two trees per class, one for exp and one for game completetion %

[ekopalm]

I was thinking that if a class had two seperate trees divided amongst the amount of skill points you gain based on exp and one on how much of the game you have completed (main and side quest) then you can kind of eliminate OP ing yourself by abilities.

Countless times in TQ, and other games, I just grinded to a certain point for an extra skill point in something or to get to another armor. What if you had a tree based on game completion that unlocked levels in current skills. Sometimes it's difficult to not put all my points into one skill. I know that skill will have the greatest effect in helping me dominate thus I dive right in. I don't think this is essential but I do think it forces the player to be flexible for a time. I obviously don't want to overwhelmingly limit anyone (including myself) but it would be nice to have 3 points to spend know I can't spend them on one summon anymore or one melee buff.

So to sum it up, either a seperate tree with seperate skills based on game completion. Or game completion unlocking skill levels or specific skills within the tree. I don't expect this to be in the game, but a discussion has never hurt anything ever.

Remember, if you support my jibberish...I will support yours :D

[eisprinzessin]

Forcing players to do all side quests sounds like a very arbitrary way to handle this. Some people might want to skip them, so that they can proceed faster with the main quest or to a higher difficulty. I think the issue you are pointing at is, that by maxing a skill early you might benefit more than by distributing skill point on multiple skills. Up to a point were you are over-powered and the game does not challenge you as it should. But the solution should be more like this:
I think this is a good example though of where "soft balancing" comes into play. If properly balanced, the limitation of skill points vs. places to allocate them should force some of the type of decision-making you're talking about in terms closing off some choices in favor of others. [...]

I think there is a problem of perception with hard restrictions. When you impose them, even if they make the game more fun for players, many players will still perceive these hard rules as the designer arbitrarily limiting what they can do and possibly even feel like they are being prevented from having more fun with the game. [...]

[ekopalm]

You stated it perfectly. In TQ and TQ:IT...the elemental classes had the elemental buff to add to weapon damage. If you maxed it out early and as the game went along added the % increase for those elements the damage per sec became ridiculous until legendary mode. In essence though, I disagree with Medierra. I think smart people know when they are being fooled by design and when they are being tasked by obvious implementations.

If it gets designed to "be balanced" then there is no problem to solve and no roles to imitiate. I choose things b/c they are cool so I can have fun. I choose combinations that are challenging. But if every combination is innately the same as far as a challenge is concerned with maybe a 5% difference in playing difficulty then I don't want anything to do with that game. I like that by the end of the game the Hunter/Nature is pretty much unbeatable. I just don't like that for all of TQ and TQ:IT it was unbeatable the entire way. I picked that class the first time I played and I ran through the game like I ate fruity pebbles when I was a kid. I think that it's ok to have OP'd combos and UP'd combos...just have them be even until the later stages in order to induce creativity and I believe for people to have the ability to have the OP'd combos you have to limit the OP'd-ness earlier in the game.

Again, i don't disagree with what you're saying and you provide valid points. I just believe that there has to be a balance between designing things too equal at all stages of the game and designing something that is equal the first 75% of a play through before becoming un equal and thus entering the stage of OP'd awesomeness or UP'd suckiness.

[eisprinzessin]

[...] I think that it's ok to have OP'd combos and UP'd combos...just have them be even until the later stages in order to induce creativity and I believe for people to have the ability to have the OP'd combos you have to limit the OP'd-ness earlier in the game. [...]
It's OK, if some mastery combinations stronger/weaker than others. But you will have a hard time, if you want to restrict this to Legendary.

What you want to achieve by soft-balancing is to encourage people instead of maxing a killer skill early to distribute skill points more evenly, so that those skills are useful but don't make them IMBA.

Onslaught (http://www.titancalc.com/TitanCalc.asp?mastery=Warrior&master1=3&master2=0) is a skill, which always costs 1 energy, regardless of your skill level. The energy cost of Ice Shard (http://www.titancalc.com/TitanCalc.asp?mastery=Stormcaller&master1=8&master2=0) is higher on higher skill levels, but damage is raised overproportionally. To avoid early maxing the energy cost needs to go up more than the damage dealt.
the cooldown on energy potions will be significantly increased giving energy management some meaning
I hope for a well designed energy management in GD. If energy costs climb overproportionally, then people need to wait until they have more energy before they can advance to the highest skill levels.

[pts]

If energy costs climb overproportionally, then people need to wait until they have more energy before they can advance to the highest skill levels.

I don't see this as something bad, but something that the player has to keep in mind while playing. If you're currently low on energy or neutralizing your energy regen when using skills, you may suffer badly from upgrading certain skills. It's another factor in skill-selection, and I like that.

[eisprinzessin]

It was meant as a suggestion for GD (as an corrective/upgrade from TQ) - but thanx for your support.

[ekopalm]

Thanks eisprinzessin! I understand a bit better now what he was describing. That makes a lot more sense in comparison to what I had been thinking.

[eisprinzessin]

I thank you for inspiring me. :) That quote was from a different context - sry for the confusion. I merely used it to illustrate medierra's method/approach.

[Llama8]

I hope for a well designed energy management in GD. If energy costs climb overproportionally, then people need to wait until they have more energy before they can advance to the highest skill levels.

That was one of the things that quite a lot of people new to Sacred complained about, that they had to balance the increase in damage/effectiveness with the increased regen time (equivalent to increased mana cost in other games).

[eisprinzessin]

But isn't that the interesting thing about an ARPG?
Part of the addition of these types of games is figuring out how to beat the system or how to do things better than the "other guy". Even for those playing single-player exclusively where there is no real "other guy" players still take a lot of satisfaction in feeling like maybe they figured out a better build than most people. There is also a certain satisfaction to allocating points so that you can finally use this great item you found.
Let's assume you want to level up a skill, but you wouldn't be able afford the increased energy cost. Maybe you wear an amulet, which boosts your damage. If you replace it by an amulet, which gives you extra energy, then you can boost the skill and deal more damage than before.