Sollution to Repetitivity - Skill Interaction through Notable/Keystone Passives

"

PolarisOrbit wrote:

What I mean is POE has essentially just 2 skills:
Group 1) Kill stuff
Group 2) Buffs & Curses

Compare to Diablo, 3 for example, where each class had skills for the following purposes:
Group 1) Generate resource ("mana")
Group 2) Spend resource (kill stuff)
Group 3) Defense & Movement
Group 4) Ulimates (long cooldown skills)
Group 5) Passives (buffs)

See the difference? POE can't get too dynamic because all the skills are too tightly clusted in narrow categories. There are no movement skills. No bi-directional interactions with mana. No "panic button" skills. The game can't force players to do different things because there are only 2 things that players can do, and in every situation you always do both.

I think PolarisOrbit nailed it. While Nurvus is right that analogues exist, they don't exist in the same way.

The biggest difference I see is that POE lacks group (1) skills, and frankly lacks their necessity. There's already so many options for controlling the mana throttle (flasks, passives, clarity, itemization) that we don't need skills too. It would also be a tremendous effort on the part of GGG to redesign the game with resource generating skills in mind. Done properly, it might actually be a significant improvement to combat, however. But that is not realistic.

POE has an abundance (maybe even over abundance) of group (2) skills. Because of the aforementioned means of mana throttle, these skills are often their own resource generators or are sustainable for long periods. That causes combat monotony. There are also very few non-spam group (2) skills. Where are the viable channelling, timing and DOT skills? I think incinerate is a channelling skill and we could definitely use something like meteor strike and blizzard. I'm not sure how good poison arrow is anymore.

Group (3) skills in POE leave something to desire. Panic buttons are very much the territory of flasks. But even our movement skills are not dynamic compared to Diablo 3. Diablo 3 balances such skills with mana drain and cool downs. We don't necessarily need cooldowns but movement skills based on the mana throttle aren't a bad idea. Assuming the mana recovery isn't trivialized by existing methods.

POE has a severe lack of group (4) "ultimate" skills. I agree with Nurvus that long cool downs are lazy balancing at best and considerately poor design. I'm not sure I like the idea of an additional "ultimate" resource however. It's inelegant. That said, maybe it could work, as a gauge that fills up based on kills/damage dealt much like a flask. You could make it yellow and slap it on the mana orb, like shields on the life orb, or as an indicator on the hotbar. There are some risks and it would be a tremendous effort on the part of GGG but it would vastly improve combat monotony.

POE is doing a good job with group (5) skills. They are constantly bolstering their ranks and adding new dynamics like trigger gems. There's plenty of room to improve however.

As an aside, I think this topic merits its own discussion entirely. A decent feedback thread covering these different groups of skills and POE's respective deficiencies deserves attention.

Veta321, Charges are a resource too.
Path of Exile has Frenzy, Enduring Cry and Power Siphon as "active resource generators".

We already have Frenzy->Flicker Strike or Power Siphon/Power Charge on Crit->Cold Snap Combos.

Unfortunately that sort of gameplay isn't very encouraged due to the Gem Slot limitations.
Instead you're encouraged to use passive generators like Power Charge on Crit, Unique Items and Leech/Gain/Gain on Kill effects to generate your Resources.

This suggestion gives means for GGG to add some more "dynamic" gameplay.
I honestly think PoE will need something of this kind in the long run.

Because let's be honest.
Currently the game's "replayability" is extremely focused on:
- Build diversity
- Races
- Leagues

The gameplay itself - the combat itself - is not the best of Path of Exile.
It's almost all about the planning and expectation.

I think GGG should add a little more oomph to the combat itself, so that players can also enjoy combat for the combat itself, rather than just combat for the loot or realization of their planned build.

I'm not saying PoE's combat is bad.
I'm saying that, given the monotonous gameplay of nearly all builds, it lacks the depth needed to give it a lasting replayability.

Look at League of Legends.
With 4 skills, 1 passive, 2 Spells and sometimes 1-2 active item effects, most Champions have a high skill cap, allowing great players to distinguish themselves from the average.

"

Path of Exile doesn't just have repetitive gameplay - it also lacks the ability to make a player feel better than another player.

Two players using the same character build are undistinguishable apart from gear and knowledge of enemies/game mechanics, all of which are FINITE progressions!

Yes charges occurred to me as well but they have intrinsic value which makes them difficult to balance in a resource capacity, the exception being discharge which must be specialized into and is functionally a group (2) skill.

A separate ultimate resource that generated in the same way as flasks would be much easier to balance around as opposed to adapting charges. Hell, it could even be a flask with sockets. "Using this flask casts supported gems with 1000% damage." But I think there would be more room to make ultimates impressive if they were a separate set of skills taking advantage of a separate resource.

I agree with the example of LoL. That is the right way to make hero combat engaging and GGG should look to it for examples. In the context of free character development in POE, however, it becomes much more difficult to create diverse parity compared to a set-skill, cool down driven game like LoL.

I am suggesting that diverse parity.

It doesn't have to be done through cooldowns at all.
Or rather, it can be done with natural cooldowns, like Charges, rather than artificial cooldowns.

Even LoL has skills without an artificial cooldown, take SHyvana's ultimate that can only be used at 100 Fury, and drains your Fury slowly over time, but you can "extend" its duration with basic attacks.
So the 100 Fury needed to initiate the Ultimate, and the time it takes to build it from 0 to 100, is the natural cooldown.

Or the various Energy based champions in LoL.

Charges give skills that consume them a cooldown -> the cooldown is how quickly you get them.


I can be done merely through Passive Nodes.

But to make the parity doable either:
a) the bonus needs to be strong enough that it compensates a lack of support in the case you use 2 skills in the same 6L.

b) my active skill-only gem slot suggestion in the other thread needs to be implemented, so that you can have stuff like a Chest with 8 Slots, out of which 3 or 4 are for active-skills only.

bump

I think there's a few obstacles to skill variety right now. For starters, mechanically, it is inferior to master many skills instead of few, except in the case of summoners. That is the focus of this thread but there are other issues.

There is little itemization incentive to switch skills dynamically as you progress or to build for many potential skills. What I mean is, specialized mods like +% fire spell damage are weaker than generalized mods like +% spell damage. Instead of adapting what skills your character uses, players merely look for powerful general mods. It should be the other way around and building for many types of skills should result in more flexible itemization. That may sound counter intuitive, but more specialized item affixes will result in more dynamic skill variety.

Of course, powerful specialized items will mean specialization is better in the end game. I, actually, don't mind that - it's a good thing because it encourages build diversity. What we want to do is encourage generalization as we progress to make the non-end game more dynamic. I often find myself using the same skills from level 30 to 70+, only adding supports. Another way we could encourage skill diversification is through EvP. Monster affixes like immune, absorb (heal from damage), thorns, reflect and all their variations would encourage dynamic skill use in combat. More build-targeted monster affixes would also be welcome. The new bubble shield and farshot mobs were a good addition.

Lastly I think the keybinds in POE need major improvement. I understand limiting the hotbar but why can't we switch our primary and secondary skills via hotkey? Diablo 2 was developed 15 years ago yet has more advanced keybinds. I wrote a suggestion describing what I mean here but a demonstration of Diablo 2's keybinds can be found here.

I know how D2 keybinds work and I absofreakinglutely agree it would be superior to Path of Exile's - at least as an option.

I did explain the pros and cons of making the changes needed to add variety through Monster changes, Skill changes and Passive changes, and why Passive changes is the way to go.

Did you actually read my whole post? or a bit too long? :P

I must have not remembered, I'll reread OP.

Edit: I like suggestions 2, 3 and 4 best in concept.

I hope more of these kinds of interesting Keystones get added to the game.

Would like to chime in on this after a while to see if anyone got any new ideas on this matter.