would be optional for the player to get. It would highlight the "specialization aspect" of the character.
This directly flows over in my third suggestion, GGG could utilize the "max limit" i am suggesting and turn it into a defining attribute/condition.
An example of my suggestion
Fireball threshold jewel
requires 50 int to be allocated in the radius to activate (<- this limitation remains its important for balance concerns)
lvl 20 : radius of fireball is increased by 5
lvl 40 : radius of fireball is increased by 50% depending on range(current attribute)
lvl 60 : fireball leaves a trail of burning ground equal to 40% of its damage as burning
lvl 80 : condition = max limit is attained : jewel now functions with vaal variant of the skill burning damage is 50% faster.
Hope you enjoyed the musing.
Peace,
-Boem-
Hope you enjoyed reading.
I believe this direction would more aptly encompass the therm "threshold" and be much easier to balance.
Since it offers a more direct, yet limited progression relative to content and personal investment.(1 jewel vs 2 jewel progression)
