Too many 'filler' nodes; Revised Skill Tree

Lots of the time I make a character and end up traversing across the entire tree or along its perimeter. I'm sure many other players do the same instead of solely focusing on their starter area.

It's been bugging me though. A lot of the areas are filled with unnecessary stat nodes that just server as filler. Why are these here?


I decided to mock up what the tree would look like without many of these filler nodes.


The tree with my revisions (careful, it's a large image).


The tree as of 0.9.13


This is a good idea because:

* Players will not be 'punished' with excess stats by wanting to traverse the tree.
* Players will have overall less stats thus making the game more difficult and stat nodes more valuable.
* If players are lacking stat requisites, they have to choose to go out of their way for stats instead of having stats thrown at them.
* Nodes in the center are generally less powerful than perimeter nodes; so much so that they are greatly ignored. Reducing some of the cost to get to center nodes would make it a more attractive option.
* Crossing the center promotes true hybrid builds without lessening traversal cost. I think you could even put a single +30 to all node in the center of the tree.

Also, here's a gif showing the old overlapped with the new. Use this to see what areas I changed, them zoon in on them with the full version.

Cool gif. Nice work. But.

I think Mark or Qarl (whoever shows up here first) will agree with me when I say that those nodes exist to give extra cost to moving around the tree. If you remove those nodes, you're making nearby node clusters that much cheaper to invest in. They are a "necessary evil" to balance the passive tree. Particularly in the middle of the tree, which I believe is meant to be 'abnormally' expensive to utilize. In older versions of the passive tree, the middle of the tree was waaay too cheap and a lot of people would rush to the middle to get a lot of nice stat bonus and keystone use, as well as to quickly traverse to other class starting areas.

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anubite wrote:

If you remove those nodes, you're making nearby node clusters that much cheaper to invest in. They are a "necessary evil" to balance the passive tree.

I had the same thought while making this. I'd like to argue against that point. Less filler nodes means it's harder to get stats; traversing across the tree will still take a significant investment, so stat nodes now become more valuable. This, I believe, gives players more choice and freedom leading to a funner play experience.

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anubite wrote:

Particularly in the middle of the tree, which I believe is meant to be 'abnormally' expensive to utilize.

I believe GGG already took this into account. Notice nodes in the middle may be closer, but they are generally less powerful than their more distant counterparts on the perimeter. For example, 45% crit for 3 points in the middle versus 70% crit for 3 points on the outside of the tree.

The middle mostly contains "norms". 15% crit per point is actually the "norm" anything higher is "you're getting a good deal". The only nodes in the mdidle which are weak are 4% spell damage and 4% melee physical.

I don't think reducing the attribute node count would make attributes more valuable. We get an overabundance of them, usually. If anything, your suggestion just makes min/maxing certain stats way too easy (by removing traversal cost).

I think you're making many node clusters very cheap by removing all those attribute nodes. I don't want to sound like a broken record, but... I think it's as simple as that. They're absolutely necessary.

And you should not be connecting any of the powerful middle nodes together, that's too abusable. As it stands, the fact some of the powerful middle nodes currently connect is a little too good.

You're also removing some of the "unusual" nodes - like those intelligence nodes near the Ranger/Marauder start, Strength nodes near the Witch/Templar/Shadow starts... that's going to really hurt early game class variety. You definitely can't do that.

The only thing I agree on I think is that the starting class areas have that "third option" for escaping the class starting area early -- the node cost to escape your class area early is pretty awful. It's like saving you 1 or 2 nodes and that's it. You're giving up a lot of useful stat just to save 1 or 2 passive points for extra traversal. That's worth discussing, but you can't change the whole tree's traversal cost.

An example of where I agree:

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And you should not be connecting any of the powerful middle nodes together, that's too abusable. As it stands, the fact some of the powerful middle nodes currently connect is a little too good.

I was just throwing that out there. I think that the middle cluster is so weak that many people don't even bother or only go for a few nodes near the large HP cluster. By connecting them, you promote actual hybrid builds -- that is not absurd.

Overall, I think you're a bit too keen on costs. There's a limited amount of skill points, is it that bad of a thing to make builds more accessible? NO one thinks spending 40 of your points on a bunch of skill nodes just to get a few clusters is fun, so who cares if every one becomes stronger for less points? Just make more difficult content to balance it out.

I'd much rather be spending points on interesting choices than fillers, that's my chief complaint and was the goal of this revision.

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You're also removing some of the "unusual" nodes - like those intelligence nodes near the Ranger/Marauder start, Strength nodes near the Witch/Templar/Shadow starts

On the full version I try to make a note that those should be replaced with +20 int, +20 str nodes in stead of two +10 int/str nodes. In the case between the shadow/ranger areas, I think a good compromise would be a single +15 str & int which helps diversify and is on par with +30 nodes.

I find the middle extremely powerful. I always go there.

-Copious amounts of attack speed
-Weapon elemental damage
-Projectile damage
-Totem / trap / mine increases
-Keystones necessary for certain builds
-Cast speed and area of effect and mana regen and spell damage?

I always go to the middle with my class builds. I think it's very useful for lots of reasons.

The only thing poor about the middle are some of the attribute node purchases required (but that's only 1-2 passive points at most) and the aformentioned spelldamage/physdamage nodes.

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anubite wrote:

I find the middle extremely powerful. I always go there.

-Copious amounts of attack speed
-Weapon elemental damage
-Projectile damage
-Totem / trap / mine increases
-Keystones necessary for certain builds
-Cast speed and area of effect and mana regen and spell damage?

I always go to the middle with my class builds. I think it's very useful for lots of reasons.

The only thing poor about the middle are some of the attribute node purchases required (but that's only 1-2 passive points at most) and the aformentioned spelldamage/physdamage nodes.

Guess u never played a mara.
Middle is completely useless for us -,-

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taekvideo wrote:

Guess u never played a mara.
Middle is completely useless for us -,-

I have yet to make a marauder that didnt utilize the middle area. Around half of them used more than one cluster there.

I've made tons of Marauders. Not Ground Slam marauders, granted, but the middle is extremely useful, perhaps less so for a Marauder, but if you're doing a Quill Rain/Bow with fending build? Weapon Elemental Damage is great to get and middle offers 30% of it. It's also along the highway for Blood Magic, so it's not costly to get.