Combined Class Skills & Character Appearance

[Xiphan]

As I was reading through the Titan Quest thread about the different classes everyone liked to play it got me thinking about a few things that I thought would be cool to improve upon in Grim Dawn.

The first is Combined Class Skills:

When you played Titan Quest and you chose your second mastery it gave you access to another skill tree but essentially you were nothing more than the sum of those two parts and the only thing about your character which changed was its class name.

What I would like to know is if it would be possible to develop unique skills that are only available to you when you have selected your second mastery and thus each class you build offers something new to unlock each time.

The second thing is more of an aesthetic suggestion to tie in with the above; I noticed a lot of people around the forum asking for different skins / looks / etc. so what I propose is your character's look changing slightly depending on the classes you end up choosing.

As an example you start off as a warrior but then your second mastery is something to do with effecting aether so your eyes turn a different colour along with runes which form on your body and glow as you dabble more with the otherworldly substance.

A simpler example could be the size of your character increasing if you choose more of a strength / DPS class or even a tank class but essentially what I am suggesting is that your character's look changes to match the kind of class it is meant to represent.

[i.n.s.a.n.e]

If it did not involve a lot of time/resources, it would be cool to have! =)

[Dejnov]

Hi Xiphan and welcome to the forums.

I can answer some of your questions and explain how your requests were handled in titanquest and how it'll probably be handled in Grim Dawn.

Character portraits and features were somewhat customizable with skins that fans developed and posted on fan sites. In this way you could change skin tones, hair colors, and even character models (though this wasn't truly supported as not all in game models could do the same number of animations as character models).

As to the second question about synergy, there will be unique synergy opportunities within Grim Dawn, but they will be implicit. A lot of skills were built to work with multiple masteries by giving bonuses to multiple areas. A great example is the spirit masteries' dark covenant power. This power added to physical damage, elemental damage, and also vitality damage. While these three damage types aren't exclusive, they are disproportionately wielded by different classes. A melee-oriented class would do primarily physical damage, a spell-caster had plenty of spells that would do elemental damage, and vitality damage was the main emphasis from the spirit and dream masteries. Yet this skill would have helped each class in their own way.

You could see a melee class activating dark covenant to boost their melee ability, a spell-caster for the ranged spells, and a spirit/dream classes for the vitality damage for their pets and themselves. In this way you have a single skill being used for different purposes. While it doesn't do exactly what you want, it's close.

Dejnov.

[eisprinzessin]

Originally Posted by Xiphan

What I would like to know is if it would be possible to develop unique skills that are only available to you when you have selected your second mastery and thus each class you build offers something new to unlock each time.

We discussed this a little bit in Idea: Combination Skills. But I doubt that this will be in GD. Too much had to be revised. Should GD eventually have 12+ (just an uninformed guess) masteries, then medierra had to come up with 66+ sets of such exclusive skills. They could be rather repetitive and redundant. This might better work in a new game with a new skill system and a lower number of masteries.

[durruti]

Originally Posted by eisprinzessin

(just an uninformed guess)

how dare you? i think it's time we started talkin' bout this office you're holdin'...

[eisprinzessin]

This was a ministry-approved guess - you see, it makes a difference, when you are holding an office.

[durruti]

oh, i get it, i get it... *grmblfrzrmbl*

soooo, on topic: the idea is tempting for sure though as already mentioned i'd shudder to think of the creative energies needed to implement that reasonably well. if only we had a formula - no - the formula to create such combination skills/buffs...

[Albedoshin]

Now that you mentioned it durruti, I guess that would cost quite a bit of money and time.,i never thought of it when I posted my ideas before.

Although, I do approve of that idea. Sounds neat.

[eisprinzessin]

Originally Posted by eisprinzessin

Should GD eventually have 12+ (just an uninformed guess) masteries [...]

Originally Posted by medierra

from the IAmA
I'd love to get up to 10-12 skill masteries, or more!

LOL - was it a ministry-approved guess, or was it not?

[Scorching_Toad]

This thread remind me about old russian arpg named "Blood Magic".
u select 3 of 13 magic schools on start and u appearrance change depending from spells u use.Ur character have 8 "place of mutation" and u don't know from what school of magic u get mutation on head, for example.U char look as awful freak (or funny freak sometimes).
GD no need this,just make slot for skins or visual effects ,like auras, or both will be better.

In GD, 2 masteries give 50 skills its more then any other arpg, no need additional ones.
In future 10-12 masteries = 250-300 skills its colossal design work.

p.s.Crates thx for work.